“Dr. Chen, will I get AIDS if I touch the splashed urine in the public toilet? “
“Dr. Chen, I was walking on the street and an unknown body fluid flowed onto my head, will I get infected? “
“Dr. Chen, someone used my toothbrush today, will I get infected? “
“Dr. Chen, I came to your office without a mask, will I get infected? “
“After going to the bathroom, my butt touched the door handle when I lifted my pants ……”
“Someone else touched my underwear ……”
“Dr. Chen! ” “Dr. Chen? ” “Dr. Chen! “
“Will I get an infection! ” “Will I get infected? ” “Will I get AIDS! “
……
This is the daily work of Dr. Chen Xiaoyu of the Chengdu AIDS Intervention Center.
He once said, “If I had to get one of AIDS, hypertension, diabetes, coronary heart disease or cancer, I would choose AIDS because it is not as scary as people think. “
-1.
Undercover work among drug addicts
I am a native of Leshan, Sichuan Province, and have been working on AIDS prevention and treatment for more than 20 years. My work can be divided into two phases. Before 2008, I focused on HIV interventions for the drug-using community.
In the 1990s, Sichuan and Yunnan were the first two provinces to start AIDS interventions for drug users because of the huge number of drug users who shared needles, which led to an AIDS Epidemic.
We were also given this task at the epidemic prevention station. At that Time, the AIDS epidemic was growing rapidly, causing a lot of social fear, and no one was willing to take up the work voluntarily. The epidemic prevention station had to catch strong men, and I was eventually caught.
Based on the clues given by the police station, I started to look for drug addicts and began my 20-year-long work on AIDS prevention and treatment.
The first drug addict I contacted was nicknamed “Little Ebian” because he was active in a place called Ebian County.
Following a trail, I found my way deep into a bamboo forest. A farmer told me that “Xiao Ebian” was renting a pigsty in his house!
I ran to see, very shocked: really is an abandoned pigsty, not even wind, can only be considered a place to keep out the rain; what furniture is not, only some grain grass and cotton wool, “small Ebian “Little Ebian” and his wife were sleeping on it.
Xiao’ebian” is very alert. He was not tall and his face was a bit fierce. I introduced myself nervously and said I was a doctor from the epidemic prevention station and wanted to know about their health. He said impatiently, “We are dying people, do not need your concern. “
I had to leave with my head in the sand, and the investigation did not make any progress.
The next day I went back, I bought them some Food, and once again sincerely introduced him to health. He was surprised because he had no idea before that sharing syringes could lead to HIV, syphilis, hepatitis B and other diseases. Hearing this, he got serious and started to be willing to talk to me.
This was the first person I approached for intervention. He was both a drug addict and later an HIV-infected person.
Little Ebian” took me to visit other drug users. Following him, I learned a lot of their code words and codes, and I felt like an undercover agent.
Through Ebenezer, I have been working with drug addicts for six years and have reached more than 4,000 people. Once trust was established, regular training was organized and syringes were given out – 30 syringes one month and you could trade them in for new ones the next. It sounds like we are condoning drug use, but we can only do so much from the standpoint of AIDS prevention and control, and the local public security authorities are tacitly agreeing and will not come to arrest people. Otherwise, my little Life would have been lost.
-2-
A time of crisis
This is not a joke! Although drug addicts do not have to be vicious people, but when drug addiction, they are basically out of their minds.
Many of our local thefts and robberies are done by drug addicted people. Contact with them every day, I naturally can not avoid encountering such dangers. This also made me have deep doubts about this job, the deepest one was in 2003.
That day, I followed my informant to a dry toilet by the highway, and as soon as I entered, I froze. There were six or seven drug addicts injecting inside. They thought I was a public security officer, and they exploded, and a few of them pulled out spring-loaded knives and came after me with syringes.
I ran for four or five kilometers before I lost them. That was the first time I was in such a dangerous situation, and I still shiver when I think about it.
I was also threatened by drug addicts in the office. Of course, in addition to being threatened, being stolen is a common occurrence.
Once, a drug addict came to see me. Because long-term intravenous injections cause hardening of the blood vessels, they would turn to arterial injections, and as a result, the wounds became easily infected. That day, I was helping a junkie look at a wound on his thigh, when two other junkies took the opportunity to go around the back, cut the cord to my computer with scissors, picked it up and ran.
In short, I was either having something stolen or threatened. They would threaten not only me, but also my Family. I often dreamed that they were chasing me.
At that time, 90% of the people I faced were drug addicts. The psychological pressure was very high, and despite all the effort, I could never see any hope.
