Brenda Burrows says she has given her life to Christ and turned her lifestyle around
World HIV/AIDS Day is globally recognized on Dec 1
NASSAU, BAHAMAS — “If I didn’t listen to people, I would have been healthy now,” said Brenda Burrows, 62, who reflected on contracting HIV at the age of 38 as a result of the lifestyle she was living at the time.
I didn’t even know I was infected.
Burrows grew up on Inagua.
She traveled to New Providence for surgery at the age of 25 and never returned to the Family Island.
But the mother of five children, all of whom lived with their grandmother, soon found herself on the streets, sleeping wherever she could rest her head, including on the ground in front of gas stations.
At one point, she lived with friends in Elizabeth Estates, but the arrangement did not last.
Her daughter, who visited her some years later, encouraged her to seek assistance.
With help, she was taken to the Department of Social Services and spent several months at the Salvation Army.
“I was living in Elizabeth Estates and I had a friend named Delancy who said they’re doing a free AIDS test,” she told Eyewitness News in the church at the All Saints Camp, a refuge for HIV/AIDs patients and the homeless, tucked away off Carmichael Road.
“I went to get a free AIDS test, but when I went to get, they said they would call me back and tell me what part to go to, but they never did call me back.
“I didn’t even know I was infected.”
Diagnosis
After her short stint at the Salvation Army, Burrows made her way to the All Saints Camp.
Asked at what age she found out about her HIV status, Burrows said at 38.
By then, she had lived a hard life, moving, as she put it, “from pillar to post, sleeping all around”.
She said: “I was from pillar to post, pillar to post, pillar to post — sleeping all about on the gas station porch and everything, and then, someone said: ‘Brenda, why are you doing yourself like that?’
“So, I said, ‘I don’t know.’”
When he told me I was HIV, I took it bad and I take sick afterwards… God has taken me a mighty, mighty long way.
– Brenda Burrows
It was not until she sought medical attention after feeling sick and was tested did she learn of her status.
“I only gone because they really did want to know to see if I was HIV [positive] when I came up here,” she said.
“I was sick. Dr Orlander told me I was HIV. I did already have all of my kids, but I took it sad.
“My children are grown, but at the time they were living with their grandmother.”
“…I couldn’t of stayed where they was.
“When he told me I was HIV, I took it bad and I take sick afterwards and they start me off with pills — one pill a day.
“I does take my pill at 10 o’clock at night. God has taken me a mighty, mighty long way.”
Burrows said her consistent regimen of medication has saved her life, though there are times when “sometimes I up and sometimes I down”.
She said she developed high blood pressure and diabetes sometime after her diagnosis.
Her immediate thoughts after overcoming the shock that she had the virus were about her family in Inagua, being uncertain of when she initially got infected and whether any of her children could have been impacted.
“I was worrying about my family in Inagua,” said Burrows, explaining that she feared being abandoned by her family once she told them of her HIV status.
Aftermath
Asked how she believes she contracted the virus, Burrows said: “I used to be all about on Potter’s Cay Dock minding friends.
They told me: ‘Brenda, this boy is a healthy carrier,’ and I still gone behind them.
“The persons who give it to me, they died.
“Afterward he done do what he had to do, the next time I gone on Potter’s Cay Dock, one my daughters carry me, they said he got drowned.
“People on Potter’s Cay Dock know his face because he killed plenty girls like that, but God had me.”
Burrows said when she first met him: “They told me: ‘Brenda, this boy is a healthy carrier,’ and I still gone behind them.
“I still gone. He didn’t use no condom.
“At that time, things was running through my mind and all kind of things.
“My oldest boy row me and say: ‘Mummy, you know better than that.’
“If I didn’t listen to people, I would have been healthy now.”
Now, Burrows cleans at the All Saints Camp in lieu of rent.
She said she has given her life to God and lives life on different terms.
She accepts her status, which she manages with just one pill a day.
“My life changed completely,” she said.
“I gave myself to the Lord.
“Every other Sunday, I go to church.
“Plenty people, I tell them my situation and they pray for me, saying ‘nothing God can’t do’.
“God is the provider. God is the healer.
“When I tell some people, tears come to my eyes.”
Asked if she has any regrets, Burrows said she has none.
“Well, I know God is a good God. God is healing me and nothing God can’t do,” she added.
Yesterday was recognized as World HIV/AIDS Day.
