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Surviving AIDS: A Day in the Life
For Devondia Roseborough, living with the virus isn't easy, but she's not giving up.
By Cheris Hodges
- Angus Lamond
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AT HOME: Activist Devondia Roseborough relaxes in her West Charlotte home
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Devondia shouldn't be alive. Medical research says that once your T-Cell count is below 200, the body's immune system can't protect itself from diseases and infections.
In the hospital, with a high fever and spots on her liver, it looked as if she was going to die. But she says her family came to Carolina's Medical Center and prayed for her.
Then a miracle happened.
Her fever broke, the spots on her liver disappeared.
"The doctors were like, 'We don't know what happened,'" she says. "But it was God. Plus I knew I had these two daughters. And my oldest child was wilding out. No one was going to put up with her like me. So I knew I had to be here. It's mind over matter."
Her next step, a few months later, was to tell her daughters the truth about her hospital stay and medical condition.
Initially, she'd told then that she had an infection on her liver and that's why she was in the hospital. But in March 2003, she sat the girls down for a family meeting. That's when she said the words, "I have AIDS," to her children.
"My oldest daughter just screamed and hollered," says Devondia. "They knew I worked at the YWCA, and I had programs where people would come in and talk about AIDS and HIV. My youngest daughter asked me, 'Are you going to be OK?' And I said, 'Yeah, I'm going to be OK.'"
Devondia did get counseling for her daughters. And at the most random moments, they'd ask her questions. Just like the day in McDonalds when her youngest daughter asked her again, "Mommy, do you have AIDS?"
Devondia replied, "Yes."
Then her daughter asked how she contracted the disease.
"I told her how I got it, then I said, 'You know you're not supposed to have sex before you get married. Go to school and get your education, get your house, get your car. And then you wait on God to send you your king; don't go out here and pick and choose.'"
Then her daughter asked a heart-wrenching question. "Are you going to die?"
"Well, we're all going to die," she told her. "We all live to die, but it's what we do in between."
While her daughter didn't ask any other questions, Devondia says that her children are extremely attentive to her. If they see her just sitting around, they will ask: "Is everything all right?"
"I love them," she says of her daughters. "And they love me; they love their momma."
Despite her openness about her status, Devondia doesn't expose her daughters to all of her advocacy. She doesn't take them to college campuses where the discussions about sex and AIDS can get raw. Sometimes she takes them to churches where she's invited to speak. But just like a mother lion, Devondia protects her daughters from the ignorance that still exists when it comes to dealing with HIV and AIDS in the public.
"I try to take them, but not everywhere," she says. "I don't really want to expose them because there are still ignorant people out here that would get on the girls and want to say something to them. I try to keep them out of the spotlight as much as possible."
Of the estimated 40,000 Americans who will test positive for HIV this year, 80 percent can expect to live at least 5 more years, according to a recent report in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. Sixty percent could survive another decade. Thirty-two percent could live 20 additional years, and 10 percent could live 30 years after their diagnosis. It's been four years for Devondia, and she's not showing any signs of giving up on life. But living with AIDS is tough.
"It's not easy," she says. "I'm just like anybody else. I get lonely. I've had the low self-esteem. I have bills to pay. It's like every quarter; I go through a period where I'm beating myself up. I hate living. Why did I do this? Why do I have to have this? You know, I cuss myself out. 'Why did you fuck up?' You know, real talk. 'Why did you have to fuck up?'"
But it never fails, she says. Her phone will ring and someone on the other end will pull her out of her funk. "I'll get a call from someone like the Metrolina AIDS Project and they'll say 'Devondia, can you come talk to someone who's been newly diagnosed? Because they are going out of their mind.' Then when I talk to them, I'm actually talking to myself and that brings me back up," she says. "It gets rough, taking those pills, not knowing if you're going to get married. I know I'm not having anymore children.
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