Last Two Weeks

Well,

we are less than 2 weeks away from our project finale! It's been an interesting journey. I've learned a lot along the way! Beyond the Odds has been a blessing and the many young people I've worked with are amazing! I wish them the best and excellent health. My hope is that we are able to continue the project in some capacity. Especially since each youth has expressed the need to do so. I was told it's like opening a can of worms and being told you can't go fishing any more, lol. Wow, I will really miss them. As difficult at times the project may have been there was more good than bad. Yes, for the past 3 months, I've had very little sleep. My back hurts, my skin is horrible but my spirit is good.

So for these last two weeks, I'm asking for folks to help get the word out about the project. Really, it only a week left....so, we don't have much time. Tell a friend t become a face fan, follow us on twitter and check out the new site. Remember Beyond the Odds rocks.

Toxicity

Hey folks,

Here's one of our latest blogs. Read more blogs @ www.beyondtheodds.org


Sleeping away on a mid-summer’s night alone in my bedroom with the window opened up halfway, I lay there in a dream state. Dreaming of a life other than my own I explore this other world with such vividness it's almost like I've gone into realm of my life in another dimension. I toss and I turn as I find myself walking through a dark alley with sounds of someone’s unusual footsteps getting closer and closer. I can't see anything but I have the sense that I am being stalked as I walk alone in an industrial warehouse not even knowing where I am going or why I am there. I suddenly fall into a vortex of darkness and start screaming and falling with a fear so strong I feel my body go into a complete state of paralysis.

I am awakened, gasping for air, in a cold sweat followed by a sense of hopelessness. "It was just a dream", I say to my myself. Overcome by extreme thirst and body heat, I reach for a drink of water sitting in a glass next to my bed. I drink it as if I was dying of thirst. I then sit there and stare at the ceiling trying to comfort myself as I feel my heartbeat from within. I sit on my bed and think, “Why me? Why must I go through this? Why must I take medication for HIV that makes me go through this?. Some nights I fall right back asleep. Others, there is no sleep. I take Atripla, the once a day pill used for the treatment of HIV infection. And while the single pill I take every night around ten has greatly improved my health, I've traded in the serenity of a nice evening’s rest for nights of anxiety, despair, cold sweats and insomnia only for the chance at a normal life span.

I was diagnosed with HIV in mid December 2008 and was placed on HAART (highly active
antiretroviral therapy) drugs shortly after getting situated with a primary health care provider. I started taking Atripla February 18th, 2009. The first two months were crazy! I felt so bad all the time plagued by extreme fatigue and a lot of stress. My morale was in the toilet. The regimen, honestly, is a constant reminder of my status as a 25 year-old HIV positive male. For me it’s a daily reminder of this invader in my body; a burden that will never ever go away. Twenty-five years old and I am on medication for AIDS -- it's still really hard to come to terms with that truth.

Yet, as time has progressed the side effects have greatly subsided. I am able to have a normal day relatively symptom-free in exchange for nights of elevated body temperatures, extreme thirst, mood swings and unusual dreams. I think now more than ever it's the physiological impact of taking meds that is the hardest thing for me to cope with. I try and maintain perfect adherence, but hey I am not living in a perfect world and I am not living exactly what I would consider a perfect life. So, I really don't beat myself up for not following doctor's orders, even though I know the consequences of my actions can be life threatening.

That is my reality of having HIV. While the regimens have vastly improved the prognosis of HIV/AIDS to those who are live with this affliction, taking meds is no sweet ride. I am at a point in my life where I really have to make some life-altering decisions. I recently got the news that my liver was sending a warning sign that something may be wrong when recent blood work that came back from the lab showed that I had an elevated level of an enzyme known as Alkaline Phosphatase. My doctors advised me to stop drinking because of the threat of liver damage shown in my blood work. He said, “taking anti-retro viral medication and drinking alcohol at the same time is like dumping gasoline on a fire". Great, I thought to myself. My social life is over! It's already bad enough I have to deal with HIV and now this! But the reality is if I don't limit or completely stop my binge drinking, I am setting myself up for liver damage, cirrhosis or even kidney failure. And it all comes back to the pill I must take every single night in order to have a chance at a somewhat normal life.

So for me at this point it’s one day at a time. Some days are better than others, while the nights
usually are pretty much the same. I've learned how amazing and tolerable the human body can be to suffering. Even though I take medication to suppress HIV and prevent it from ravaging my immune system, in the end I still suffer. From within my soul, I still mourn the shock and fear of having HIV and what life for me will be from here on out. Yet this amazing piece of machinery I call my body miraculously pulls through every single night. What's the purpose of life if I have to live like this? I am not sure, but I know as long as I am on HAART treatment that I will have the time and chance to figure it out and find my purpose in this not so perfect life of mine.

For Beyond the Odds, I am Sergio Mendoza.

