The Chaos Within - Jyoti
Jyoti had a rough night.
This afternoon when I went to visit her she lay in her bed stared at me and refused to speak for almost 20 minutes.
According to Sam who was on night duty Jyoti had sat up all night and stared at the wall. She then had an episode. She was emotionally unstable. A combination of shock and denial.
Last night all she kept muttering was:
"I am ok. I am healthy. My children are fine."
It was a long night for her. It was a long night for Sam. He finally got her to sleep.
When Jyoti spoke to me after her silence her first words were, "I am healthier than you are."
This was the first thought in her mind.
Jyoti was always thin, but in the weirdest way with the further weight loss she looks both 16 and 80. When she smiled it was a disturbing parody of a skull. An image out of Pirates of the Caribbean. Skin stretched taut over bone.
I sat with her almost all afternoon. She cannot keep anything down. As soon as we arrived we discovered that she had just vomited out her lunch. She had eaten very little. She held on to me, and to Maya, and would not let us leave her side. Her breathing quickened every time we did.
I love Jyoti. She is strong and single minded. As I wrote in my blog after World AIDS Day in 2005 Jyoti spoke at the Celebration of Life event in Tadiwala Road despite knowing that she was going to be disowned by her uncle for revealing her HIV+ status to the community.
She has since spoken to local community leaders and colleges with me, educating both young and old about how HIV is not an end to life...
This is hard.
She now lies on her back even as I write with a needle stuck into her painfully fragile arm with the drip drip drip feeding her what she needs to survive.
I was with her when they put in the drip. My hands held her face as her eyes looked distantly into mine... she was not with us. I watched the blood fill the tube as they stuck in the needle and as a couple of drops escaped I wondered at how fucked up this virus is. That blood contained her end. Those drops potentially carried the difficult life of HIV for someone.
There is life after HIV and I see it every day around me, but we cannot deny that HIV has brought death to millions and... Jyoti... she will fight. I know she will. And I know she has the will.
She has the will.
I promised to return to see her tomorrow. I promised to bring her Mango ice cream. She vomited out half a cup of vanila that we fed her just before we left.
Maya said she felt afraid when she saw how Jyoti had deteriorated after the death of her friend, despite the hands on support of the Sahara team. I felt afraid too. She is sick. Her lymph nodes are swollen. She is in pain. But she has also somehow distanced herself for now.
I hope she chooses to return.
This afternoon when I went to visit her she lay in her bed stared at me and refused to speak for almost 20 minutes.
According to Sam who was on night duty Jyoti had sat up all night and stared at the wall. She then had an episode. She was emotionally unstable. A combination of shock and denial.
Last night all she kept muttering was:
"I am ok. I am healthy. My children are fine."
It was a long night for her. It was a long night for Sam. He finally got her to sleep.
When Jyoti spoke to me after her silence her first words were, "I am healthier than you are."
This was the first thought in her mind.
Jyoti was always thin, but in the weirdest way with the further weight loss she looks both 16 and 80. When she smiled it was a disturbing parody of a skull. An image out of Pirates of the Caribbean. Skin stretched taut over bone.
I sat with her almost all afternoon. She cannot keep anything down. As soon as we arrived we discovered that she had just vomited out her lunch. She had eaten very little. She held on to me, and to Maya, and would not let us leave her side. Her breathing quickened every time we did.
I love Jyoti. She is strong and single minded. As I wrote in my blog after World AIDS Day in 2005 Jyoti spoke at the Celebration of Life event in Tadiwala Road despite knowing that she was going to be disowned by her uncle for revealing her HIV+ status to the community.
She has since spoken to local community leaders and colleges with me, educating both young and old about how HIV is not an end to life...
This is hard.
She now lies on her back even as I write with a needle stuck into her painfully fragile arm with the drip drip drip feeding her what she needs to survive.
I was with her when they put in the drip. My hands held her face as her eyes looked distantly into mine... she was not with us. I watched the blood fill the tube as they stuck in the needle and as a couple of drops escaped I wondered at how fucked up this virus is. That blood contained her end. Those drops potentially carried the difficult life of HIV for someone.
There is life after HIV and I see it every day around me, but we cannot deny that HIV has brought death to millions and... Jyoti... she will fight. I know she will. And I know she has the will.
She has the will.
I promised to return to see her tomorrow. I promised to bring her Mango ice cream. She vomited out half a cup of vanila that we fed her just before we left.
Maya said she felt afraid when she saw how Jyoti had deteriorated after the death of her friend, despite the hands on support of the Sahara team. I felt afraid too. She is sick. Her lymph nodes are swollen. She is in pain. But she has also somehow distanced herself for now.
I hope she chooses to return.
posted by Deep Griha at 8:19 am
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