In 2005, my motivation was finally depleted.
But just when I was ready to give up, I met a special infected person.
-3 –
Reason to persist
That day, there was a graduate of Tsinghua. Our kind of place can get into Tsinghua is very good.
He was gay and had been to a gay bathroom once, so he wanted to come for an HIV test. Because there was only one time, he and I thought it would be fine, but the test result turned out to be positive!
Not to mention him, even I had a hard time accepting it. My mind was racing, but I couldn’t figure out how to comfort him. He just sat there with his head down, not saying anything. That day, I put off all my work and stayed with him, hoping to make him feel better.
A month later, the provincial CDC gave the final diagnosis – a positive result. At that time, there was no cure for AIDS, and if you had it, you could only wait for death. So he had to explain to his family. I said I could inform the family on his behalf.
I lost sleep that night and kept thinking of the best way to say it.
The next day, he brought his mother with him. I said very vaguely, “Your son has accidentally contracted AIDS without knowing it. “
“What? It’s AIDS? She fainted after hearing that. I was so shocked that I gave her glucose and pinched her, and it took her a while to wake up. After waking up, the first thing she did was to kneel down to me.
“Doctor, he is still so young, you must save him! You must save him! I’ll repay you with my old life! “
Every time I talk about this incident, I still feel very bad inside. His Parents were both laid-off workers, and it was not easy to raise such a college student. Now, she doesn’t ask for her son to have a good future, just for him to survive.
It was at that moment that I was touched. Yes, the AIDS population is not only drug addicts, but also homosexuals, heterosexuals, and all kinds of people …… Facing AIDS, all people are susceptible.
I suddenly realized that, in addition to reaching out to drug users, I could also promote and intervene with teenagers, homosexuals and sex workers in entertainment venues. I believe this can also prevent more tragedies from happening.
This is the reason I persisted.
But there is another group outside of the drug-using community that is growing larger by the day, and the problems they reveal have always overwhelmed me.
-4.
The first “homophobe”
On December 2, 2003, the day after International AIDS Day, I came into contact with a special counselor.
It was a woman whose husband was a soldier in Tibet and was separated from her husband for many years. She was worried that her husband might be having sex outside of Marriage, so she came to me for an HIV test, which was negative.
However, the next day, she showed up at my office again and said she wanted to ask me some questions. I patiently gave her answers. On the third day, she came back.
For more than a month after that, she came every day, arriving earlier than I did at work, either not feeling well here or having problems there. She said, “I’m sorry, Dr. Chen, I’m still worried. As long as I come to the office to see you, my heart will be a little more secure. “
I felt particularly creepy when I saw her! But her state was really painful, but she couldn’t get rid of it. Slowly, I found more and more people like this.
Later, when I talked to Ms. Zhang about this, I learned that this is a mental illness.
5
Timely intervention
The number of people who are “Islamophobic” is comparable to the number of people who are actually infected with HIV, which is more than 1 million.
These “homophobes” continue to wonder if they are infected with AIDS even after they have tested negative for HIV. They are very fearful of AIDS and have a variety of psychological symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and compulsion, as well as physical symptoms such as rapid heartbeat, difficulty breathing, and even a sense of near death.
Intervention at the beginning is the most effective. As soon as they know that their worries are superfluous, the symptoms will then disappear.
For example, last year, a 17-year-old student from Yunnan came to me for advice. He had picked up an adult product on his way Home from evening classes, used it out of curiosity, and developed a urinary tract infection. But he didn’t know it was a urinary tract infection, and when he searched the Internet, he was inundated with claims. Some said that if someone else’s bodily fluids were left inside and the user had a wound on his genitals, there was a risk of contracting AIDS. He was terrified and thought he must have been infected.
It was more than three months before his college entrance exams, but he was in such a poor state of mind that he couldn’t go to school normally. He was afraid to talk to anyone, and even when his parents sent him to a counselor, he kept quiet. The unspeakable pressure gave rise to even greater fears.
Then he saw the information about our center on the Internet and came to us.
I told him that it was impossible for him to get infected because the conditions for infection were not present. First of all, the sex toy is just a prop, not a “source of infection”; secondly, the urethral opening is not a wound, it is impossible to form an exchange of bodily fluids. So his behavior is completely safe. I let him go to the prescription of a little Medicine, eat four days, the urinary tract infection is cured.
He also recovered well mentally and soon returned to school to prepare for the college entrance exams and ended up getting into a very good school.
-7-
A 7-year late intervention
There are also some people who, because they did not receive timely intervention, developed serious psychological problems.
