Getting ready for death
I got very sick. My family thought I was going to die and they immediately organized a meeting … I was very sick, but I could hear everything they were discussing.
Their concern was the expense of taking my body to our ancestral home, around 150 miles (about 240km) from Kampala, after I died.
They decided that I should go by bus. They agreed that it was cheaper than renting a pickup to take my body. The following day, I was put on a bus. Passengers complained because I was vomiting too much and I was kicked off the bus with my four aunties. Someone offered to take us home in their pickup.
My aunties bought my coffin and other burial requirements. Then I went home in the back of the pickup, next to my coffin.
My sister, Sara, arrived from abroad for my funeral. She said, “No, you can’t give up on somebody.” She got me to a centre, which put me on a new drug regimen. My sister saved my life. I named my daughter after her.
A doctor told me about drug resistance and treatment adherence: if this regime fails, I will die.
A turning point
If I, Supercharger – living in the capital, with access to the internet – didn't know that, how would most Africans know? That was the start of my advocacy.
I went through a time of fire. I thought I was going to die. I don’t want any other person in the world to go through that.
An HIV cure will mean, first, that people in Africa don’t have to rely on donors buying our ARVs. Second, we won’t have to take medication. And third, because of stigma, people with HIV are denied jobs and the marriages we want. A cure will set us free.
A cure will come
Nobody believed that a person would ever be cured of HIV. But when Timothy Ray Brown was cured, we had proof that a cure is possible. I know the cure will come one day.
You can hear more from Moses on our podcast, HIV unmuted.