Sheila Taylor has traveled a road most people can’t even imagine. Along the way, she battled and bested the most hideous of beasts — addictions to drugs and alcohol that ruled most of her life. At 34 and the mother of two, Sheila was finally getting her life back.
“I went through rehab. I was clean,” Sheila remembers the experience of nine years ago like it was yesterday. “During a medical exam, the doctor suggested I be tested for HIV. The test came back a week later. It was positive. I was infected.” The risks she took while tangled in her 22-year
addiction had returned to haunt her.
The news devastated Sheila. She was depressed, isolated. “I knew I was going to die,” Sheila says. Her son, Naru, who was 11 at the time, asked his mother why she was always crying. When she told him she was HIV-positive, Naru said, “So? I still love you. You’re still the same.”
AT RIGHT: Sheila Taylor embraces Precious, her aptly named daughter. The 5-year-old is as irrepressable as her mother’s spirit.
Those words and support from her mother, family, and friends set Sheila back on course. She began treatment, educated herself about HIV, and prayed. “I learned to like myself a lot. HIV is not who I am, it’s what I have,” she says.
After fours years managing her HIV, Sheila got both joyful and frightening news — she was pregnant. She feared for the child she was carrying. She kept bi-weekly appointments at Magee’s high-risk clinic throughout her pregnancy, as her doctors tracked her progress and the baby’s. She followed all the instructions of the Magee team and on Oct. 5, 2001, gave birth to a healthy, HIVnegative baby girl. She named her Precious.
When Sheila found out she was HIV-positive, she prayed for help to find a way to use this virus to help others. Today, Precious, now 5, often accompanies her mother to the AIDS Treatment Center, where Sheila works as an advocate for “the infected and the affected.” The rollicking preschooler is Sheila’s teaching aid — living proof that “if you do the right thing and follow what the doctors tell you, you can live your life like any other person.”
Sheila is thankful to Magee for guiding her to the healthy birth of Precious. She has similar praise for the work of Magee researchers to protect other women from being infected by HIV. Magee is one of six institutions nationwide to lead groundbreaking HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment efforts to test the safety, effectiveness, and acceptability of microbicide products that women can use to protect themselves against HIV. This research will put women in the United States and abroad in control when it comes to preventing HIV infection.
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