"I Am Sick as Hell" That was the Facebook memory that popped up for me recently. Seeing that memory reminded me that at that point in time my body was being attacked by HIV and I did not know it yet. It reminded me that I was in fact sicker than I thought. During that time, I thought I had strep throat. I couldn't eat, couldn't attend class, and the Penicillin was not working at all. I was so tired of feeling like I was going to faint. I remember that time so vividly. I never would have thought it was HIV. I was 18 and in my first year of college. At that time all I knew about HIV was to get...
Nikki J's blog
Before discovering my diagnosis, I first found out about God and his son Jesus. They together came and got me before I knew I needed to be saved. Before I lose you, let me explain what I mean by this. I grew up with no instruction around the spiritual part of me. I learned about taking care of my physical, mental and some emotional parts of me. This spiritual part was only talked about within the walls of the church. As a child, church was a place you went when forced by your aunt or your friend's family. It was not a place you felt compelled to go to on purpose. I related everything spiritual...
I remember the first 10 minutes after I hit upload from my phone to tell the whole world of YouTube that I had been living with HIV. I was so nervous, happy, scared and free. I know - a lot of emotions at once. I had been battling about the timing for months. I decided in February 2017 that it was time to stop sitting on my gifts and write my story. I didn't expect a book to turn into me announcing on YouTube, but it did. I soon realized that I couldn't just write a story without also providing my story to people who may not get my book but needed my story. Here it was the early part of June...
Health is wealth is the age old saying. I think that saying means that the healthier you are the wealthier your body feels. It also reiterates that we have to do what's necessary to reach the "wealth" determined by our health. As a healthcare worker, this sounds good but what do you do when this isn’t enough? Sometimes I want to be healthy as I can be. It's hard when I can not trust my providers. I can not trust that they know what is best for me. I have had a number of ailments unrelated to HIV, but doctors couldn't figure some things out because there wasn't a direct connection to my status...
Why we cannot forget? I remember when I was first diagnosed with HIV I learned about being undetectable. I was so excited about the word in itself. It meant I almost didn’t have it. I had also read about the stories pre-CDC stamp on the U=U campaign. People would write in forums about how hard it is to pass it from woman to man or how the medication makes it so you are pretty much not able to pass it. Medicine would not officially say this was a true statement. One of my biggest memories from being newly diagnosed was when medication was always watch and wait. If your numbers stay low, no...
About 10 years ago I sat in a dorm room playing the words the man said to me a few hours earlier, "Your HIV test came back positive". What did that even mean? All I could think at the time was death. God, when will I die? Those were my thoughts. Here I am 10 years later and realizing that I will live and not die, at least not from HIV. I choose to live freely and not let it be a definer of who I am. Living with HIV has been somewhat of a rollercoaster for me. I started at a place where I thought I would never do half of the things I dreamed to doing everything I could think of. I decided to go...
My name is Nakeisa Jackson and I am 30 years old. At age 19, I was diagnosed with HIV.