Patient A
By Lee BlessingKim describes being diagnosed with HIV and having to break the news to her parents.
KIM
...The first time I was tested for HIV, the test wasn't conclusive. So I had another one. That was inconclusive, too. So I had one more. Five days after I turned twenty-two, the results came back positive.
The doctor gave me some time alone, before my folks came in. I began to cry. I looked out the window, and the clouds were moving against the sun, swirling. My life came into my mind. I thought about when I lived in Tamaqua, and the lake, and ice skating... I thought of everything, and that it was all over. No boyfriend, husband, kids, grandkids. My eyes were closed. Suddenly I felt as if someone was lying by my side. There was pressure against my whole side, a warmth - I felt it. I heard a voice that said it would all be ok. That everyone in the family would be able to handle it. And I opened my eyes, and no one was in the room.
My mother was the first to come in. She knew as soon as she looked at me. She came around and just lunged onto the bed ad cried and hugged me and pushed my hair back and... comforted me. She talked about her own parents, who'd been killed years before in a car accident and how they'd be waiting in heaven for me, along with Grandma Zebleckas and even their dog that died, too. I think if she could have put everything that had ever lived into heaven for me at that moment, she would have.
When we'd calmed down, my father came in. That was harder... He shook, and he cried... I said, "Put your head on my shoulder," and he did. And I... petted his head, and said, "It's going to be ok. We're going to get through this." And Mom was rubbing his back, and he just kept crying and crying. He kept saying it had to be a mistake, that he didn't believe it, that it can't be. It just can't be. And I said, "Dad, it is."
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