Word: hiv
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...paper, they are the lucky ones, the 10,000 or so children and and adolescents living with HIV in the United States. They have access to the latest anti-HIV drugs, powerful medications that can keep the virus at bay and, for all intents and purposes, keep them alive long enough for them to date, attend college, marry, and start families of their own. They are indeed fortunate - although living with HIV, even in the U.S., remains a challenge. But these young pioneers - many of them among the first to test antiretroviral (ARV) medications against HIV - are teaching doctors valuable...
...patients like Cristina Pena hope for. Now a 22-year-old college student in Los Angeles, Pena was infected at birth by her mother, who was unaware that Pena's father, now deceased, had transmitted the virus to her before she became pregnant. Pena knows nothing but living with HIV, although she didn't always know what HIV was. When Pena was young, her mother told her that the medications she took every day were for ear infections, and, Pena says, "you believe your parents." When she was nine, she finally asked her mother about the drugs and learned...
...After learning about her HIV status, she says she definitely started taking her medications more seriously. "But it was an ongoing struggle. I did feel sick most of the time - I had nausea and diarrhea. The medicine gave me a bitter, bitter, bitter taste that would come back up in my throat hours later in school. If I could get away with not taking them, I would." Knowing the truth also meant that Pena began living a double life. Only her closest friends knew her diagnosis; most of her classmates were unaware of the daily battle she fought with HIV...
...everyone, she notes that since she is part of the first generation of kids who will spend their lives taking ARVs, they and their doctors will also have to take responsibility for what their lifelong regimen looks like. "There is an ongoing battle between researchers and HIV," she says, "and there is still much trial and error. Everything keeps changing. Treatment has changed, and the way people look at treatment has changed. And caught up in between are everyone's individual lives. We all have so much to learn from one another, and I don't think that there...
...What will work for anyone affected by HIV, however, is learning how to find strength and hope from each other. "I just want other people with HIV to know that it doesn't stop me from reaching my goals in life," says Alisha Saleem, 20, a Florida college student who has lived with HIV for her whole life. "If you have a strong, positive attitude, you know that you can still achieve anything whether you have the illness or not. I take my medicines every day, and it's hard. Sometimes I don't want to take them...