When things were finally looking up for Thembi*, having been offered a prospective new job that would support her and her daughter along with the new baby she was expecting, she never imagined her world to be drastically turned upside down in a matter of weeks.

After having worked as a domestic in Kwa-Zulu Natal for several years, struggling to support herself and her six-year old daughter as a single mother, Thembi jumped at the opportunity of potentially bettering her life and securing a sound future for her children.

The new job entailed relocation to Witbank, Mpumalanga, where she would work alongside Laurinda* at her established company. Unfortunately, more things changed in Thembi’s life, other than a new job and a new place to call home.

“I really enjoyed my new job. In the second week my boss lady (Laurinda) introduced me to a certain insurance company so that I could apply for a medical aid and life cover.” This involved having blood tests done, which Thembi had carried out at the local Witbank Cosmos Hospital.

“My boss lady paid for all the costs, because I was bankrupt, I was as poor as a mouse,” Thembi says. She then waited a week before she was contacted by the insurance company who advised her to visit her doctor, which Thembi obligingly did.

“I went to the doctor… the doctor told me I was HIV-positive and that was it. I didn’t go for counseling, I didn’t cry, I didn’t blame anybody because I had never been raped,” explains Thembi.

Confused and not having shed a tear, she walked out of the doctor’s room and told Laurinda what the doctor had said. “I saw my boss lady’s eyes fill with tears, but she told me that it wasn’t the end of the world and she hugged me,” Thembi says.

After having heard the life changing news, the now HIV-positive single mother followed all the necessary steps, having her CD4 count tested which was 385 at the time, a time when she was also five months pregnant with her son.

“I was upset because I was pregnant,” Thembi says.

“I had so many questions. What was going to happen to my child? Why was God punishing my son for my wrong doing?”

According to Thembi, Laurinda supported her greatly throughout this change in her life. To her, Laurinda became her counselor who explained the virus to her and offered additional information on HIV related matters that “helped me a lot,” Thembi adds.

However, Thembi had to constantly bite the bullet because “my blood pressure was troubling me, it was going so high,” she says. “Sometimes I would faint at work and then my boss would take me to the hospital, where I used to stay for about two weeks.”

As a single mother, this posed problems for her six-year old daughter as there was no one to look after her while Thembi lay in hospital. “My boss would help take care of my daughter, those times when I was in hospital, they (Laurinda’s family) would bath her, do her hair, make her lunch, take her to school- they treated her like one of their own kids,” Thembi says.

“Their support was very good.”

However, Thembi’s high blood pressure wasn’t improving and doctors were becoming increasingly concerned about her unborn baby’s health. As a result, Laurinda took Thembi to her gynecologist who wrote a letter giving doctors permission to deliver the child that would be born two months premature, a huge risk, but one that was necessary for both Thembi and her child’s live.

After having been scheduled for a caesarian section soon after, Thembi felt more at ease as she had heard the chances of mother-to-child transmission trough C-section was lower than that of natural birth. But she still went on to request Nevirapine - an anti-retroviral drug administered to HIV positive mothers and the new baby - just for incase.

“My son was born at seven months,” she says. “He was very small, only weighing 1.62kg, he was also very thin, but he was very cute.”

Thembi was then denied the chance to hold her new baby after the birth as he was immediately admitted into ICU.

That night after the birth, Thembi was feeling extremely weak and even though she’d lost her appetite, she forced herself to eat so that she could remain strong enough to bottle-feed her baby boy that was fighting for his life as well.

“I stayed in the hospital for about three weeks after the baby was born, and by that time I had started to feel better but my tongue and my mouth was full of sores, it really wasn’t easy,” she says, but she persisted until she was finally able to take her baby home, who now weighed 1.82kg.

She returned to the hospital each month so that baby Samuel* could receive treatment and have his monthly check-ups, including a blood screening to determine whether the HI virus had passed on from Thembi to Samuel.

Fortunately, after a year of anticipation, doctors concluded that little Samuel was HIV-negative.

This was without doubt music to Thembi’s ears.

Today, Thembi says she’s “just ok, I don’t have any stress, I just take it as it is… I don’t worry about it (HIV), to me it’s the same as any other sickness like diabetes, high blood pressure etc. with every sickness you have to look after yourself,” she says.

Not yet receiving anti-retroviral treatment, Thembi checks her CD4 count every six months to make sure everything is still okay, but otherwise she lives a normal, happy and healthy life. “Sometimes I do get flu like everybody else, but I don’t have any complications… I can do everything, just like anyone else,” she explains.

Her six year old son, Samuel, is happy and thriving. According to Thembi he is fit, strong, as well as big and tall, a remarkable thing for a child born weighing so little. However, Thembi has not told her children about her status as she feels “they are still too young to handle it and I wouldn’t want them to worry too much unnecessarily.”

She does however wish she could talk to other people who are infected with HIV, just to let them know that “it is not the end of the world, you can still live a long life, as well as plan a future,” she says. “You have to think positive to be negative, and accept yourself the way you are.”

Meaning you have to think positively so as to live life like an HIV negative individual.

As for her children’s futures, Thembi says “the best thing that I can ask for is for God to keep me until they (her children) can look after themselves.” Otherwise she hopes they will complete their studies when they are older and go on to achieve their dreams. Her daughter who is now eleven-years old already has her heart set on becoming a social worker, perhaps to help others who find themselves in a similar situation as Thembi once did.

“The doctor told me I was HIV positive and that was it. I didn’t go for counseling, I didn’t cry, I didn’t blame anybody because I had never been raped”

 *Names have been changed.

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