Meet Christina
When Christina was about two and a half years old she became the first infant to be diagnosed as being HIV positive in the Florida Keys. The doctors were not sure whether she was infected perinatally (infected while in the womb) or by being breast-fed. For scientific and medical records they classified her as being perinatally infected. A short time after, when she was three years old, her mother died from a combination of Kaposi’s Sarcoma and Pneumocystis pneumonia, opportunistic infections brought on by a weakened immune system caused by AIDS. One of Christina’s earliest memories of HIV came when she was living in low-income housing with her mother. At the playground her playmates said they couldn’t play with her because she had AIDS. As it turned out, her mother had told a “friend” in the complex that Christina tested positive, and it wasn’t a rumor, it was true. Christina was chased out of the playground for reasons she didn’t understand until much later. Christina has little memory of her mother but has had plenty of maternal figures come into her life to make up for her absence. There are people who love and care for her, and in that sense she feels truly blessed. She has seen the incredible generosity and kindness of humanity. However, with the yin also comes the yang and she has encountered prejudice as well. The event on the playground and those that followed is why Christina kept her medical condition a secret for most of her life. She never told anyone without knowing them for at least three months. Even at three months, she sometimes didn’t feel the comfort level she needed to confide in someone. However, she has come to realize that this is a story that must be told. This is her story, one that she cannot change, nor one that she should be ashamed of For a young woman who was not expected to live to see the age of ten, Christina is living her life to the fullest. Ultimately, through sharing her story, she hopes to help clear away some of the stigma while raising awareness and educating as many people as possible.
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