For Teens With HIV, It’s an Edgy ‘Positive Life’

Adolescence is difficult at best. So picture what it’s like to turn 13 and be HIV positive. When you’ve grown up knowing you weren’t expected to survive childhood, much less worry about prom dates and college choices. When you feel so different yet want so much to be accepted by your peers.

New AIDS drug treatments are now helping many of the HIV-infected children in this country--an estimated 10,000 under the age of 19--survive and grow into adulthood. What that means on a personal level is the subject of “The Positive Life,” a special 22-minute report airing today on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.”

Produced by Minnesota Public Radio’s American RadioWorks, the slice-of-life report profiles three young people--Tanya, 15; Mark, 18; and Tenisha, 12--whose adolescent angst goes hand-in-hand with AIDS concerns. Tanya was infected through a blood transfusion shortly after birth; Tenisha’s mother didn’t know she was HIV-positive when she became pregnant; Mark, a hemophiliac, received contaminated blood products.

Each of the young people was supplied with a tape recorder and it is their voices--a little edgy sometimes, determinedly upbeat, thoughtful, anxious--and the voices of friends and family that bring home what kind of territory these young survivors are pioneering.

Tanya, with feisty bravado, wonders why any boy would want to date her. “Why would he? Nobody has a crush on Tanya. She’s the AIDS-infected girl.”

Athletic, high-energy Tenisha is hurt when her grandmother dons gloves and uses bleach to disinfect her cuts and scrapes. It’s a reminder that she has “dangerous” blood.

Mark kept his HIV status a secret through junior high and high school in order to be seen as “a normal kid.” “I didn’t want to get beat up and made fun of every day because I had AIDS.” Now in college, he was relieved by his roommates’ “underwhelmed” response when he revealed his secret.

The societal stigma, loss of family members or the withdrawal of family and friends, the daily drug regimen, the physical differences the drugs can cause--stunted growth, delayed puberty, painful side-effects--these are reality for children infected with HIV and AIDS. Movingly, this report makes clear, that reality also includes hope.

* “The Positive Life” will air today during the hour of “All Things Considered” that begins at 1 p.m. on KPCC-FM (89.3) and at 5 p.m. on KCRW-FM (89.9).