Two AIDS patients reveal the struggles and the triumphs of living with numbered days

By Melissa Christensen
Staff Reporter

In 2000 there were 474 HIV cases and 20 AIDS cases reported in Tarrant County. The number of tears, struggles and fears, however, can’t be reported through statistics. Two Fort Worth AIDS patients share their struggles, their triumphs and their messages about the disease.

RUTH

Ruth Jimenez had just signed for a certified letter at the post office on a September afternoon in 1986.

nticipation built as she paused at a railroad crossing. Finally, she ripped open the letter, her eyes focusing solely on two words.

“I started going crazy,” she said. “I was crying and screaming, slamming the steering wheel with my hands. To this day, I don’t know how I got home.”

Just two words changed the entire course of her life. To Jimenez, a nurse who had watched several people die from the mysterious virus, the words “HIV positive” were her death sentence.

The stigma

Jimenez, now 47 and a grandmother, had been tested for the HIV virus following a kidney operation in which she received two units of blood. At that time, Carter Blood Care hadn’t started testing its blood supply for the virus, Jimenez said.

“I was scared to death,” she said. “I was a single mom with four kids. I didn’t know if I was going to lose my job.”

As a nurse at a Fort Worth hospital, Jimenez had experienced the negative attitudes of doctors and nurses towards HIV and AIDS patients. She continued to work there, however, for five years following the diagnosis, telling only the administration, three head nurses and three friends about the virus.

She also decided to break her engagement to the man who would have been her second husband.
“One thing I was sure of was that there was no way I could bear the responsibility and guilt for infecting someone,” she said.

Jimenez relocated her family to a small town near Abilene to be closer to her sister in 1989. It was there she said she truly felt the harsh stigmas attached to HIV and AIDS.

First, a minister at the family’s first choice in area churches delivered a sermon in which he claimed people with AIDS were deserving of the disease and of the imminent death it brought. Then, the high school for which she served as a licensed practical nurse demoted her to clerical status to limit her contact with students. The demotion eliminated her child care benefits and cut her salary by $300 a month. The last, more extreme measure Jimenez faced was a bomb threat placed from her town to the Abilene clinic where she was being treated.

Fighting to live

Jimenez was diagnosed with full-blown AIDS in 1994 when her T cell count dropped below 500. By then, she was prone to frequent, lengthy illnesses and was growing weary of the discrimination she faced in west Texas. She decided to quit and move back to Fort Worth. Money problems, however, prevented an immediate move.

“Three of my friends paid my utilities and provided groceries until I could move back home,” she said, stopping to catch her breath between bursts of tears. “Good friends are rare in this life.”

After having paid off their home loan, her parents took out a mortgage to convert their garage into an apartment for Jimenez and her family.

“I have been so blessed,” she said. “I don’t think I could make it without that kind of support.”

Jimenez said her return home brought about a new focus and purpose to her life. Doctors had told her time was limited, so she started making arrangements.

“Once I had guardianship in place for my children, had my will done and the funeral was in place, I started fighting to live,” she said. “I will do what I have to for every extra minute I have to spend with my kids and grandkids.”

Jimenez takes 38 pills a day specifically related to the HIV virus and several over-the-counter medications to combat side effects like headache, stomach irritation and diarrhea.

Now collecting disability payments, she focuses her energy on AIDS education and advocacy as secretary of the AIDS Outreach Center Board, chairwoman of the Positive Voices Council and member of the Tarrant County HIV Planning Council.

“My goal is to teach and reach as many people as I can,” she said. “A person with HIV may be infected, but friends, family, neighbors and co-workers are all affected by it. They all grieve and hurt, too.”
Jimenez stresses that people should treat HIV-infected patients as if they were a member of their own family.

“Don’t disrespect; don’t be afraid,” she said. “Just have a kind heart.”

ERIC

Eric (*) is a dancer.

He is a graduate of Columbia University and a registered nurse.

He is fluent in English, Spanish and Mandarin.

He is also a gay, black male living with AIDS.

“As soon as the HIV tests came out (in 1983), I got tested,” he said. “I’ve been positive from the beginning of the epidemic. I guess I’m a long-term survivor.”

After receiving his positive HIV results, Eric became suicidal and depressed.

“It makes you feel like you’ve got a dirty little secret,” he said.

He isolated himself, eliminating intimate relationships from his life for several years, including the relationship with his lover at the time of the diagnosis.

“I had internalized negative attitudes toward myself for several years before the diagnosis,” he said.

Catholicism doesn’t exactly roll out the welcome mat for gays.”

Eric, now 48, said his comeback included strengthening his faith in God and medically treating his depression. He also said the relatively recent appearance of the virus helped him to move on.

“Nobody knew what it was or how to cure it,” he said. “So much was unknown, I just kept living.”
Gotta have faith

Eric’s T cell count dropped below 400 in 1991, leading to the diagnosis of AIDS. He attributes his long-term survival to his love for physical activity, adherence to a healthy diet and, most importantly, his faith in the Lord.

“I look at having AIDS as something the father in heaven put in my life as a challenge to mold me into doing his work,” he said. “He is in control and I accept my powerlessness.”

Eric said he firmly believes in recent studies that correlate strong faith with resistance to disease.

“I never really bought that my life was over,” he said. “A chronic disease can be managed. It’s just another factor in life to deal with.”

One of those original factors is his status as a black, gay, HIV-infected male nurse in Texas, where Eric said the attitudes tend to be more provincial.

“They allow their ignorance to give them permission to ridicule,” he said. “My life is much more important than their limitations.”

Eric said his faith has also helped him to accept the ignorant attitudes with which he is presented.
“We are all sinners,” he said. “My sin is no worse than anyone else’s.”

Paging nurse Eric

As a registered nurse, Eric worked in hospitals and clinics in New York City for several years prior to the diagnosis. He said he didn’t have to change many of his safety behaviors because he was already trained to use universal precautions.

“My concern was not giving things to patients but more so getting things from patients,” he said.

The risk of infections coupled with the stress of bedside nursing led Eric to switch his nursing emphasis to educational and administrative programs in public health. Currently, he collects disability and works part time for an organization dedicated to informing the public on the nature of sexuality. He is using his experience as a nurse and an AIDS patient to compile health and social resources available to HIV patients in a nine-county area.

His nursing experiences, especially those in New York City, made Eric hesitant to use medication to treat the disease. He said the side effects and experimental status of drugs were deterrents.

Back in Texas, a doctor, who Eric now calls a friend, explained the risks associated with certain medicinal regimens and Eric decided to take action.

“I have a cocktail of medications, taking 15 pills a day to interfere with viral replication,” he said.
Other than a few slight side effects, Eric said his daily activities have not changed much throughout the course of disease.

“Life is more or less normal,” he said.

Numbered days

Eric said he wished people would move past the false confidence that a sexually-transmitted disease won’t happen to them.

“It’s real important to take more responsibility in the way we manage our romantic lives,” he said.

Back then we thought we knew all the diseases and that there was an antibiotic for everything.”

Eric encourages prevention and early detection. He suggests being tested and seeking counseling at the first thought that HIV could be an issue.

While he says his days are numbered, Eric knows that death could come in any form.

“I don’t feel safe from the virus, but I don’t feel safe from many things in life,” he said. “I don’t think of AIDS as the ultimate determinant of the number of my days.”

Melissa Christensen
m.s.christense@student.tcu.edu