Read more blogs @ www.beyondtheodds.org

My Diagnosis, My Words

Hey folks! Here's a recent post from B-Lady, a youth participant of Beyond the Odds. Check out the site at www.beyondtheodds.org Site relaunch date is set for August 10th!!

In January 2006, I was standing in front of my grandmother’s house by Lake Merritt in Oakland, California. It was like 10:30am. I was waiting on my best friend to come thru so I could “line him up.” This really dark skinned, southern brotha named “Bob” on the back of the 40 bus was looking all out the window. He got off the bus and walked up to me and said, “Hi.”

I was like, “Hey.” but I was on guard waiting in case I had to get real ugly.

We talked for a really long time until my best friend showed up. Quickly, we exchanged numbers and parted ways. My best friend didn’t question the situation until we went into the house. Considering that I don’t usually fool around with dark skinned men. I laughed and said, “Life is experiences.”

Two days after our first meeting, we were on the phone for hecka long at least
five hours. That's when I was like, “Well I should come over to your place. Let me get my son dressed and I'll be on my way.”

Once I got to his place, we started drinking some Patron Tequila and Seagram Schnapps and got drunk. I guess I became an easy lay as some would say. I was eighteen and didn’t know my alcohol limits.

I don’t remember much, but what I do remember is we had sex and I heard the condom break in my drunken stupor. I figured it was a gun shot in the distance, outside. It wasn't ‘til after that we discovered it had busted. But by then it was too late.

The following months were crazy. In March, I became pregnant by this person and I ended up having a miscarriage. It was not a happy time for me. In my opinion, going through a miscarriage is the worst mental state for a woman to be in. And when I told him, his response was, “that’s too bad” and offered me some candy. In May, he started telling me he had to go back home to Mississippi to be with his mother because we started coming down with the same symptoms. That's when I started
becoming really suspicious of the situation.

In June, we broke off our very unhappy courtship and I ended up very sick with the worst flu like symptoms ever and a growth on my groin stretching through to my thigh and abdominal area. Heck, I couldn’t even walk after a while. Soon, thereafter, I went to the Summit Hospital emergency room. The hospital staff explained that I contracted MRSA and could have died had I waited any longer.

In a few days of being at the hospital, I was operated on and soon after I started to walk again. I saw “Bob” on the fourth floor hospital smoking area and when I questioned whether the drug Norvir was a known HIV drug, he simply stated to me “I didn’t ask, if he was HIV positive.”

After I got out of the hospital, I ended up going back a few more times. Eventually, a nurse told me to go and get myself checked. The nurse had been my nurse every time I came to the hospital. She was a very nice person.

I took her advice. November 27th it was a rainy day I wore black and I don’t remember sleeping. I do remember, distinctly, when a white lady named Kate handed me the paper. She just slid it across the table and looked away as I read the results.

I felt like a hot egg had been cracked over my head and the hot contents were running down my body. I began laughing and then the tears came. I went numb. My mind was blank and I felt as if I was detached from my body like a third party. When I snapped out of it, I called my mom, she came, and we cried together. That’s when the white lady spoke and said that I needed to get more blood work and start my medical services.

But my stepdad, my mother's first husband who was more like my real father, was also HIV positive. So we already knew what to do. I remember wanting to just die. Wanting to walk in front of a bus, jump off the bridge or fall out and die, which by the way is a very normal way to feel after hearing this type of news. Of course, it isn't okay when you start trying to act on it. That's when you should seek help.

So far, I've come to terms with this illness. I'm not happy, but I have to deal with it. I have my son to live for as well as my little brothers and myself. Now that I know I can have children without passing the virus, I have a beautiful baby and yet another one on the way. So I discovered life was just beginning for me in a way.

Even though, I would like to be present when Satan skins “Bob” and sticks pineapples in his ass, I have no regrets. I wouldn’t change anything because it’s the messed up part of my past that defines my strong will today. I was on a destructive path and now, I have to have the will to strive. To live. It's strange but true.

For Beyond the Odds, I'm B-Lady.

www.beyondtheodds.org

An American Tragedy

Here's an interesting article on HIV/AIDS in the African American community. Check it out!

New data show the terrible toll that HIV/AIDS is taking among African Americans.

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Tuesday, July 21, 2009

DR. JEFFREY CROWLEY, director of the Office of National AIDS Policy, has been tasked by President Obama with developing a national AIDS strategy within the next year. It's long overdue and desperately needed. New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provide the starkest evidence yet that an American tragedy is underway.

While HIV/AIDS is an indiscriminate killer that cuts through every socioeconomic group in the United States, statistics from 2006, the latest available, show that the epidemic with no cure is devastating the African American community. Although blacks make up just 12 percent of the population, they account for 46 percent of those living with HIV/AIDS. There are now an estimated 56,300 new HIV infections annually, 45 percent of them by African Americans.

