Teenager overcomes early HIV setback

GREG KELEBONYE
Staff Writer | Friday April 9, 2010 00:00

Some people advised me that he had phogwana (a problem associated with the fontanel), yet others said he had ditantanyane (gripes). I got to a point where I simply got tired of seeking treatment for the child,' she says and looks at the boy as he sits reading.

It was at that 11th hour that Oboye Nkele, a peer educator at Baikamogedi Support Group in Moshupa visited her and persuaded her to take her baby for an HIV test. 'I remember hearing people talking about this baby that was continually sick and decided to pay the mother a visit. The child had sunken eyes and protruding cheekbones and almost had a hunchback. Looking at the child, you would wonder if it would be alive the following day,' Nkele says.

'What do you do when you are at your wits end? There was no point refusing to try this one avenue. Even then I doubted that the child could be HIV positive. I was a faithful wife, but I didn't know about my husband. But that is water under the bridge. He died during the time I was running around trying to get treatment for the child,' Mathata recalls.

She is sure she got the virus from her man, but cannot say how it passed to the baby. 'I know he got it from me, except I don't know how. After I gave birth to him, I breastfed him as I had done with his older siblings, so he might have got the virus during breastfeeding or at birth,' she says.

'So I took Batho (not his real name) to the Baylor Children's Clinical Centre of Excellence where he tested positive for HIV. The clinic had only recently been set up and Batho started receiving treatment and was regularly seen by a doctor at the centre,' she says.

She lights up as she calls out to the boy who is now busy inside the house.  'Batho tla kwano moshimanyane wame. (Batho come here my boy. You can imagine that my boy would be dead now. You see he is cleaning up in the kitchen. Young as he is, he is a very responsible boy,' she says. The boy comes and sits next to his mother.

'The gentleman here wants to write about you. He wants more parents to take their children for an HIV test. So he wants you to talk with.' The boy says that on a typical day, he gets up in the morning, warms water for both himself and his cousin who is two years younger.

'Mama always has breakfast ready by the time we put on our uniforms, so I have my breakfast and ...my treatment before going to school,' he says. Batho is a typical A pupil. He had straight A's at Standard Seven. He has been writing form tests this week and so far has registered an A for every subject. He does not look sickly and it is difficult to tell he has a health problem unless he tells you. Between the giggles and the usual stunts boys his age engage in like climbing walls, or playing Bruce Lee, he always remembers his treatment when the time comes.

'I can trust this boy when it comes to remembering his treatment better than me. Last time I sent him to his aunt in Gaborone and remembered when he had left that I had not packed his treatment with his luggage. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that he had the medicine with him,' his mother says. 'I take my medicine at 6am and also at 6pm,' he chips in. The medicine is two large cream white and blue tablets. 'I hate the tablets, but I have no choice. I wish they had smaller ones,' he says almost shyly. He hates the pills but is used to them now.

'When he was like seven, it used to be a big struggle taking the medicine especially as he said he always wanted to vomit after taking it. He is now used to it. Perhaps he can deal with the side effects now that he is older,' says his mother. It is amazing to learn the boy has been on AIDS treatment for eight years. Had his mother not taken him for a test, he probably would have died from one of the many childhood illnesses that attack children with HIV. Once a month, his mother goes to school to get permission from the school head to take him for check-up.

'I hate every time I come back and one of the teachers asks me if I have healed. They always assume that I was not well,' he says. The boy does not want his teachers to know or any of his schoolmates. This is understandable in a community where, like the rest of the country, HIV/AIDS is taboo.

Sometimes though, especially when his teachers ask him if he is well after having gone for check-up, he feels like telling them about his status. 'They taught us at the support group not to be ashamed of our status so....,' his voice trails off as a boisterous man driving a taxi arrives, declaring by his very actions that he is the man of the house - the boy's stepfather. 'Did he tell you he wants to be a doctor? Tsaa ngwanaka o mpeele ko tlung [take this to the room son],' the man says as he hands over a bag to the boy.