The power of words
TRACY NIEKERK: In the beginning when my husband found out he was HIV positive, I had to have a test as well. I think, within that week waiting, you get yourself into that mode where you think about the worst. That’s the way I thought. I thought, it’s true, it happens to me, what am I going to do when the doctor says to me, ‘you are HIV positive’? What am I going to say then if I’ve been thinking that it doesn’t happen to me, it doesn’t happen to people like us. So I think in that week I thought about the worst, I thought that it was happening to me so when the doctor comes to me to say ‘Yes it is’, then I’d already accepted that. But I think the most important thing is acceptance. I couldn’t turn back the clock and say let’s do it all over again. It was easy. Straight after knowing what was wrong I went to my Mom and I sat down and I spoke to her and she said, ‘Look, it’s happened, there’s nothing you can do.
SUE: You weren’t feeling ill in anyway, it was purely because your husband had to go for the insurance test, right?
TRACY NIEKERK: When we found out, we possibly had it then for about a year. Because we don’t know what happened, or how it happened or when it happened. I think if it wasn’t for test he had gone for I’d be sitting here today not konwing whether we had it or not. But no, there was no illnesses or nothing.
SUE: So it sounds you ‘ and your mom- were quite philosophical about it, there was nothing you could do, but when you got the diagnosis?
TRACY NIEKERK: Everybody’s story, when they tell their story, there was no pre-counselling or post-counselling. You just go to the doctor, the doctor says you have to have a test and when you get the results he says, ‘Look, I’m not going to beat around the bush, yes you are HIV positive’ and there you go. I think once finding out, you think to yourself, there’s nothing I can do, you either live with it or you don’t.
SUE: How did you move forward from there?
TRACY NIEKERK: In the beginning, I dunno, with me it wasn’t that I broke down and ‘what am I going to do now’. I suppose once it hit me weeks or months later, you sit down and you think are you going to be around for your child? Is your child going to be around in the next couple of years? One day I sat and I cried and I said, ‘will my child ever reach the school-going age, or will I ever be there to see my child reach high school, have a girlfriend, reach his 21st, get married? Will either of us be around to see that. And I think sitting down and thinking all that, you think to yourself, ‘what about my life am I going to change? Am I just going to continue living like I was living before, or am I going to look at things ahead and say, ok these are the things I need to change to live healthy?’ So I suppose you change according to that.
SUE: So what things have you done?
TRACY NIEKERK: Well I’ve stopped smoking. I never used to drink so it wasn’t a problem for me. Starting to eat vegetables that you know are good that I never used to eat before like brussels sprouts, lots of green vegetables that I never used to eat. You tend to, when you go into the shop, you look for things that you need to eat. You’re not supposed to eat too much sugar or sweet things, so you start cutting down on those things, knowing it’s not good for you. If you don’t loook at those things in that way, you know it’s going to affect your life, so what are you going to do because of that.
SUE: On top of her HIV diagnosis, Tracey and her husband split up.
TRACY NIEKERK: Getting divorced was one of the most difficult things that I’ve ever come across. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. But I think it was something I couldn’t control because I didn’t know what the reason was. If I knew, maybe it’s because HIV or something, I could have then put that behind me and carry on, but knowing that you’re getting divorced but you don’t know the proper reason why, that is more difficult. What was difficult was, one week your husband gets your child and next week you get him. And knowing my son was only two when we got divorced and it was difficult for him because now, when his Dad leaves and he start crying and you get all upset and you start crying and you think to yourself, look getting stressed out affects your health. After a while we came to a decision where we needed to do something about him, my son, because I think it affects him as well. In that time, I lost a lot of weight because of stress and things like that. I think because of my family that I had, it brought us through and both of us decided to rather live together again for the sake of our son, because it was affecting my health, it was affecting our son’s health and it was affecting his health. And that’s the reason why we’re back together today.
SUE: How has that been, are there tensions in the house, have you worked through that?
TRACY NIEKERK: We were about two and a half years married when we got separated. It’s quite difficult because you haven’t lived with the person long enough. But living together now it’s much better than when we were married. Because now you’re not married, so you don’t need to say where you’re going to, or there’s no limit where you’re going to and what time you must be home and this must be done and that must be done. You know that you’re living together and you’ve got that togetherness, but you know that can still go your separate ways. We get along much better now than what we did before
SUE: It seems a bit ironic.
TRACY NIEKERK: Mmmmm, very much so, but like I say everything happens for a reason.
SUE: Do you have any idea what the reason is?
TRACY NIEKERK: Um, sometimes they say no matter how long you live with a person, their true colours never come out until you get married. And I think, even I’d lived with him for ten years before I got married, the things that came out after we got married wouldn’t have come out before that. At the moment, if I find anything out that comes out now, I can turn around and say, it’s got nothing to do with me. So maybe, maybe that’s the reason.
SUE: You’ve certainly got more peace of mind now?
TRACY NIEKERK: Yes, I do. I do. I know there’s no ties, I can do my own thing, there’s nothing holding me back.
SUE: Looking back at the time that her son was infected with HIV, Tracey has advice for other mothers.
TRACY NIEKERK: If people can go for a test, or babies can go for a test just after they are born, maybe we can pick up. Because now you go for a test at the beginning of your pregnancy, nine months later you don’t know what happened during that time. If I had known when he was born, I would not have breast-fed him and he wouldn’t have had the virus today. So since we found out when he was nine months old he immediately went on to medication ‘ but it was just the normal multivitamins and antibiotics. And I think since then, because we’re looking after him so well ‘ he gets his vegetables, he gets his fruit, everything that he needs to get, he gets. I think it’s because of that that he’s so healthy today. His last test that he went for, his CD4 count was over a thousand, which they say a normal person without HIV is 800 and above. So we’re not saying that there’s nothing wrong with him, but we’re looking at him saying that he’s fine, and if anything does start happening then we’ll start worrying, but at the moment he’s as healthy as any other child. If I compare him to my sister’s two kids ‘ the one’s got asthma, the other one’s allergic to seafood and all these things, but up until today, they only time he goes to the doctor is for his normal check-ups.
SUE: And so you’re off for a check-up today?
TRACY NIEKERK: Ja, I’m today at 3 o’clock and he needs to go tomorrow, so we’re just crossing our fingers and hoping that everything goes well today and tomorrow.
At the check-up, Tracy’s son was found to be in good health – his CD4 count is still buoyantly above 1000. Her CD4 count is still over 200, but she does need to build up her immune system.
Read more of Tracy’s diary at: www.redribbon.co.za
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