Justina Mutale Gets The GAB

The Story Of Mr. Tresford Nkumba: Based On His Real Life

It’s rare that people come out in the open and declare that they are HIV positive. It’s a bold step that few people brace themselves to undertake. I recently had an opportunity to meet such a person and this is the first time that he has declared himself as HIV positive through the media and BH Magazine gladly salutes him in choosing us as a channel for his story. I found him to be very articulate and intelligent and we talked about so many things through which I was amazed at just how he has accepted his condition and made the best out of it.

My full names are Tresford Nkumba and I am 40 years old. I am a self employed Mechanic and I am HIV positive. I have known my status since 2004 but I think I have lived with the virus for maybe 8-10 years now but only knew it in 2004 when I undertook VCT. I lost my first wife in 2004 and two weeks after her burial I fell seriously sick. I went to the hospital and tested positive to TB. My weight was so low at 45 Kg. During the period I was on TB treatment which is broken down in two stages 1. Intensive Treatment for two months and then 2. Non - Intensive Treatment which takes six months. In total it takes eight months to finish the TB treatment. The Intensive Treatment was the most difficult stage in that I was very worn out due to the medication. As fate would have it, I didn’t have any one to take care of me. I have two children and one of them is HIV positive. I reached at a point where I didn’t want to continue living. I was not in employment at the time, I had no money and I was sick. This thing they say that they follow up TB patients does not work because the nurses and health workers do not follow up patients at their homes. I was in so much pain in that I couldn’t even take Panadol. At this stage I was even bed ridden. So then I decided that I end my life. At this point I asked someone to get me a battery for a car. I never told them that I wanted to break the battery so that I could extract the acid and then drink it so as to die. The people who were looking after me realized that I was contemplating on taking my life and so they sealed up all the loop holes for my attempts at suicide so that I could not drink the acid. At that time I cried onto God and I told God that he made me and made every part of me and my life was in his hands. I told God that if he wished he could take my life. I wanted to die but those horrible people who were looking after me wouldn’t let me die. I hated them even though now I believe they did the right thing. At that time for seven days and seven nights I could not go to sleep. I had so much pain and felt that every part of me was being torn into pieces. After I again cried onto God I felt dizzy and went to sleep.

When I had slept I had a three dimensional dream. The first stage of the dream, I dreamt that I was on my way to heaven and it had a big road and a small road. When I almost reached the end of the road I met a half man - half beast looking creature. It was a huge man with a face of a dog. He had talons in his hands and feet and he had a pony tail which was like a tail but had talons at the end and when he moved his tail, it pierced his body and blood poured out from his body. In my frightened state I shouted, In ‘The Name Of Jesus’ and then this huge beast disappeared. When I reached the point where the beast had stood, I found a bottomless pit and I almost fell into the pit. At this point I screamed and the people who were taking care of me came to my aid thinking I was dying but by the time they came they still found me sleeping, I had screamed in my sleep. Just after my scream, I entered the second phase of the dream and I then saw a huge right hand coming down from the sky in attempts to crush me. I shouted, ‘In The Name Of Jesus’ and the hand missed me. After that, a left hand re-appeared in the sky once again coming down to crush me but I shouted, ‘In The Name Of Jesus’ and the hand missed me again. The hands now joined and started advancing together towards me and I shouted once again ‘In The Name Of Jesus’ and the hands disappeared. It was then that the dream entered the third phase of the dream and I then saw two Indian ladies floating on a cloud. The Indian ladies then told me that I was sick and they had a pen like instrument which they said I should push my finger onto it and when I did, it pricked me. They then said that they knew what was wrong with me and then gave me two medicines. One was in a green bottle and the other in a red bottle. They then told me that wherever I saw someone who was sick like me I should test them and give them this medicine which they said is an Elixir. I have looked it up in the dictionary and an Elixir is a substance that is capable of prolonging life indefinitely. I drank the medicine in the dream and it never finished.

After I woke up from the dream, I found that the pain in me was gone. I then woke up and started walking. When I went to sleep again later on, the pain started all over again. From that day of the dream, whenever I went to sleep I would be in pain and whenever I woke up I would be alright. This made me avoid sleeping for a period but after some time I stopped being in pain when trying to sleep. It was strange!!

Seven months later when I was collecting my last packet of TB drugs, I decided to do VCT and I was found positive. I didn’t start taking the ARV’S immediately because I was in denial. The VCT counselors then told me that if I developed Kaposis Sarcoma in three months I would die. A few months later, instead of developing Kaposis Sarcoma I ended up having Herpes. I then went to do my CD 4 Cell count and it was a little lower than 150 and then the HIV/AIDS health providers put me on a combination of Viramune and Combivir. My starting weight was 49 Kg in 2004 and my current weight is 75 Kg.