Starting Antiretroviral treatment - Part 3

It has now been a month since I started taking my treatment (ARVs). Everyone who knows me has been waiting anxiously to hear how I am doing and what my experiences have been so far. Surprisingly—even to myself—there isn’t much to report, except that I am doing fine. All the ‘bad things’ I was expecting to happen have not occurred. I sleep well, without bad dreams or strange reactions from my immune system to the treatment. I am still me.

My biggest challenge at the moment is more mental than physical, as I am anxious to know whether the treatment is working. It takes a few months to see results, so for now, I am following my doctor’s instructions and keeping healthy. The first two days of taking ARVs, however, were both interesting and, at times, funny but confusing.

I remember the day I started—I was with my daughter, who had no idea what was going on. Every night, after tucking her into bed, I also go to bed, but that night she noticed my bedroom light was still on. She shouted, “Papa, why are you not asleep?” At the time, I was sitting on the edge of my bed, holding a glass of water and two tablets that were about to change my life forever.

I put the tablets back into their container and went to her bedroom. I lay down beside her until she fell asleep, then returned to my bedroom and sat exactly where I had been before. I am not sure why, but I was scared. I wished I wasn’t alone. ‘Maybe that would have made the whole experience easier,’ I thought to myself. But I was alone, and I knew I had to do it.

A few times, I decided to postpone taking them to the next day, but a voice within me said, ‘You can do this.’ I put the tablets in my mouth, but I couldn’t swallow them. I spat them out and held them in my hand for what felt like a minute or so. This was followed by a very deep breath. All the while, I kept thinking, ‘I need someone with me right now. I shouldn’t be doing this alone.’

Without giving it further thought, I closed my eyes, threw the tablets in my mouth with some water, and swallowed. Not knowing what to expect, I lay on my bed, feeling lonely, waiting to sense something happening in my body. However, the next thing I saw was the sun rising the following morning. Wow! Nothing had happened to me! I was happy but, at the same time, even more confused.

‘Does this mean no side effects for me?’ I wondered. ‘Or maybe I didn’t take them properly.’ The reality was that nothing was wrong with me.

Just to make sure, the following evening I double-checked that I had the correct tablets. I took them at the same time as the previous night. Still, nothing happened. Hmm. A month passed, and still, nothing had happened. There were no snake dreams, as I had been told to expect, or any physical side effects. I hoped it would stay that way.

Last month, a friend said to me, “Pholo, one day you’ll laugh about the whole first-day experience.” And now, I am laughing about it. It was simply the fear of the unknown. My decision to start treatment while my CD4 count was still relatively high seems to be paying off. These days, I am more stressed about work than my health. The only regret I have is taking the treatment late at night, which means I have to stay up much later than I’d like.

Update: It has been 26 years since I tested HIV positive and 13 years since I started treatment, and I am still laughing at myself! The only new thing in my life is that I’ve switched to medication I now take in the morning.

#lifebeyond #diaryofPR