HIV testing part 2: the Compassion Experience

"You've got a quick snap lock on your cold, cold heart...

You got a quick clack walk and a cold hard stare,

And if your eyes could talk they'd say they just don't care 

Before they wander off inside their sockets...

You're cool coy, 'bout to stroll, very hip - 

It's you that's hidden by the expectations." 

 ~ Brooke Fraser, "Betty"

My second reason to get tested for HIV is the compassion experience.


When I was a bossy kid who fist-fought for my rights, my mom told me, "Walk a mile in (insert sibling's name) shoes before you judge them." And I retorted, "They're too small for me." (That was generally false; my brothers have large feet.)  But in my mind, since I was sure they didn't fit me, I wasn't responsible to know how they felt.


Puberty happens and the frontal lobe develops, but my reaction to what seems Other has changed little. My instinct is still to stand off and nitpick for differences. Discover and exaggerate the differences that make me superior. Save myself from doubting and fear and feeling too small to handle the truths of life. If I can prove to myself that the truth of life is convenient, it doesn't have to bother me.


Many things make us uncomfortable. One of these is the mention of AIDS. It's like the modern-day Plague, shrouded in the ignorance and distance we find comfortable.


But we all know AIDS is bad. Oh my, AIDS is terrible. All those people in Africa, dying like flies (thank God they're an Atlantic away). And the poor prostitutes and the gays (in case you haven't heard, there are some pretty well-known evangelists who think God made AIDS to punish the gays, and since they're so well-known and on TV and everything, they're probably right). People just shouldn't become like that.  (Wise choices are pretty obvious. Whatever happened to common sense?) It's bad for them and it's a terrible risk for society. Honestly,  you can't trust them to even use protection or anything - although the government is giving free handouts, and all our tax dollars are paying for it. Seriously, I just call that ingratitude, you know? Not just that they don't use protection we pay for and then we have to fund all of their medical expenses because of Healthcare Reform and whatnot - but that the government thinks we ought to pay for it. I mean, I don't do risky things like that, ever - do you? (Good, I didn't think so; I choose my friends wisely... oh well thank you, it takes one to know one. Insert smiley face or heart or other symbol of approval.) I just don't do risky things period. Well if speeding counts, I do that - rarely, only in absolute emergencies, you know - and sometimes I forget to put on my seatbelt, and I don't wear a helmet when I ride my bike, but those aren't really that risky and honestly, everyone else does that too. 


Oh yeah, I guess we can't forget about the doctors and nurses and the people who get contaminated blood transfusions. Those are different. At least they're not out doing bad things. Although I'm pretty sure if they were a little more careful, or washed their hands and used gloves more, or... something... then most of them wouldn't get AIDS either. And don't they have some sort of preventive medication now in case you think you got exposed to AIDS? (Yeah. Honestly, I guess you can't even count on doctors and nurses to use protection either.) 


Maybe I'm the only person who has ever said or thought this kind of dialogue. Maybe I'm the only person who needs experience to teach me compassion. And I didn't even realize I needed it until I drove to South Side Chicago, to a community outreach clinic that grew up out of a Lawndale Community Church ministry.


Honestly, I doubt I would have done it if testing wasn't free. I'm a college student with limited resources.I didn't think I'd had sufficient exposure to HIV to carry it.  It was scary driving to the clinic because the traffic lanes were undersized and the roads were potholed and the other drivers were bad. Think Chicago-meets-Mexico, on steroids. I prayed the whole way. Finding parking was a story all its own, and while I cruised through ghetto neighborhoods I tried to decide whether I'd rather pay a ticket to park illegally and safely, or risk not having a car to drive home in.  It took a while to find the clinic's private parking or locate the main building on the large clinic campus.  Hiding behind my sunglasses and hoping that if I didn't look at anyone they wouldn't look at me, I went straight to the receptionist. Everyone was looking at me and I was the different one. I wished I had ragged stained clothing and some dirt to rub on my skin. I wished people would stop looking and listening.


The receptionist said, "Why are you here?"


It was hard to say it out loud, so I said it too quietly and had to repeat myself. "I'm here for HIV testing." I don't think the woman really looked me up and down or shrank away, but I felt like she did. She gave me directions to another building. On my way there I battled a fear of being mugged in this strange place and tried to remember the name of the building.  One of the clinic parking guards gave me an admiring look and said, "Well hey there."


So I said, "Hi."


He said, "Why you here, girl?"


I thought for a minute. I was scared to tell the truth. But I don't lie. So I said, "I'm here to get tested for HIV."


And he didn't give me the Plague look or anything. He said, "That right? How come?"


