Medications and misgivings

I am way behind on the story of my sister-in-law's search for AIDS medication.

My sister-in-law went back to Labé, where she heard that AIDS medication could be had in Mamou, a town about a third of the way back to Conakry. She took the money that Salimatou and some of Salimatou's nieces in Europe had gotten together for her and paid a Labé doctor to drive her to Mamou and help her to get to the right people and get medication. He took all the money, but left her in Mamou with only the taxi fare to get back and not even any money for meals. Afterwards Salimatou said that he "did used to drink some".

Despite the lack of help from this doctor, my sister-in-law did get to the clinic in Mamou and learned that she can get the medications right in Labé. I guess she has started taking the medications.

I wish I could trust that this is being handled properly. My sister-in-law and Salimatou fixated on AIDS medicine until she got some. I tried to get copies of the AIDS tests she had sent to us here in the US, but as soon as it became apparent that we weren't going to get her any medicine here, my sister-in-law stopped making any attempt to get those to us. She is ashamed that she may have AIDS and she told us not to tell any of the other missionaries in Labé about this. My plan was to have her go to one of them and see if they could help her send the test results to us in some way. Her fears killed that plan. I have talked with her and tried to encourage her and to tell her not to be ashamed when we talked by telephone, and it certainly helps her to talk with Salimatou and another sister-in-law in Labé, but I fear she's still carry far too much of the burden by herself.

I wish I was even certain that she really has gotten a definitive answer as to whether she is HIV positive. I am not at all certain that she has. I wonder what this "free AIDS medicine" is and whether it's worth anything at all. I hope for now that she is NOT HIV positive and that the medications she taking are worthless placebos that at least make her think she's more likely to be feeling better soon.

Salimatou told me tonight that her sister sounded real good the last time they talked.