Men who have sex with men (MSM) continue to bear the brunt of the epidemic, with about 30,000 becoming HIV-positive each year. But young black men are hardest hit. "Young black MSM aged 13-29 . . . account for more new HIV infections than any other age or racial group of MSM," said Kevin Fenton, head of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention at the CDC. "Among MSM overall, there were more new HIV infections in young black MSM aged 13-29 than any other age or racial group of MSM."

As we learned earlier this year, the story in the District is no less grim. A report from the city's HIV/AIDS Administration revealed that African Americans account for 76 percent of the cases here. In total, 4.3 percent of the black population in the District is living with the disease, as are 6.5 percent of all black men.


These numbers should shock the conscience -- and spur action. The national strategy being crafted for the president must include efforts to destigmatize the disease and to get people tested and into treatment. HIV testing must become a routine part of medical care (akin to testing for diabetes, for instance). Work with African American civic organizations to stress the importance of testing and treatment must be accelerated. But none of this will work if all people from all ages and backgrounds don't know or refuse to learn their HIV status. This head-in-the-sand mentality cannot continue. Mr. Obama is leading by example. To mark HIV testing day last month, the White House released video that showed the Obamas getting tested during a 2006 visit to Kenya. In the District, free testing is available. Go to http://www.doh.dc.gov/hiv to find out how to follow the president's lead.

Teens Who Think They'll Die Young Take More Risks

June 29, 2009 05:37 PM ET | Nancy Shute

Teenagers tend to wildly overestimate the odds of dying young, and teenagers who think they'll be dead before age 35 are far more likely to abuse drugs, attempt suicide, get arrested, or contract HIV. Scientists have known for quite a while that teenagers tend to think that an early death is much more likely than the infinitesimally small risk it really is. What's recently been discovered, and is intriguing for teens and the people who love them, is that there seems to be a connection between having a fatalistic take on life and behaving in ways that actually make it more likely that you will die—or at least be sick and miserable—instead of blossoming into a healthy young adult.

Here's the back story: When 20,745 teenagers in grades 7 to 12 were asked about their chances of living to age 35, about 15 percent of them said there was at least a fifty-fifty chance that they would not make it. In truth, the odds of dying that young are almost vanishingly small. Interestingly, it seems that death is uniquely confounding as a risk, because teenagers aren't off base when guessing their chances of other life-changing events, including getting pregnant
, becoming a parent, being a victim of violence, or being jailed.

I think most of us parents tend to worry, on the contrary, that teenagers have a grandiose sense that they are invulnerable—that teenage "myth of invulnerability." But scientists who study human behavior and risk long ago punctured that myth. Baruch Fischhoff, a psychologist at Carnegie Mellon University who pioneered research on risk and decision making, says that teenagers may feel more strongly than adults do that life is beyond their control.

Given that, it's not hard to see how a fatalistic teenager could decide that risky behavior just isn't worth avoiding. The new data, which came from the University of Minnesota and were published in the July Pediatrics, found that teens who anticipated an early death when first asked in 2005 were more likely to have made a suicide attempt, been injured in a fight, had unsafe sex, or been arrested a year later. They were also more likely to have been diagnosed with HIV or AIDS in 2001 or 2002. This correlation gives doctors a new way to screen teenagers for the likelihood of coming to harm, the Minnesota researchers say, something that is surprisingly difficult to do. Parents, teachers, and coaches could ask if a child thinks early death is likely, correct the misperception if so, and explain that, since a long life is far more likely, it makes sense to take good care of oneself now.

There's an even sadder subtext to these data: Some fatalistic teenagers were more on target than others. Minority teenagers were far more likely to predict an early death, with 29 percent of Native Americans, 26 percent of blacks, and 21 percent of Hispanics expecting to die young, compared with 10 percent of whites. The fatalistic teens were also more likely to be poor. Minorities and poor people are far more likely to have health problems than someone who is white and well off.

There's been a lot of news lately about teenagers and mental health, including a call for depression screening of all teenagers by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Teenagers do indeed see the world much differently from adults, and I'm fascinated at how the teenage brain can be amazingly powerful, while also making teenagers do really dumb things. Think you know the teen brain? Try this teen brain quiz.


http://health.usnews.com/blogs/on-parenting/2009/06/29/teens-who-think-theyll-die-young-take-more-risks.html

by Lorna Benson, Minnesota Public Radio June 29, 2009 St. Paul, Minn. — A new study by the University of Minnesota shows that kids who believe they

St. Paul, Minn. — A new study by the University of Minnesota shows that kids who believe they are going to die young often engage in the very behavior that can lead to an early death.

That runs counter to the conventional belief that teens take risks because they see themselves as invincible.

The study says 15 percent of adolescents believe it's highly likely that they will die before age 35.

