How two young guys deal with their HIV diagnosis and help others do the same
If you ask respectfully, Laurenzo Surrell-Page and Adrian Ross have no problem telling you that they’re HIV positive.
Surrell-Page tested positive in 2015. He was 23 at the time and had been raised as a sheltered child in a religious family. When he moved out, he lost his virginity, then got caught up being young and free. Until that diagnosis.
When he found out, the movie “Straight Outta Compton” flashed through his mind, specifically the way the rapper Eazy-E died a month after he was diagnosed with AIDS.
“I was like, oh my gosh, I’m going to die,” said Surrell-Page, now 25. “Can I have kids? Disclosing relationships – I want to get married. Am I going to be able to do that? Are people going to understand?”
A friend referred him to RAIN, a nonprofit that seeks access to quality, personalized care for individuals and families living with HIV. Surrell-Page’s peer navigator helped him understand how to manage the diagnosis, then helped him get a job in Houston.
Adrian Ross tested positive for HIV in 2007 when he was 21 and a sexual partner failed to disclose their diagnosis.
“It was a numbing, loud ringing,” he said of what went through his mind. “Everything just stopped. I just wanted to get educated. I wanted to know exactly what was happening to my body.”
He proactively sought out a medical regimen and services.
Now Ross, 31, and Surrell-Page both work as the peer navigators for RAIN’s Empowering Positive Youth (EPY) program in Charlotte. The peer-based program supports youths aged 24 or younger who have tested positive for HIV and need support services ranging from pyschosocial support, to healthcare, to housing. RAIN also offers on-site mental health counseling and social support groups in their uptown office.
The two men want to make sure the youths of Charlotte understand that an HIV diagnosis isn’t a death sentence, even if it might sometimes feel like a social death. They help the young people understand and manage medications, move toward professional and academic goals, and more.
“At the end of the day,” Surrell-Page said, “we want to prepare them to be advocates for themselves.”
RAIN vice president of operations Chelsea Gulden, 35, founded the EPY program 13 years ago. She was diagnosed with HIV when she was 21 and was in the final stretch of a five-year relationship.
Now the EPY program works with more than 100 youths.
They are free to join group meetings three Tuesday nights a month. They are free to walk in every day for support, with an appointment or not. They are free to text Surrell-Page and Ross, and they are just free to reach out more sporadically, when they need specific assistance.
Regardless, Surrell-Page loves sharing his story.
“With me sharing my story,” he said, “the whole story and not sugar coating it, I’m able to form a relationship with that client and they are able to open up about similar stuff they went through.”
Ross is big on working through the disclosure process.
“I always inform my youth that their HIV status is nobody’s business but their own and their medical provider or their sexual partner,” he said, “or someone they are planning to have sex with.“
And once they make that jump and tell someone about their HIV diagnosis, he said, “This is OK even if you’re rejected. Even when that person don’t want to see you no more, or remove you from Facebook, or block you from Instagram after you tell them. You’re still a beautiful person. Just keep your head up and push forward.”
HIV is more manageable now, with a daily intake of three pills or a one-a-day pill. The goal is for the HIV to become undetectable, or virally suppressed, which means it is highly unlikely that it can be transmitted to others at that point.
“So if we could get everybody who’s positive on medicine and get them virally suppressed, we would not see any more infections,” Gulden said.
In the meantime, Surrell-Page and Ross are here in Charlotte to keep opening up, to keep talking about it.
Photo: RAIN
This story was originally published July 27, 2017 at 1:00 AM with the headline "How two young guys deal with their HIV diagnosis and help others do the same."