THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 20, 1995 TAG: 9510200718
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JENNIFER RIDDLE, HIGH SCHOOL CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Long : 219 lines
WHEN YOU SPEAK to 25-year-old Holly Moskovitz on the telephone, you can't tell that she suffers from frequent bouts of fevers, nausea, diarrhea, weight loss and chronic fatigue.
When you see Holly on the streets, you can't tell that her body requires 12 medications and an I.V. treatment every day just to stay healthy enough to function.
When you meet Holly, shake her hand and exchange words at a restaurant or in a store, you would never know that she has AIDS.
``To me, the No. 1 reason that people are still contracting this disease is because they feel that they are exempt and that they could spot an AIDS patient a mile away,'' Holly said in a recent interview at her Virginia Beach home.
Holly sat on her couch, flanked by end tables stacked with books and pamphlets about AIDS. On the coffee table in front of her was her release, a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, half completed.
``They expect us to all be thin, have no hair and a visible rash that would separate us from others in a crowd,'' Holly said. ``But what they don't seem to understand is that not all AIDS patients suffer from the disease in the same way, and that some of us look normal all the way up until the time of death.''
HIV entered Holly's life in 1992. She was't a drug dealer; she wasn't a prostitute. Holly wasn't even promiscuous. Her mistake was one that thousands of people have made - she had sex without a condom.
Holly believes that her lack of knowledge about HIV and AIDS played a major role in that decision.
``I didn't know the first thing about the HIV virus or AIDS back then,'' Holly said. ``In school, they taught us the basics about sex and a lot about pregnancy, but AIDS was a very small and discreet part of the curriculum.
``AIDS was something you rarely heard about and never gave much thought to. Today, people don't have those kind of excuses - the facts about AIDS are everywhere, no matter how hard you try to close your eyes to it.''
When Holly began to get ill in July 1992, she believed it was nothing more than a common flu. But when doctors saw that she was also suffering from fatigue and a serious urinary tract infection, Holly was asked to take her first in a series of HIV antibody tests.
The results that came that summer day in 1992 were negative. The doctors became even more confused when Holly's health took a turn for the worse. They considered lupus, Epstein-Barr virus and coxsackie-B virus, three illnesses whose symptoms closely resemble those of AIDS.
Holly took a second HIV antibody test. Again, the results were negative. (In some people, it can take up to six months for the antibodies to show up in testing.)
``The tests said I wasn't HIV positive, so I counted that diagnosis off the list and moved on to other ideas,'' she said. ``When October came around and I was back at work and feeling better, I just figured I had recovered from whatever was ailing me and I put it out of my mind.'' PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER
It was the next March when Holly got sick again. Although she was again suffering fatigue and a urinary tract infection, it wasn't until she started experiencing unbearable stomach pains that Holly was admitted to the emergency room at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital.
Holly was treated for PID, or pelvic inflammatory disease. Even though PID is a condition suffered by many female AIDS patients, Holly's HIV status was never questioned.
Holly's health continued to worsen. She developed thrush, a fungal infection that caused white spots and painful sores in her throat. The doctors sent her to Virginia Beach General Hospital for throat cultures, and still no one suspected AIDS.
Amazingly, after 22 weeks of a continuous urinary tract infection, Holly's health returned to normal. Everything seemed to be fine.
Holly went about her life as usual that summer. Holly, who was born and raised in Hampton Roads, owned a small T-shirt company in Virginia Beach and, after regaining her strength, was able to return to her business.
``It was January of 1993 that things started to get real bad for me again,'' Holly remembered. ``I had never felt so sick in my entire life. The thrush was out of control.''
She had lost 40 pounds.
``Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, my hair started to fall out,'' Holly said. ``The funny thing is that my doctor thought that I was just stressed out and gave me anti-anxiety pills to calm me down.''
Suffering a third urinary tract infection and chronic fatigue, Holly was asked to take her third and final HIV test April 1, 1993.
``My mother was in the hospital for surgery, and my grandparents and stepfather were all with me in the waiting room,'' she recalled. ``I don't know what possessed me to . . . get my results at that time. All I can remember was how paralyzed I felt when they said I was positive.'' LEARNING TO LIVE
Holly's family was very supportive, and as her health worsened with terrible bouts of herpes and thrush, her friends pleaded with her to see an infectious-disease specialist.
Holly spent the week after her diagnosis submerged in books, learning about the disease while she awaited her T-cell count, a lab test that would indicate the stage of her disease.
Holly learned that a person's T-cells are the direction-giving cells in the immune system and that the average person's T-cell count runs between 600 and 1,200. When Holly's doctor told he that her T-cell count was a mere 7, she began to make plans for her own funeral and to get her affairs in order.
