Faith Integration

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Faith integration
Jerome was African-American,30years of age, and was planning to marry his longtime girlfriend of 6 years. After a long period of about six months, feeling sickly he came in for medical checkup at the hospital where I was a nurse practitioner straight from medical school. The diagnosis confirmed his worst fears; he was HIV positive. According to Jerome, he suspects having contracted the diseases at a friend’s party, about one year. At the party, he had drunk too much and had several unprotected sexual encounters with different girls, which he confessed to not recounting how many they were. During his younger years, he had not used hard drugs, just alcohol and it was light use, except the one time he went to the party.
In the last eleven months, Jerome has been on antiretroviral medication, but has not been responding too well. The CD4 count is at 347 currently from 340 cells per micro liter, which is a very slight improvement.After examining him physically, I discussed his treatment and the regiment of his medication. His illness weighed him down so much and so did the thought of his girlfriend. When discussing his sex life, he explained how it felt to him like God was punishing him for cheating on his girlfriend. The girlfriend was God fearing and they had not had intercourse as she strongly believed in sex after marriage. He did not know how to approach his girlfriend with the news. He was ready to tell during his last moments of death but not now. I explained to him that it was not a punishment from God, but rather a coincidence, which happened to many people. God had purpose for him, even in his current state. When I told him that God still loved him and would never leave his side every step of the way, he was ...