Living with HIV: an Inuk tells her story

ANNETTE BOURGEOIS
Nunatsiaq News

IQALUIT — Though her predecessor was tormented, ostracized and driven from the North, Louisa Ukaliannuk doesn’t shy away from the truth when she talks publicly about her life as an Inuk living with the virus that causes AIDS.

She spoke to a small group gathered In Iqaluit last weekend for an AIDS awareness conference. Originally from Igloolik, Ukaliannuk now lives in Ottawa.

Last weekend was the first time that she’s ever spoken publically in the North about testing positive for HIV.

Not that many years ago, Leetia Geetah, an Inuk from Iqaluit, was forced to leave for Ottawa after health officials found out that she was HIV-positive.

But before she died of AIDS, Leetia returned to Nunavut to help educate young people about how to protect themselves from the deadly disease.

Nine people in Nunavut have been diagnosed with AIDS — but health officials fear that many more may be carrying the HIV virus.

“I sat there frozen.”

Ukaliannuk wasn’t always so candid about her life. She lived in a daze in the days and weeks following her diagnosis nearly four years ago.

“I’d been drinking and was sexually active,” she admits candidly to the youth listening to her story. “I asked for a test.”

She suspected she may have contracted the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea, but asked for an AIDS test as well. The phone call from her doctor was foreboding.

“When she called me, it was an alarm,” Ukaliannuk said, recalling that her doctor told her she’d only be contacted if the test was positive. “Once I got into her office, her face was different and I knew there was something serious.”

She shifts in her chair, then becomes still, her eyes staring into the distance as she relives the moment in her mind.

“I sat there frozen. My face was numb; everything was blurry.”

Not having had much time to digest the shock, she was asked to leave the doctor’s office to make room for another patient.

For three days she wandered around Ottawa, hiding within herself, unable to share her pain, avoiding passers-by who greeted her with smiles.

“I didn’t want to look into their eyes. I remember when I was suffering. I was walking down the street not knowing where to go.

“It was very painful. It hurts your guts, not knowing what to think about it.”

Depression and denial

She finally confided in a friend. Then depression and denial flooded into her life.

At the same time Ukaliannuk was diagnosed, her boyfriend and his long-time school pal also tested positive for HIV. She wondered if it was because the two had shared needles while shooting cocaine, and wondered still if that wasn’t somehow the source of her infection.

“When I see him suffering,” she said of her boyfriend’s pal, “I hate him more because I don’t want to go that far. Maybe because I sort of blame him.”

During that time Ukaliannuk was also pregnant. The baby girl she gave birth to also tested positive for HIV. She tells of her once-stable life turned upside down. In the midst of it all, she lost her baby.

Now three, the toddler is in good health and living with foster parents. Ukaliannuk doesn’t see her daughter very often, but she does have pictures and gets occasional reports about her.

Positive thinking

Ukaliannuk had tried to battle her bouts of depression with drugs and alcohol, but these only added to her troubles. Now she prescribes for herself a healthy dose of positive thinking, a treatment endorsed by her physician.

“It took me a while to admit I was HIV. All I could think about was the death. Once I try to stay with who I really am, that’s when I have better results from my nurses and doctors.”

Her moods these days are like the weather, she describes, some days are bright and sunny; others, dull and gloomy. Today, she beams, as she talks about how AIDS is preventable.

It’s a lesson learned too late for her, but she’s anxious, even passionate, about sharing the message with the people of the North.

“I get frightened, of course, but more good things come out of it,” she said about sharing her story.