Veronica decides to die
Eventually, weighing a mere 37 kilograms with a CD4 count of a miniscule 21, Veronica retreated into a near-death lethargy, barely speaking and sleeping most of the time.
One morning, her boyfriend, Jomo, who had discovered his HIV status two years before her, shot himself. But even this news could not draw her out of her semi-silent world.
Her family was desperate but they could not reach her. It was as if Veronica had decided to die and was simply waiting for it to happen.
‘I was damaged psychologically. I was depressed. I thought my boyfriend was lying about his HIV status. When I got my results in 2005, I thought they were lying to me too. I just denied that I had it,’ says Veronica, a big-busted, talkative woman who is a far cry from her former ghost self.
Denial almost cost Veronica her life. From the moment that she knew her HIV status in 2005, she shunned medical treatment as she feared that antiretroviral medication would kill her. Instead, Veronica tried ‘immune boosters’. One, Aloe Extra, gave her such bad diarrhoea that she ended up spending seven days in hospital.
However, she discharged herself and went to stay with her mother.
After a few days, Veronica developed such a fever that her desperate mother took her to her church. But as they sprinkled water on her face, she fainted and had to be taken to Germiston Hospital by ambulance.
By then, she had AIDS dementia, reality slipped and she believed that the hospital staff was trying to kill her. She barely ate and the staff put her in a small room by herself and mostly left her alone. Most of her memory of this time is a blur, but a few moments are in sharp focus.
‘I remember it was 23 December 2005. I could hear the nurses talking about going to enjoy Christmas. I asked the nurse to call my boyfriend. She was surprised that I could remember his number. But I could. Jomo came after 30 minutes and I discharged myself.’
Again, she went to stay with her mother. But Veronica had severe diarrhoea, her mother lived in a shack with no running water and battled to take care of her.
By the new year, Veronica was living in her own world: ‘When people talked, I could hear them. But I was quiet. I shut myself off from the world and wanted to sleep all the time.’
Three months went by with Veronica in her shut-off state. ‘The father of my child became so scared that he hardly ever visited.’
One April morning, Veronica’s brother-in-law came to fetch her mother. She was away for the entire day, returning in the early hours of the morning.
‘Everyone was crying and I thought maybe I am dead. But then they told me that Jomo had shot himself. He couldn’t stand watching me be sick. But I had no emotion. I could not even go to his funeral.’
Two weeks after Jomo’s death, caregivers came to see Veronica wearing HIV positive T-shirts. They asked whether she had applied for a disability grant. Veronica remembered a form the hospital had given her some months back.
‘I had put it on top of the wardrobe because when they gave it to me, I thought it was like they were saying ‘here is some money to go and die’.’
But now she went, shuffling like a living skeleton, and got the accumulated grant of R3000.
‘I could buy things for my child and told my family to buy everything they wanted. I thought this is the end of me, but at least I don’t owe anyone anything.’
But her brother was not prepared to let her die, and decided to use some of the grant money to buy the herbal concoction, uBhejane, that was being promoted as an AIDS cure. He went in search of it in pharmacies on the East Rand but instead was told by a customer at one of the pharmacies to take Veronica to Helen Joseph Hospital.
‘My brother arranged for a car to take me to iThembalethu Clinic at Helen Joseph. There I saw a strange thing. There were two groups. The one was like me, very sick and thin, some in wheelchairs. The other group looked normal and I thought they must be lying about having HIV,’ remembers Veronica.
While Veronica was going to adherence training to prepare her to take antiretroviral medicine, she was scared as she had heard that ARVS kill people and make your skin turn grey.
‘I was so scared. I decided to give the pills a month. I finally started on ARVs on 5 May 2006. I still remember the date! At my first month appointment, I was still very thin, going there in my doek and slippers, with a towel wrapped around my body. But the second month, I decided to go there myself on the taxi, not spending money on the taxi.’
Veronica laughs at her former self. She has almost tripled in weight and now needs to lose weight. She has had some side-effects on the medicine and has had to switch from one ARV to another.
But she has a new life: a new boyfriend, a new baby and a CD4 count of a massive 820.
‘I am now working at Phola Park Clinic, educating people about HIV prevention and treatment. I am saving people’s lives using my story as an example.
‘I think I have been living with HIV for over 10 years. Because I had a baby boy in 2000 who was always in and out of hospital. He died of pneumonia and meningitis, signs of AIDS, when he was three. I always refused to let the doctors test him for HIV and I regret that. I denied HIV for a long time before I found a way to live with it.’
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