Katherine

Katherine lives in Adelaide where she works in peer support, navigation and networking. Here she looks back at the past: “I’m a daughter and a mother, and a nanny and I’ve been living with HIV for way too long, thirty three years, uninvited into my life. And I’m very much a homebody now. I’m pretty involved in the HIV sector, but at a volunteer level. But otherwise, I play a big role in looking after my grandkids. They live with me and my daughter lives with me. So, we’re packed to the rafters and life’s busy and hectic and crazy. And I probably don’t have as much time for myself and I have to put up with so much mess around me. But I try and be flexible and try and just find something to be grateful for every day. And just the fact that I’m still here, to me is just a miracle. Because being told when I was diagnosed in 1987 “you’ve got twelve months to live” and terminating the baby that I was pregnant with then, and here it is 33 years later and I’m still here. And so, I think I’m really lucky. Sometimes I get a bit sad because I think about all the women that I know that have passed, and their kids are growing up without their mums.”