I’m HIV positive and enjoying life

Business

Caroline Nyanga

"Do I look like I am dying?" This was the first question the all-smiles Mary Okello Okwiri posed at the offset of this interview. Yet, it has taken her great will power to laugh about death — for indeed there were times when Okwiri thought the angel of death was not so far from her door. Back then, this question, though never pronounced aloud, was her daily companion, to haunt and tear apart. She dreaded it, and yet it kept coming.

It all begun in 2002 when she started showing symptoms of varying illnesses. One time it was pneumonia, and another time tuberculosis. "This was followed by a facial stroke," she recalls. It was at that moment that she knew something was wrong.

Okwiri, 39, was working at the Kenyatta National Hospital as an Emergency Nurse. So when a cure was not forthcoming for her many ailments, she decided to take a blood test for HIV.

But it was not easy agreeing to take the test. Okwiri says she was in denial for a while until a fellow nurse, Jackline Adhiambo, encouraged her on. "Afterwards, I remember talking to my elder son, who was in Standard Eight then. He had together with his two siblings witnessed my suffering and he agreed that testing was the way to go," she says.

Walking into Mbagathi Hospital for a test for an illness so much associated with death and shame was not easy, especially for one who is a nurse. Worse still, a colleague and close friend was to conduct the test. The whole idea was too painful.

"Although my friend was uncomfortable with the idea, I managed to convince her to go ahead. After all I was not expecting too much or too little."

After her blood had been drawn, Okwiri sat at the waiting room, thinking about how she had carried the same procedure she was going through on other patients. It was disturbing.

Unanswered questions

Few people can yet afford to declare their status fearing discrimination; not so Mary Okello Okwiri who, is even giving a smile to those infected and affected.

A lot more was going through her mind: "What if I turn out to be positive? How will the society view me? What of my friends, relatives and colleagues — how will I be able to face them? Am I going to lose my job...?"

A few minutes later, Okwiri’s fate was spelt out without an iota of doubt. She was positive. Her CD4 count was equally low at 137. She was a devastated woman. She recalls that for a moment, she prayed that the ground would open up and swallow her. She needed immediate counselling.

Okwiri had separated from her husband of eight years only two years previously and this had left her with the responsibility of looking after their three children. "After lengthy soul searching, and thinking about the welfare of my children, I decided to accept and cope with the situation."

But then her body was not as strong as her resolve. The Tuberculosis had taken a toll on her. At one time, she suffered a third degree Stevens Johnson’s Syndrome (SJS), a dangerous problem of the skin affecting the skin and the mucous membranes. She also suffered Hepatitis, an acute infectious disease of the liver. In fact, the TB treatment had to be stopped at one time to give the liver time to recover.

Incessant ailments

"During such occasions, I would be put on alternative injection for two months. Knowing my way around, I injected for the entire time while in the house. Besides I had other anti-TB medication, which I took for 11 months while bedridden."

This helped her regain mobility, which enabled her to start on ARVs. Although the first set of ARVs reacted badly on her body, she was later able to take them without any side effects showing. But a month later, she developed a heart condition prompting her to go to Kenyatta Hospital’s Cardiac Unit, where she was kept under constant supply of oxygen for a month.

"I was also treated for many others conditions including a heart enlargement surgery considering I had abnormal heart rates." She was later discharged and treated on outpatient basis.

This meant endless journeys to Kenyatta Hospital. With time her condition improved but the palpitations remained, making her fatigued and unable to do the simplest things on her own. Okwiri fell into depression. She hopped from one cardiologist to the other.

These difficulties, though many, were not enough affect her resolve to live. She could not give in to the dictates of her body, at least for the sake of her three children. The fact that she was ailing did not take away her responsibility to them; she remained at the same time their mother in addition to filling the gap left by their estranged father.

Flash back

So back to her question: ‘Do I look like I am dying?’ Of course she doesn’t, and she even thinks her life has changed tremendously for the better.

"On the contrary," she says concerning that question, "being HIV positive has changed my life positively. I am very keen on what I do and I always look at the end result. In other words, I would not start something I would not finish".

This has given her time to plan her life and deal with priorities. She savours every moment because every minute of her life counts.

Having contracted the virus from her husband, she says she has no time to hate him. "I found out he was positive after I went through some of his documents where he had undergone a test twice in 1998 that confirmed the same," she says.

To date, her estranged husband lives with another woman in Nairobi. Her main motive, second from affording a bright future for her children, is to change people’s attitude towards HIV.

"I am the smile that tells them there is tomorrow, and that they can make it."

It is like giving back to society, because she too was able to get her smile back through the indirect intervention of another man — the Austrian motivational speaker, Nick Vujicic, during his visit to Kenya in 2006. "Watching a person without legs or arms capable of going about his duties normally and praising God for his life made me realise that I could get out of self pity too."

Good thing, she had previously been introduced to a Dr Omonge, a clinical doctor managing HIV and Aids who managed to rein on her condition. "He gave me a prescription for my heart problem and since then I have never had any problems nor gone back."

So, when she saw Nick on TV, she decided she had no reason to keep herself confined in her house alone.

Flash back

The following day, Okwiri gathered courage and reported to work. Her colleagues were cordial and welcomed her back. "They asked me to choose a place I was more comfortable working in, and I chose Casino, next to the Akamba Bus Office, within Nairobi’s downtown." She has been based there since 2006.

Okwiri works as Nurse cum counsellor on HIV and Aids, and she has many clients. "I am usually very careful when handling my patients in order to avoid any cases of infecting them. Everything including the needles used is new."

She is also the National Assistant secretary of the Kenya Nurses Association, a health worker’s network.

She advises HIV infected persons to think positively and aspire to achieve their dreams.

"Being HIV positive does not mean you are a lesser person. It is how you go about it that makes you a winner. Despite the stigma surrounding HIV and Aids, there are worse diseases than this," she says.

She, however, decries the continued spread of the virus even though it is in the people’s power to avoid it, with all the information around and even condoms. She urges women to take control of their life and not fall victims as she did, to their husbands’ recklessness.

Okwiri has three grown up children who she says have learnt to cope with her condition. The firstborn is in college while the other two are in secondary school.

Okwiri says she spends most times with her children talking freely about the disease, which they consider normal.

"The kids have been my power. They have always encouraged me to think and live positively. One even brought me the book, The Power of Positive Thinking, by Norman Vincent Pearl. Okwiri also looks after four orphans.

As we say goodbye to her, she rewards us with more of her infectious smile, which had remained on her lips over the course of the interview. "I am determined more than ever to live. And I intend to prove any critics out wrong," she says as we rise to leave.

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