The News No Parent Wants to Hear

Special Guest Feature to Writing Mamas: Denise Becker hails from Vancouver, British Columbia and offers this moving piece about receiving tragic news and then turning tragedy into positive change.

In 1993, I was 34 and had been with my partner for almost four years when we had our first child, a baby girl named Katie. She was born five weeks prematurely, but healthy. She came home after just a week.

However, when Katie was just five months old, she got a terrible cold and eventually was rushed to British Columbia’s Children’s Hospital Intensive Care Unit in Vancouver. The doctor diagnosed her with pneumonia. After some tests, bacterial pneumonia was ruled out and then other tests were conducted to isolate the type of viral pneumonia.

That week, the pediatrician took me aside and said she had some personal questions. I was surprised and wondered what she was going to ask. Where was I born? Had I been in contact with Tuberculosis? I smiled and said no. I told her I thought she was going to ask about my sex life or something and laughed. I had momentarily thought of AIDS because “Philadelphia” was playing at the movies and I think everyone was second guessing themselves. I had just four relationships before I was 30 and met my partner; I knew that was comparatively few.

“And anyway, they would have tested me for AIDS during pregnancy, right?”

“No” she said, “they don’t test unless they specifically ask you and get your permission. Quite often it is a judgment call. Do you give your permission for us to test Katie for that?”

I frowned and tried to sound unperturbed, “Of course, test for anything.”

I thought about the guys I had previously known. I once heard on a radio show that if you wanted to be safe you should ask your partner if they had any illnesses. I had followed that advice. I even suggested a condom. I was on the pill and in the late 80s, women were more worried about getting pregnant than STDs. If my partner didn’t want to wear a condom, I didn’t want to make a fuss. I was incredibly naive.

After I left the hospital that day, I went to see my husband at his workplace and told him I was worried. He laughed.

“Oh Denise, you’re such a hypochondriac”. It was true, whatever the illness of the day was, I figured I had it.

About four hours later my home phone rang: “Hi, I’m a nurse at the ICU, when do you think you will next be in the hospital?” I told him it would be tomorrow morning around 9 a.m. He hung up the phone. My gut told me something was wrong and immediately I called back, another person picked up.

“This is Denise, Katie Becker’s mother.”

“Yes, we know who you are.”

“I’m coming to the hospital right now unless you tell me what’s going on.”

“We’ve had some results…”

My kneecaps began to tremble, I felt out of control and my mind was pleading… “please don’t say it, please don’t say it.”

“Katie’s tested positive for HIV.”

I was totally in shock, I couldn’t speak.

“But she’s got something called CMV too; it’s inconclusive, we need to test her again.”

I heard myself ask “What’s the percentage chance she has it?”

“80%.”

“That’s one hell of a lot,” I was trying hard not to cry.

“Yes. We need you and your husband to come down and get HIV tests tomorrow morning.”

As I put down the phone, I heard my husband arrive in the next room. I walked in and he stared at my face, I was white as a ghost. We sat on the sofa, not speaking. It was just unbelievable. I finally started to cry. “What are we going to do?”

“Well, we have a baseball game tonight. We have to carry on like normal.”

And so that night we played baseball, one of the most surreal moments of my life. Everyone was asking how Katie was and I pretended she was getting better. It was like a terrible, twisted nightmare.

We had to wait a whole week for the results to come back.

Finally the nurse called us to come in and the doctor sadly told us that I had HIV, Katie had AIDS and my husband was not infected.

We didn’t tell our parents or friends, we were afraid of what would happen. We only told my sister, she was a physiotherapist. The helplessness of the situation and the secrecy were unbearable.

Katie came home and in late August I was injecting her with morphine every two hours. She died at nine months of age in her stroller. I was glad she was out of her misery.

As the years went by, I was silent while friends made comments and jokes about “those people with AIDS.” I decided by hiding my diagnosis I was just adding to the stigma and after being approached by a support group, I agreed to work with a local journalist, which in turn led to local and national TV and radio appearances. I became a speaker at hospitals, parent groups, hospices, conferences and talked to teens in schools. I knew that this disease might be avoided if people had more self-esteem and had a personal plan in sexual situations.

Today, if people find out they are HIV positive they can take medication which not only lengthens their survival rate, but also means there is a much smaller chance of them passing on the virus. In addition, if a woman is tested prior to or during pregnancy and is on HIV medication, she has less than a 2% chance of passing on the virus to her baby. This is why it is imperative that people are tested and those living in third world countries get medication too.

After reading this, I hope people will try not to judge others and will think hard about their own personal health strategy.