Facing HIV

GRANT COUNTY —The first thing Cyndi will tell you is that she is HIV positive.

She will also tell you that's not who she is.

Sitting in her apartment, casually smoking a cigarette with a blue and white sarong tied around her body, it hasn't been quite a year since Cyndi (whose last name was withheld for reasons of privacy) was diagnosed with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), the late stage of infection of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

Decorating the living room, bouquets of roses are scattered about and paintings Cyndi has made hang on the wall in her tiny apartment that is her place of refuge.

Less than a mile away another woman, who will remain anonymously known as "Jennifer," a 36-year-old former prostitute who has been clean for the last year and a half, has been living with HIV since the age of 25.

It is the same virus; two different women.

On a trip three years ago to the Virgin Islands, then 27-year-old Cyndi was raped by a group of men.

While Cyndi cannot scientifically confirm that is how she contracted HIV, she is confident it was a result of her rape.

"I always had questions after I came back," she said.

In mid-2004, tests confirmed Cyndi had AIDS.

Since then, a series of medications has increased her T-cell count, helping her immune system fight off disease and elevating her condition to HIV positive.

In Jennifer's case, she contracted HIV from her husband.

Official diagnosis of HIV was confirmed while Jennifer was inside a courtroom after having been picked up for prostitution in California.

Yet, Jennifer was not ready to make a clean break from prostitution, drug use and a life scarred from several instances of rape, sexual abuse and suicide attempts.

"That was it for a lot of years," Jennifer said of wanting to die rather than living with her past and the reality of being infected with HIV.

In the first months of diagnosis, that reality was unbearable for both women.

Significant weight loss eventually brought Cyndi down to 87 pounds and Jennifer to 92 pounds, turning their skin from white to bluish-purple.

Their hair was falling out by the handfuls and severe muscle aches made even the slightest movement impossible.

Despite the emotional pain their diagnosis has brought these two women and their families, they agree knowing their status and being open about it has been a flood of relief.

"I could finally fight what was plaguing me," Cyndi said.

For Jennifer, being open with people about her HIV is something she has never shied away from either. But for both women, sharing their diagnosis has cost them their relationships with those closest to them.

It was as if the HIV and their identities became one in the same.

Cyndi's family further cut off communication with their daughter after they found out about her diagnosis.

"They don't want me around, they think it's contagious — like a cold or something," Cyndi said of her family's reaction.

"We just started getting close again since I've been clean and sober," Jennifer said of her family.

Cyndi's relationship with then-boyfriend Jeff at the time of her diagnosis also came to an end.

He was someone Cyndi wanted to marry and start a family with one day.

Even amidst the strict regiment of daily medications, a constant reminder of the HIV, Cyndi and Jennifer are finding strength in their suffering.

Someone who once would not have gotten tested herself, Jennifer now advocates to others to consider what she wouldn't.

"Get tested," Jennifer tells her friends and others who might have HIV. "You can't know what they have (just by looking at someone)."

According to the World Health Organization, women make up nearly half of the 37.2 million adults in the world living with HIV/AIDS.

A 2004 WHO update reports that in every region of the world the number of women living with HIV has increased in the last two years, with the highest increases in sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia, followed by Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

For Cyndi, trips to Olympia and Washington D.C. of late, where she was part of a delegation to talk to legislators about funding for HIV and AIDS research, has helped her find support from others and her place in a world she was made to believe she didn't belong anymore.

There are others living with HIV that want to make a difference too, it's not just an epidemic plaguing the homosexual community, Cyndi said. "It affects everybody."

'"You're worth more than what you're letting yourself be, you're not a whore,"' Jennifer recalls a counselor once telling her. "That stuck with me ever since."

It's what Jennifer keeps telling herself so she won't go back to prostituting.

Just a week or so ago, Cyndi had one of those tougher days.

It was a day when just getting out of bed and looking at herself in the mirror was difficult, but today her will to live is stronger than ever.

"I'll make it to 65," Cyndi tells herself as she reaches over to take out a small journal made of lined notebook paper.

It is a diary she originally started as a way to dialogue moments when she was angry and has made it somewhat of a second refuge inside her apartment.

"I decided that instead of writing 'I'm angry because,' I would start writing 'I'm grateful because,'" Cyndi said.

When asked what she wants for the future, what her goals are, motherhood is on the top of the list.

There are fears, too, that Cyndi deals with, such as the fear of being alone in her apartment without friends, family or her boyfriend living with her.

"That's the reality, I'm all by myself," Cyndi said. "I'm not proud of the fact that I have HIV, but I am proud of who I am and there's no way I would ever keep that from anybody."