Living with HIV - Clive

Every adversity is an opportunity to become MORE! Adversity takes us way beyond accustomed personal frontiers and way beyond of any vestige of comfort. It is here that we are faced with a choice to evolve, to stagnate in self-pity, or to perish. The only meaningful solution to any adversity is to choose the path where we grow and ultimately transcend ourselves, which is the very essence of evolution.

I have only lived with HIV for 5 years, but soon came to realise that my infection was a veiled opportunity for me to learn considerably more about myself and the human condition in general. Living with HIV/Aids has not been easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is! Having full-blown Aids was undoubtedly one of the most challenging episodes in my whole existence.

On reflection, I honestly believe that I contracted HIV for a worthwhile reason. This comment is not a senseless invitation for others to go looking for such an infection, but speaks of the value I have personally extracted from a seemingly awful situation. Looking back, the lessons that HIV brought have considerably expanded my life rather than crippling or contracting it.

Like all adversity, every illness comes with the potential to make us to be MORE. Life threatening disease takes its victims into severe challenge, but always provides the valuable chance for considerable learning. Life is a series of challenges which come to provoke our necessary growth. Once we have “got” the lesson, the challenge soon disappears. From another viewpoint, when we embrace our condition fully, rather than resisting or avoiding it, it tends to dissipate.

Since my condition was stabilised, I have lived relatively easily with HIV. Taking a few pills each day and doing what is necessary to promote good health is no hardship. HIV has taught me the essentials of self-love, which was essentially missing in my existence previously. Without actively seeking a cure for my HIV, life has mysteriously drawn me into treatment with HIVEX. The jury is still out regarding the eventual success or otherwise of having been on this HIVEX program, but I already sense the beginnings of a material shift in my being.

At this juncture in my life, I am not sure what else I am supposed to learn from HIV or Aids. Maybe this chapter of my life can now close, because the attendant lessons have been learned. But this is not about turning my back on a recent past I might choose to leave well alone. The potential restoration to full health is a gift that bears a considerable future responsibility. Firstly, I need make decisions that keep me free of re-infection and secondly, need to actively campaign that others might be fortunate to see their lives changed by this experience.

My short journey with HIVEX has exposed me to the considerable suffering of millions of Africans living with HIV. Listening to the stories of Naledi and Tumelo (fellow patients) has opened a new and important understanding. The negative effect of the credit crunch is making access to conventional long-term anti-retroviral therapy a diminished reality. At the recent World Aids Conference in Vienna, Bill Gates spoke of the looming HIV/Aids affordability problem and new solutions to the existing problem need to be urgently sought.

The HIVEX treatment disables the HIV virus making it impossible for the virus to dock with any human cells. This makes replication of the virus impossible whilst also allowing the population of white blood cells, which are the backbone of the immune system, to be re-built. In short, this gives rise to the restoration of normal immunity! This is a once-off treatment so cost is limited; rather than being a function of monthly medical and drug costs over the remaining lifetime of an HIV patient.

I have willingly undertaken this HIVEX treatment for two reasons. Firstly, I want to free myself from the limitation of HIV. More importantly, I choose to be at the forefront of medical breakthrough to enable others to be healed and to lessen the burden of HIV on modern man. It is still early days and my treatment is not yet complete. In the weeks and months that lie ahead, I am willing to allow my experience and medical records to be used for the potential benefit of others. In this respect, I can transform my journey with HIV/Aids into something more than just a selfish, personal quest. HIVEX may well have given me the opportunity to move beyond disease into being part of a significant solution for many others.