So I told him all about reading Global Soccer Mom and The Irresistible Revolution and how I want to help orphans and AIDS orphans. I told him I wanted to promote awareness of HIV status. I told him before yesterday I'd never even thought about getting tested for HIV. I went into the second building, where the receptionist paged one of the clinic workers and told me to have a seat. I sat down and smiled at a little Hispanic girl whose mom was waiting to talk to a WIC representative. A middle-aged African American man came and sat down next to me and asked if I had a boyfriend, and when I said no he got very friendly and asked why I was there. So I told him I was there for HIV testing. He wanted to know why I would be worried about HIV, so I told him my story again. Then he told me all about how he'd been a druggie and a gangster most of his life, and had come to Christ through the outreach from Lawndale Community Church, and he was trying to seek God now and waiting for a godly woman to come along. And I smiled and said, "Well, I'll pray that for you, brother." He got really excited that I called him brother. I guess he hadn't had many white women do that. After he went to talk to one of the clinic workers I did pray for him, in my heart.


Then another clinic worker came and called me. Her name was Sheida (Shayda). You know how some African American women just radiate this sexy bold peaceful femaleness that defies White cultural stereotypes of womanhood and makes you want to talk like them and have big declarative hips that shake just a little when you walk, so maybe you can be all-woman like they are? You could tell Sheida was still growing into it, but she definitely had it. I liked her. She sat me down in a little cubicle and said, "So... why are you here?" And I said, "I want to be tested for HIV." She asked me to tell her what I knew about HIV/AIDS, so I told her what I knew. She seemed a little surprised and said good, she didn't have to explain anything. She filled out an admissions form for me, and asked when I thought I could have been exposed to HIV.


Sitting there in the cubicle answering a health professional's questions I realized I actually was a patient now, and I racked my brain for possible exposures. I thought of when I splashed myself in the face with green stomach bile by accident this summer. I thought of sharing spoons and cups with friends in Niger. Then I remembered one day in the Galmi OB ward when an eclamptic patient went into convulsions, and the staff and I rushed to get her turned on her side (so she wouldn't inhale vomit and choke, and so the baby would get better blood flow). As I turned her I felt something sticky on my bare hands and when I let go I found they were covered in blood; we hadn't realized how much she was bleeding. Come to think of it, I had a bad bout of flu and fatigue 4 weeks after that event. It could have been the initial symptoms of AIDS. And I'd shared chapstick and lipstick and straws and henna with tons of people. Suddenly I was terrified. I guess I was more at risk than I thought. I told Sheida that I was a nursing student and had grown up in Niger Republic, West Africa.


She put on gloves, opened a package, and handed me a plastic tongue-blade. I scraped my gums with the blade. She put it in a vial of reagent and sent me back to the waiting room. I didn't talk to anyone this time; I could hardly hear myself think over my staccato heartbeat. I had told one of my friends I was going for HIV testing, and he said that was smart since I'd lived in Africa, and added, "Oh man, I hope you don't have it." His words hung over my head now like a bad omen. Ten minutes passed and Sheida hadn't called me yet. I tried to imagine her telling me the test was positive, and I felt the blood draining from my cheeks. Would I go back to nursing school? Would I tell prospective employers? Would I tell my friends? Would I still have friends? How would I tell my parents or my siblings? Could I still work with AIDS orphans? I wouldn't get married. I wouldn't have kids. I wouldn't have a truly normal life. I'd never share chapstick or a straw or a spoon and I'd be really careful when I got papercuts. I would miss people looking at me like I was normal when they actually knew the truth. I would miss being touched and hugged. I wanted to cry. How could God do this to me?


Then Sheida called my name. I smiled and tried to look calm as we walked to the cubicle. We sat down and I could hardly breathe. She said, "Well, your test came back..." We talked and then I left the clinic. The next two parking guards I met asked me why I came that day, so I told them my story and suggested they and everyone they knew get tested too. They both asked me out. Then I drove home.


I promised to write this post sooner, but it was just too much to process. It was really, really sad and really, really scary. It was an immersion in the Other world I never went to, and the realization that I belonged in it too. It was a glimpse of a future I never wanted to see. It was all the what-ifs that didn't apply to me and the shoes that didn't fit.


Suddenly the stories I was willing to feel compassion for hurt a lot more than they did. And as for the stories I wasn't sure I really felt compassion for... I didn't feel the same way anymore. I pictured prostitutes dying of AIDS and I wasn't just sad for the lives they never had or the choices they never got to make. I was sad that a lot of people would never think beyond the official Cause of Death to the actual chances they never had. And I pictured druggies dying of AIDS and suddenly I was so sad that they had the chance to make the choices they made, that somehow they never got enough of the high of being known and valued, so that they needed another high to make them forget what they didn't have. And I was sad because a lot of "good" people wouldn't feel sorry that "to him that does not have, even what he does have will be taken away from him". And I was sad because I wonder how many of these people just really wish that someone who had no strings attached and no ulterior motives would remember that love doesn't come with a terms of use or a quarantine.


This is the other - the bigger - reason I advocate knowing your HIV status. Take a few minutes to experience it. Take a few minutes to imagine it. Try the shoes on. And stop adding to your Privacy Policy.


I'll let Mother Theresa conclude for me.

"Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty."

"Each one of them is Jesus in distressing disguise."

Photo from Oscar short-listed foreign movie Life Above All