``A book I read told me that if you had less than 50 T-cells, you were going to die in a matter of months or even weeks,'' she said. ``I was so obsessed with the idea that I had so little time left that I sold my business and started to tell people goodbye.''
``Then it hit me. I had never given up a fight in my life, and I wasn't about to just lay down and die now. If AIDS was going to take away my life, it was going to have to struggle with me first.''
Holly began to learn how to live with the disease. The depression wasn't always easy to handle, especially when she thought about all the things in life she would never have or all her dreams that would never be realized.
``The hardest thing to cope with is the fact that I can never be a mother,'' she said. ``But that's where my friend really came through for me though - she gave me my dog, Spaz, and he is the next best thing to being able to have my own children.
``He is a reminder that I am not alone.'' DISCOVERING THE TRUTH
In May, a month after her diagnosis, Holly began wondering how she had become infected. She started by contacting the three men with whom she had been intimate in the past two years and asked them to get tested. The process was slow, and to keep herself busy, Holly offered to help the community by providing AIDS-awareness lectures.
``I began to give speeches for the Tidewater AIDS Crisis Taskforce, speaking in front of many different kinds of groups,'' Holly said. ``It gave me the opportunity to tell others about my fears, my anger and what they can and should do to prevent such a serious situation from happening in their lives.''
It was at one of those lectures that Holly spotted a former boyfriend in one of the back rows. He looked frail and sick.
Afterward, she approached him.
Why are you here? she asked him.
I just thought I'd check it out, he said.
They talked about AIDS. He said he didn't have the virus.
In July 1994, she attended his funeral.
How did he die, Holly asked his family.
It was AIDS. Holly was upset, not only because he didn't tell her but also because he didn't fight to stay alive longer. His family said that he just sort of gave up.
After that, Holly got even more involved in the AIDS-awareness movement, participating in lectures and one-on-one talks with teens and raising money in the Hampton Roads AIDS Walk. Helping to educate the community also helps her to deal with the disease.
``It's almost a feeling of relief that every time I have educated someone I am helping to make up for my mistake,'' Holly said. ``There was no one there to tell me that I should be protected because of AIDS, so now I am here for others. I'm a living example for people to learn from.''
Today, Holly's main objectives are to stay as healthy as possible and to prevent teenagers from falling into a lifestyle that they may soon regret. Her message is: People need to learn that AIDS is a threat to everyone, not just the promiscuous, the intravenous-drug users and the homosexuals. All sorts of people contract the HIV virus, and when Holly speaks to teenagers, she is quick to point out that all the rumors about who can and can't get it aren't true.
``If anybody suffers from a bad case of denial, it's teenagers,'' Holly said. ``They have this incredible belief that they are invincible, so I usually give them my two main pieces of advice. Number 1: No, not everyone is having sex. Number 2: If you do insist on having intercourse, be smart and at least use a condom.
``Oh, and I also like to remind girls that if they are embarrassed to ask a guy to use a condom, then they shouldn't be having sex at all.''
Through her friends, family and the inspiration Holly gets from her work with TACT, she has learned to accept and to cope with her illness.
Accepting it and facing it every day is what helps her to have the strength to keep going and not to give up. One thing that she doesn't do is blame anyone else for her situation.
``I infected myself, and I know that I am the one to blame because I didn't practice safe sex,'' Holly said, stroking Spaz, who had sat in her lap throughout the interview. ``It just shows that everyone (who has sex) is at risk, no matter how safe you think you are with your partner.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
BETH BERGMAN/The Virginian-Pilot\ Holly Moskovitz, who has AIDS,
finds comfort with her dogs, Spaz, left, and Gizmo. Because she was
not in any of the high-risk groups, Holly was shocked by her
diagnosis.
Holly takes 12 different types of medicine every day in her battle
against the illnesses that accompany AIDS.
Photo
Jennifer Riddle is a senior at Lake Taylor High School.
Graphic
HIV/AIDS BY THE NUMBERS
HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. People are diagnosed as HIV
positive when HIV antibodies (antibodies are proteins that our
bodies make to fight germs) are found in the blood.
People infected with HIV can develop many health problems,
including severe pneumonia, extreme weight loss and a certain form
of cancer. These illnesses signal the onset of AIDS. It can take 11
years or longer for the virus to become full-blown AIDS.
In South Hampton Roads, more than 57 teenagers aged 13 to 19 are
HIV positive.
Doesn't sound like many, huh? Maybe just two classrooms full of
students.
Well, consider this. Many HIV-positive young adults (aged 20 to 29)
were probably infected with the virus as teens. Locally, there are
862 people in this age group who have tested postive for HIV.
Nine teens and 320 young adults have been diagnosed with AIDS.
Virginia Department of Health statistics, through June 30.
by CNB