"That's more than one in seven youth in this country who look into the future, and don't see a long and winding road ahead of them," said Dr. Iris Borowsky, lead author of the U of M study.

She and her colleagues looked at survey responses from more than 20,000 youth who have been tracked since 1995 through the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.

It is a nationally representative sample of students from grades seven through 12. They were first interviewed in 1995, then again in 1996 and in 2001-2002.

The data showed that adolescents who thought they had a good chance of dying earlier often engaged in the very behavior that can lead to death. They had a higher incidence of illegal drug use, suicide attempts, unprotected sex, fight-related injuries, arrests, and diagnosis of HIV or AIDS.

Borowsky says the findings reveal the vulnerability that some kids feel -- a concept that runs counter to conventional wisdom about teens.

"Historically it's been thought that teens think they are invincible, they're invulnerable. And that this feeling of personal invulnerability has been thought to play a key role in why teens engage in risky behaviors," she said.

But the survey results showed the opposite might be occurring.

"This data says that hey, maybe adolescents are taking risks because they actually feel quite vulnerable to dying early," said Borowsky. "So it really is contrary to conventional wisdom."

The perceptions about premature death were especially prevalent among youth of color and those living in poverty.

Shane Price is a community organizer in Minneapolis who works with troubled youth. He says the report's findings mirror much of what he's seen over the years in his community.

But Price says he's not hearing as much hopelessness as he once did. He says President Obama's election as the nation's first African-American president has inspired many young blacks.

"I feel this spirit of activism, this spirit of momentum in the children. And that is what I think is changing," said Price. "And that is what I think comes against some of the findings in this report, in a good way."

On the east side of St. Paul, Mitch Roldan is watching a different story unfold. Roldan is a gang prevention coordinator.

"I have seen in the African-American community, kind of a sense of hope. I would say in the Latino community it would almost be the opposite of that," said Roldan. "With the increasing anti-immigrant sentiment that there is, just more and more kids just kind of feel like they're without hope."

Roldan says when he asks at-risk teens in his community what they hope to do with their lives, more often than not he's told that they don't have any specific goals. He says that's practically unheard of among their peers elsewhere, who typically have plans for college or work.

But that doesn't mean these teens can't change the way they see their future. Researcher Iris Borowsky says there is a growing body of research that shows the benefit of creating hope among kids.

Borowsky is a pediatrician, and she says she now realizes she should ask kids more questions, and reassure them that the odds are in their favor. "What do you think the future holds for you? Do you want to go to college? What do you want to do when you grow up? How long do you think you're going to live? Do you think you're going to die early? Those are questions as that as a health care professional I need to consider asking," she said.

They are also questions Borowsky says all adults should be asking the children in their lives.

The University of Minnesota study on teen mortality perceptions is published in the latest issue of the journal Pediatrics.

by Lorna Benson, Minnesota Public Radio
June 29, 2009

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/06/26/teendeaths/

Young, HIV-Positive, and Unaware Many Teens and Young Adults With HIV Don’t Know They Have the Disease, CDC Says

June 26, 2009 -- About 50,000 adolescents and young adults aged 13 to 24 were living with the virus that causes AIDS in 2006, but nearly half of them didn't know they were HIV infected, according to the CDC.

The CDC says in its June 26 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report that young adults represented 4.4% of the 1.1 million people living with the human immunodeficiency virus in 2006.

That would amount to 48,400 young people with HIV.

The CDC says that 232,700 people in the U.S. were living with HIV that year and didn't know it. Adolescents and young adults represented 9.9% of that number, or some 23,000 youths.

Early diagnosis of HIV infection is critical because detection speeds up medical intervention and informs people with the virus to reduce high-risk behaviors that could spread infections, the CDC says.

The CDC says it used adolescent data from the 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

The results indicated that nationwide 12.9% of all high school students had been tested for HIV at some point in their lives.

The prevalence rate of HIV testing increased with grade and age.

Prevalence of HIV testing decreased with older age of first sexual intercourse experience, the report says.

Among female students, 14.8% had been tested for HIV, compared to 11.1% of males. The prevalence rate also was higher among non-Hispanic black students at 22.4% than for non-Hispanic whites at 10.7%.

The CDC recommends routine HIV screening for all people 13-64 years old to decrease the number of undiagnosed infections and the spread of new infections.

"HIV testing among sexually active adolescents is an important strategy to reduce the incidence of HIV infection," the CDC says. "Because adolescents might be sexually active but unwilling to discuss this information, health care providers should provide HIV screening routinely to all patients aged 13 and older."

The Youth Risk Behavior Survey estimates the prevalence of health risk behaviors among high school students. The 2007 national survey examined data from more than 14,000 anonymous questionnaires completed by public and private high school students in the 50 states and Washington, D.C.

By Bill Hendrick
WebMD Health News

http://www.webmd.com/hiv-aids/news/20090626/young-hiv-positive-and-unaware