The Voice of the Women

I want to share two videos with you today, which both left me tearful for very different reasons. 

This first video is the testimony of an Arab woman, who describes the difficult circumstances surrounding her  disease.  

The second video is VERY different.  This story gives me tears because of the way that these women can and should be treated.

            What I would like for all of use to glean from both of these videos is that women living with HIV are people longing for a chance to live and love, just the same as the rest of the world.  For so long, there has been such a negative stigma surrounding HIV and AIDS (as we saw in the first video), and I would love to see that stigma disappear!  This isn't just a job or a duty for nurses or people who are involved in health care, but for everyone.  Sure, the stylists did the hair and makeup of many women and gave them the chance to feel physically beautiful, but I believe that the best gift they gave was to treat these women with the same respect and kindness as they would any other person.

            As I spend time at the 1917 Clinic every week, I am constantly learning more about the virus and the effect that is has on the human body.  But even more than that, I am weekly amazed at just how much the doctors and nurse practitioners really care about their patients.  I hope that through their example, interacting with the patients, and seeing some of these real life videos, I can become a person who treats this remarkable group of women like the living, breathing human beings that they are.  They have such powerful, encouraging stories, and I hope we can all learn to really listen.

Carpe Diem

            Today for my project I got to do something a little different—I branched out of making phone calls to patients and was able to shadow the Women’s Health Practitioner that I’m working with.  In doing this, I was able to see what she does every day, but more importantly, I was able to see that many of these women who are living with HIV and AIDS are some of the most beautiful and strong women I have ever seen.  Every day they have to think about their health and the way they live their life, and so many of them live a good and full life in the midst of their circumstances.  And that is a success all in itself!  The past cannot be changed and the virus can never be cured (at least, not in this day and age, but I have hope for the future of medicine!), but there is such a huge difference between a woman who is tolerating the fact that she is living with HIV and a woman who is still really LIVING with HIV.

            All of this just makes me appreciate more what I have learned in nursing school about helping my patients to maintain a healthy, positive quality of life.  I’ve seen many patients in the hospitals who have lost so much joy in life because of an illness or an injury that has taken its toll.  And while these people do have incredibly difficult circumstances, as any illness or other medical ailment is hard on life, it is encouraging and refreshing as a student to know that it is still possible for chronically ill people to live a full and good life.  Seeing several women today who are actively doing that—living well, laughing much, and loving their families—gives me, as a student and future nurse, a desire to encourage and be a positive influence in the lives of all my patients.  I want to talk with them and help them to think less about how much an illness may have crippled them and more about how life can still hold little joys and pleasures even in the most difficult circumstances.

            So I desperately need to say thank you to all of the strong, beautiful, powerful women who are pushing through the hard times and continuing to really live life in the presence of HIV and AIDS.  In the future, I hope to be an encouragement to you, but today, you were an enormous encouragement to me.

The Adventure is Underway

It’s been a little while since I updated this blog about my project, but things have been moving along so well!  I find that I am enjoying my time at the 1917 Clinic so much, and I am learning a great deal from sifting through doctor’s notes and patient’s charts.  When I first started nursing school, a bit of me was a little sad that I wouldn’t really get the chance to experience paper charts because of technology, but I don’t know what I was thinking!  I am so grateful for technology, as well as not having to always decipher the handwriting of doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals!

So, the project—first, I didn’t mention in my first post that this project was actually inherited!  It was started during this past summer by a girl named Lauren Lanehart who is a semester ahead of me in nursing school.  She first communicated with the clinic and got the service learning project set up, and so a lot of what I am doing is all a matter of following in her footsteps.

So what exactly have I been doing?  Every Friday when the schedule is printed for the next week, I come into the office and get a hold of it!  I sort through all of the patients using the clinic’s electronic records, and I determine which of the female patients need to have their GYN services performed.   The recommendations for all HIV women is to have two paps in the first year (6 months apart), and if both of those are normal, then move along to having paps performed annually. When I find women who need to be updated on their services, I call them and remind them of their appointment and offer to have our Women’s Health Practitioner see them while they are at the clinic for their convenience.  For many of these women, transportation can be an issue, and it is important for me to encourage them to get their paps while they are at the clinic. That is the very basics of what I’ve been doing!

At this point, the majority of the women I have been able to speak with have been incredibly wonderful!  The majority of them when I call seem genuinely grateful that there is someone who is interested in their health, and that has made me feel so good!  The most common question I’ve received from the ladies is from the ones who have had abnormal paps.  They always want to know, “Why do I have to get another one now?  I just had one six months ago!”  And this is such a good question from them.  It gives me a chance to educate them that it is important for HIV positive women to be screened more frequently when they have abnormal paps because it is so much more likely for them that an abnormality might progress to HPV which is the cause of cervical cancer in the majority of cases. 

All this said, so far, so good!  I can honestly say that I am loving the 1917 Clinic and the time that I spend there.  This project is helping to make me into a better nurse by teaching me important concepts about patient communication and also about developing caring relationships with patients—even though I only talk to them on the phone for probably under 5 minutes!  But I am growing to care for these women every week, and I am developing a passion for their cause that will never be erased.