Reconstructing My Life: Becoming a Long-Term Survivor of AIDS

Abstract

This naturalistic study reports the ways of becoming a long-term survivor of AIDS. Ethnographic interviewing techniques were used to interview a purposive sample of 14 men and 6 women who had AIDS for at least 3 years and who were living in the Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida, area. Part of a larger study on the phenomenon of surviving AIDS, the ways of becoming a long-term survivor are embedded within 5 dimensions that allowed participants to reconstruct their lives within the context of AIDS. The reconstructed life was a process supported by normalizing, focusing on living, taking care of oneself, being in relation to others, and triumphing. This study offers health care providers strategies to assist people in all stages of HIV disease to find health within the context of their illness.