HIV/Aids is no longer a killer as long as the person does not default on their treatment, because they can now live life the way everybody else does.
HIV/Aids is no longer a killer as long as the person does not default on their treatment, because they can now live life the way everybody else does.
So says Fanelwa Gwashu (51), who has lived with HIV/Aids for almost two decades.
The W Section, Site B resident said she was diagnosed with the virus in June 2004, after losing much weight and suffering from flu continuously.
“I thought it was just the normal flu, but I kept on having it,” she recalled. “I would buy medication, which I’d take, and it got better. But after a few days it would start again and become more intense to the point where I was unable to wake up and walk.”
Gwashu said alarm bells were still not going off; for a long time nothing in her mind told her she must had to see a doctor.
The mother of two said her children would go to school and leave her at home sleeping. But they knew instinctively something was wrong and informed a neighbour.
“In August I got worse. At the time I was staying in Site 5, Fish Hoek. I thought since I was working in a walk-in fridge the flu was caused by that. One of my colleagues came to see me and instructed me to go to the doctor. I agreed, but never went. My neighbour visited just after my colleague had left. The first thing she did was instruct me to wake up and see a doctor now.”
Gwashu said the first doctor they went to didn’t diagnose what she had, but gave her tablets instead. After two days her neighbour forced her to see another doctor in the vicinity, who gave them a referral letter to the hospital.
“I still remember that day vividly; it was windy, and we walked from the doctor to the hospital. On our arrival there, in the waiting room one of the nurses instructed me to go straight to the window to open a folder. The last thing I remember was handing my identity document and a referral letter over to the nurse at the window before blacking out.”
Gwashu lay in a coma for five days. The now-vibrant woman was a far cry from the person lying in that bed. She awoke to see “white doctors” standing over her, but was not fully conscious. She said she took a long while to recover.
“Besides HIV/Aids, I was also diagnosed with meningitis, pneumonia and peripheral neuropathy. People said I was mentally disturbed because I told everyone who came to visit me ‘lamabhulu athi ndine Aids’ (these white people are saying I have HIV). I stayed in hospital for about a month before being discharged.”
Gwashu said her brother fetched her and she stayed with him in Ilitha Park. After her discharge she had not fully recovered and would sometimes lose consciousness. She started her ARV treatment at Zakhele Clinic (A Section), and after a few weeks she went to Buntu Clinic in Site B, where she joined the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC).
She said that it wasn’t difficult to accept her status.
“I was very vocal about my status. I never hid it. I joined support groups and attended their sessions. I became active and went around educating people about HIV/Aids.”
According to Gwashu, when she started taking treatment, she was taking six tablets a day, three in the morning and three in the evening.
“On top of these, there were another seven,” she said. “So, in total, I used to drink 13 tablets a day. I had them for the meningitis, pneumonia and peripheral neuropathy.”
Gwashu said the meningitis took 15 months to fight, pneumonia six months and peripheral neuropathy four months.
She said her involvement in the TAC took her all over the country, educating people about HIV/Aids. She said she and others went to churches and schools, in fact everywhere where there were people.
Gwashu shared that since being diagnosed as HIV-positive it had not been easy to sustain a relationship, the first in 2007 after recovering.
“When I started dating this guy everything was fine, until I told him I was positive. He dumped me then. The relationship I was in afterwards didn’t last any longer. The longest was the next relationship, which began in 2008; we were together for almost three years, but we had to separate because I had to accept my traditional calling.” She is a very dedicated traditional healer, and says she doesn’t want another serious relationship.
As a healer she urges people with HIV/Aids to take their ARVs; it’s the only way to save their lives.