Hope and strive

It’s a special day for me - a PLHA who got HIV from my husband when our self-help group has a meeting. Beside the daily contacts, we have monthly meetings with participation by all group members. We are usually very busy to make two ends meet. However, we try to arrange time to gather together on 20th every month to share our sorrow and joyfulness as well as things that only the insiders understand.

Since we received the news about the first HIV case was cured, our group was filled of hope. It’s opposite with our desperateness when we received HIV positive test result in the past. Most of group members are young and unmarried. That’s why our hope is even much higher. We hope to have a miracle that brings us with a bright future one day.

To nurture our hope, I always try to make plan for a healthy lifestyle: avoid and give up drug; limit the substance that may harm our health, e.g. alcohol, beer, smoking; do light work and avoid heavy work; play sports, do morning excercises; go to bed on time and do not stay awake late; eat at the good time with reasonable nutrition; take medicines on time and the most important thing in keep my mind at ease. Here’s what I want to remind PLHA: “Let’s always be optimistic with hope and dream. Once we have hope and dream, we will be able to do things the others cannot do. Abort your own self stigma and ignore discrimination by the society. With healthy lifestyle and love toward life, I do believe that we will live without regret to the end of our life.  Don’t compare or request from life or the other! Live for yourself! Your life is controlled by yourself!”

Try to live in my way, you’ll see that everything is normal as what it is. I wish you all have enough energy to overcome difficulty in your life.

 TVH

Nghi Luc (Energy) group– Tuyen Quang