One older brother from Tangshan, Hebei Province, had been agoraphobic for seven years when he came to counseling. He went to a massage parlor to buy sex when his wife was pregnant. Although he used condoms, he always suspected that the condoms provided by the other party were unreliable and felt that they would harm him and then he would infect his wife and child. The more he thought about it, the more anxious he became.
I patiently explained to him that the other party provided condoms more for his own protection, and that as long as you used them correctly, it was a safe act.
But he couldn’t listen. After two phone consultations, he suspected that I was not really “Dr. Chen”. His delusions of victimhood were so severe that I suggested he go to a psychiatric clinic. He yelled, “You’re the one with mental problems! “
Later he reported me through various platforms and also called the Health Care Commission and the Department of Health to report me.
In fact, there are many cases like this. They have been “Islamophobic” for too long, and each person has a different psychological problem, which is very difficult to unravel.
-8-
“I’m going to kill you.”
There is a wide variety of people who are homophobic, from teenagers to the elderly, from teachers to retired cadres; 80% of them may be men, but there are also many women.
The reasons for their fear of AIDS vary: lack of understanding of the disease itself, urban legends that add fuel to the fire, a poor Internet information environment, violence in intimate relationships, or the stigmatization of AIDS in society at large can feed this fear.
But in reality, people who are afraid of AIDS often don’t actually contract it. In all these years, I have only met one fearful person who eventually tested HIV positive.
However, such fears are still very real and can lead to the development of severe Islamophobic symptoms, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder or paranoia, after being trapped in the shadows for a long time. These fears are hard to find an outlet for, and people who are unable to control their fears or understand their misfortune turn to attacking an Islamophobia intervention center, which becomes their only outlet for venting.
The center became the only outlet for them to vent their fears. We moved several times because some of the “homophobes” kept coming to our doors and interfering with our normal work. One of the “homophobes” that struck me was a good-looking male.
It was lunchtime, and I saw him wandering alone in the hallway, so I kindly went up and asked him about it. In the office, I briefly understood his situation. He said he had been adopted by a leader for many years and had had same-sex sex. But recently, the leader had another new love and was not so nice to him anymore. He was worried that the leader might have had sex with someone else and transmitted the disease to him.
I did an HIV test for him and it was negative. But because I did the test alone in the lab, he was very distrustful of the results. He said, “Are you lying to me? Did the leader give you a call to give me a negative report? “
“I don’t even know who your leader is, so why should I fake it? ” I thought it was ridiculous.
I did another test in front of him and it was still negative. I thought he would finally be relieved. But then he stood up, grabbed the scissors on his desk and stabbed me.
He said, “He definitely said hello to you! He knew I was coming, so he lied to me in every way possible! “
He got very emotional and trapped me in the office for over two hours. Finally a colleague got me out.
Two days later, he even came to the office with a knife and said he wanted to kill me! Very scary.
Like him, he may have developed symptoms of schizophrenia. Mere psychological guidance is no longer useful, only timely treatment.
-9-
A close friend who gives up on treatment
Usually, when an HIV-phobic person comes to counseling, we will first conduct a behavioral risk assessment, and if there has indeed been high-risk behavior, HIV testing and psychological counseling can be performed. If this does not help, and the counselor exhibits certain cognitive or behavioral problems, we will help connect the counselor with a more specialized treatment facility.
Since its inception, the Center has provided services to about 130,000 homophobes, and through the process mentioned above, 90% of the homophobes are eventually able to successfully leave.
As for AIDS itself, current antiretroviral treatment can reduce the amount of HIV in a person’s body to a very low level, and can even control the viral process to a level where it almost stops. More and more people living with HIV are able to maintain good status, and their life expectancy and quality of life have been improved to a great extent.
Moreover, China has a “four free and one care” policy, which allows infected people to receive free antiviral treatment at designated hospitals if they wish.
Being forgotten is not necessarily a bad thing
Over the years, I have changed a lot as a result of my exposure to HIV prevention and treatment. My friends around me feel that I have become more and more positive. Because I need to give some positive energy to desperate patients.
I also see life and death very thoroughly. Time is too precious, so I will spend more time with my family, exercise, help others, and cherish the present moment.
Of course, this job can also make me encounter discrimination. Sometimes, after introducing my career, some people will leave me alone. I don’t expect to be understood by everyone, it is enough for me to understand myself.
I look forward to the day when AIDS will be cured. When that day comes, there will be no more fear of AIDS, I will be laid off, I can live my own life, and I will no longer be remembered.
Sometimes it’s not a good thing to be remembered.
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