A letter to one’s own parent, translated…
Dearest Mother:
Before the doctors switched you to Complera, I’d needed to take out a pack of medication out to dispose of in the parks, public restrooms, the fast-food chain restaurants, the 24-hour super convenience shops, even the trash cans at the hospitals, that was how I’d, disposed of the evidence.
Only that I wasn’t, wearing any gloves, to prevent my fingerprints on that 12.5 by 2.3 unevenly packed. That PTP packaged pills, when you’d popped one out, it’d, made a sound.
illustration from the papers online…
I’d done so, because as I’d started taking my medication, I would dispose the used up packs careless in the trash can of my bedroom, one evening, you’d asked me around supper, “What medication were you taking? If you’re ill, go see a doctor, stop buying the drugs off the counters.” I’d immediately, calmed myself, told you, “it’s cough drops”, I’m glad, that you’d not known to search the use of Combivir.
How can I be honest to tell you, “That was prescribed to me by the physicians, something I need, to keep myself alive; two per day, for the rest of my life.”
And besides, after I was diagnosed as HIV positive, I’d gone back to the hospitals like I was supposed to every three months to get my medication, I’m no longer that naughty child who refused to take my meds anymore.
Comparing, as I’d taken my Edurant every 24 hours, it was more lowkey, the meds were smaller in size; as for the packaging, I’d disposed of it after I’d received my medications by the month, and, popped it all into my pill box, then, tossed the jars back to the hospital for recycling, then, secretly, packed up the meds into the vitamin jars.
Last year I’d switched to the once-a-day in my doctor and case manager’s recommendations, compared to the three I used to need daily, it’d become, easier, and I’d no longer needed to worry about where I should, dispose of the packaging. My CD4 immune cells and the level of the virus had been, under control, simply stated, without any accidents, I’m, to live a very long life, being your companion as you age.
Your bad son, Dragon.
And so, this person didn’t want to worry his mother about him contracting the HIV virus, that was why he’d lied to her, because, there’s that taboo about HIV, that it’s usually, contracted by having sex with an infected person, and, what sort of a medication you take is nobody else’s business but yours, and this man chose to keep the truth from his own mother, to save her the worries.