QUINCY, Ill. (AP) - Some dates never leave you. Some experiences are so painful or so joyous, that the moment they occur is instantly and forever etched in your memory.
Tamara Mayfield’s most painful date is June 13, 2003, the day she, at seven months pregnant, found herself HIV-positive. Her smile — her shine as she calls it — hangs resilient, even as she relives the emotional, physical and sexual abuses that occurred from ages 5 to 17. Born in Hannibal, Missouri, and raised in the church, her struggles have torn her away from organized religion, but she is still quick to mention her faith.
“I’m at a place right now where I don’t really know what I believe in,” she said, “but I do believe in something.”
A geographic change — a spur-of-the-moment move to Florida as a young adult — did not provide the escape she had hoped. She’d fled the abuse but didn’t address the underlying trauma of her childhood. She saw the trip as a chance to reconnect with her absent father, who spent her childhood cycling through the prison system and also had opted for a new start in Florida.
She met “the guy” who infected her only days after making the move.
“Coming from here, I thought I knew a little bit about the world, but I really didn’t,” she said. “It was my responsibility to protect myself, and I didn’t. We all have a choice, and that split-second decision could lead you this way or lead you that way.”
The man was fresh out of prison and addicted to crack cocaine. His erratic behavior sparked Mayfield’s curiosity, and she asked him to let her try it. He turned her down, but she found other avenues.
“I tried it,” she said. “At first, I was just like, ’Really?’ Then out of habit, I started doing it with him.”
As the habit progressed, she fell into a dazed waking reality, staying up for days on end and constantly looking to dull the pain of the past.
“I was pregnant, going to doctor appointments, and I knew if they found cocaine in my system, they were going to take my kid,” she said. “That’s what I thought they were calling me for at the seven-month checkup.”
The work day was drawing to a close as Mayfield sat in the waiting room of her doctor’s office 14 years ago. She watched all the other patients come and go, nervously waiting for her name to be called, sure the doctors had discovered her crack addiction. The office had tested her blood, but cocaine was not the reason for the visit.
“I think I might have passed out or something. I just remember coming up off the floor,” she said. “They gave me a Xanax, and repeated it — that I’m HIV-positive. I was seven months, and I didn’t know.”
She was immediately put on antiretroviral drugs, which would help prevent the spread of the disease to her unborn child but could do nothing to counter the possibility that the baby had already contracted it.
“A lot of tears after that. I smoked a lot of dope,” she said. “I honestly started thinking I was like a bad person in my past life.”
She spent the night before giving birth to her first son smoking crack, and now blames herself for going into premature labor.
“You can feel how the baby is moving when the drugs enter your body,” she said. “It’s the most horrible thing that I’ve ever done to somebody.”
A lifetime of pain has strengthened her. The only tears come with the acknowledgment her son was born healthy and HIV-free.
“To know that he’s going to be OK was a breath of fresh air and a weight off my shoulders,” she said. “He has a fresh start.”
Mayfield said she never strayed in the relationship and believes it was her boyfriend’s infidelities that led to her contracting the virus. Loneliness and obligation kept them together for almost a year and a half after the birth of their son.
“I stayed with him because I had his kid, and I didn’t know anybody else down there,” she said.
When she severed the relationship, she brought her son back to Hannibal to live with her mother, and she returned south to spend a couple more years in the haze.
“I wasn’t ready for him. I wasn’t ready for HIV. I wasn’t done smoking,” she said. “I knew he was not in the right place, so I took him home.”
Nursing a full-blown crack addiction, Mayfield had been awake for several days when a neighbor in the flop house where she was staying was found murdered.
“I called my mom. I don’t even know what I said,” she said. “They sent my sister and brother down to find me. They looked for a week, but couldn’t find me. They came back later, and I closed my eyes, and the next thing I know, I’m back (in Hannibal).”
She hasn’t smoked crack since. The pattern of old behaviors that guided her in Florida wouldn’t work back home. She was pregnant again — tired and detoxing, she decided to start over.
She began dating the man who would father her youngest child and disclosed her condition to him. They have since parted ways.
“Disclosure is a must,” she said. “I disclose to everyone, because I wasn’t disclosed to.”
By disclosing to potential partners, she feels she is giving them a choice she didn’t receive. While each situation is different, the conversations are almost always uncomfortable for Mayfield.
“I’ve gotten kind of inventive in ways of doing it,” she said, “and I’m very vocal on Facebook, so everyone knows, but still, I disclose.”
She became engaged to her boyfriend of four years on April 5, another date she will forever remember. Her shine radiates whenever she glances down at the new ring.
“When I disclosed to him, I just asked if he saw my Facebook cover. ’It is what it is, dude,’ ” she said. “He’s a cancer survivor, and he’s so down-to-earth, because he’s gone through his own thing. I’ve found my soul mate.”
The night before she spoke with The Herald-Whig, she disclosed her condition to her three children. They may not have fully grasped the severity of her diagnosis, but she needed to be the one to tell them that her condition is managed, and that they are all HIV-free. She posted the video of her conversation to her Facebook page, “I am the Face of HIV.”
By following a strict medication regimen, her HIV levels have dropped to an untransmittable rate, but not before she lost some friendships and relationships because of stereotypes and stigma associated with the virus.
“I’ve had people depart from it. I lost a best friend. I’ve been with people whose family didn’t want me around,” she said. “Once people get to know me, I can see they feel bad.”
According to the Department of Public Health, 24 Adams County residents are living with HIV. According to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services Bureau, 17 Marion County residents were living with HIV as of 2016.
Now a Quincy resident, Mayfield knows she is not the only one in the region afflicted with the virus, but she might be the most vocal.
“HIV is not going to stop my shine,” she said.
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Source: The Quincy Herald-Whig, https://bit.ly/2sIwSB4
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Information from: The Quincy Herald-Whig, https://www.whig.com
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