All too often we as People living with HIV. Struggle to make meaning in our lives. my friend in Montreal has struggled with this and is at the end of the battle. You see he decided 5 months ago that he no longer could live with the effects of the medications and he stopped taking them. I understand completely the side effects of some of these medications are harsh. We are discovering that he had split up with his partner and was gathering debit.
All of his friends are trying to understand. In response I asked my friends on Facebook:
Brandon Williams is trying to help a friend make sense of another friends decision and is asking, If you had a choice between Quality of life vs Quantity of life what would you choose?
Everyone said Quality!
Not surprising one person wrote: "If you choose quanity over quality, you could end up living a long life that means nothing instead of a short life where you can make a difference..."
"success in medicine is defined as quantity primarily. the longer one is alive the better. family members often pressure the patients i follow to stay on dialysis even when the individual has expressed they want to withdrawal treatment. i watched my mother die of brain cancer and she was kept alive, vegetative, because once a treatment is started in that case, it can't be stopped. she wasn't on life support, but it made me realize that medicine often crosses the line, we see death as bad and failure in western medicine - don't ask me how it should look, but i do believe in the right to die"
"quality of life- it is not the monitary quality, it is personal quality- die after having said goodbye- tie up relationships. If you are paliative don't take antibiotics. Extra days worrying about making it just one more day to mark on the calendar is very different to extra days where you are spending it with the people you love, things you love and doing what you want."
These statement asked me to ponder the thought that meaning making or living life with purpose, or on purpose makes taking our medications and quantity of life worth it.
I struggle to understand why it is that even with recent research on "Having a higher purpose in life reduces risk of death among older adults" why does this not apply to people living with HIV / AIDS in Canada? Through the Denver Principals we created G.I.P.A. (The greater Involvement of people living with HIV / AIDS) which is slowly morphing into M.I.P.A ( Meaningful Involvement of People Living with HIV / AIDS). I have always asked "Who determines what give someone meaning and who explores with PHAs how the community can best utilize those skills."
Who in our community will help an individual explore what gives them meaning? I mean yes the community has provided services that will facilitate the meaning once you know what it is however this is not always the case.
Victor Frankel in his book "Man's search for meaning" speaks about the Existential Vacuum. He says: Let us consider, for instance, "Sunday Neurosis," that kind of depression which afflicts people who become aware of the lack of contentment in their lives when the rush of the busy week is over and the void within themselves becomes manifest. Not a few cases suicide can be tracked back to this existential vacuum. Such widespread phenomena as depression, aggression and addiction are not understandable unless we recognize the existential vacuum underlying them.This is also true of the crisis of pensioners and aging people. " We all have experienced this. I have lost many friends to this Neurosis.
It is fine that we have medications that are working and from my memory of the early days of HIV their was the debate of Quality over Quantity before the age of HAART. Now that the choice is available we have nothing but to question, What is the purpose of taking our medications? Living in poverty. In a culture that promotes that we commit crimes by selling either our bodies or our overly prescribed medications that have street value.
What meaning does this bring to PHAs?
What purpose does it serve the community to prevent us form having a meaningful life?
What purpose does it serve the pharmaceutical companies if we have no purpose to take our medications?
My friend made a choice. He chose quality as everyone would.
