The types and doses of anti-AIDS drugs are different, and they are adjusted according to the height and weight of drug users. Children who live with Liu Liping should take medicine twice every morning and evening. If you don't take medicine on time, AIDS patients will develop drug resistance, which will affect the treatment effect and threaten their lives for a long time.
Some children are too young to take medicine, so Liu Liping hides the medicine in a bun and feeds it half-coaxed and half-deceived. In order to urge the children to take medicine, Liu Liping once tasted every medicine. "Look at what tastes bad."
Liu Liping is an AIDS patient and a life teacher of Red Ribbon School in Linfen, Shanxi. Red Ribbon School is the only compulsory education school in China that specially accepts AIDS students. In 2006, the Red Ribbon School was established. Liu Liping, a former ward volunteer, stayed as a life teacher.
All the students in Red Ribbon School are infected with AIDS through mother-to-child transmission, and more than half of them are orphans.
For more than ten years, Liu Liping has taken care of the daily life of nearly 50 AIDS children, treated them, and more importantly, maintained their mental health and taught them to identify with themselves.
Liu Liping is with the students. Photo courtesy of respondents
A fierce woman
Every morning at 8 o'clock, Liu Liping sits in his office and can hear the recitation, question and answer and laughter in a row of classrooms behind him-the sound lasts all day.
Liu Liping is nearly 1.7 meters tall, with short hair and delicate facial features, and likes to wear some bright lipstick. She said that she had a major operation two years ago and walked around the gate of hell. After the operation, she learned to make up because she "wanted to live beautifully."
Because of the long-term use of anti-AIDS drugs, the side effects of fat metabolism disorder are reflected in her body-her legs are too thin like clotheslines, and fat accumulates on her neck and back. According to the patient, this is called "buffalo back". She loves to wear skirts. She bought a long black dress online, which costs tens of dollars. The wide skirt covers her slender ankles.
During class time, she has relatively little communication with students. After class, the students crashed into her world: also affected by drugs, most children are shorter than their peers, and children around the age of ten seem to be only five or six years old.
In the evening, Liu Liping walked back and forth in the dormitory corridor in slippers, urging the students to take a bath and wash clothes, and asked them if they had finished their homework and reviewed it. Some students ran back to the dormitory, and she followed them for a look. As soon as the door opened, she became angry: "Look at your room, it's like a pigsty." She is very strict about housework management. If the room is too dirty, students will be called back to clean it in class.
Sending snacks before going to bed is also shouting at the corridor. One person and one bag of spicy strips, 28 students, who took it and who didn't, Liu Liping remembered very clearly. With only one or two bags left, he can accurately call out the names of the people left behind.
On the afternoon of September 4th, 18-year-old Zhen Yule went back to school to visit her teacher. Two days ago, Zhen Yule was admitted to a junior college in Tianjin.
Zhen Yule is slightly fat, with a fair face and flushed cheeks. He is 1.6 meters tall and looks like an ordinary child.
From the age of two or three, Zhen Yule began to have frequent fever and her body festered. He went to the third grade and had a high fever for more than two months. He went to the big hospital in Yuncheng for examination, only to know that it was because of mother-to-child transmission of AIDS.
When she returned to her hometown primary school in a stable condition, the class teacher advised her to "go home".
Zhen Yule wanted to continue her studies, but her divorced parents ignored her. Grandma and aunt sent her to Red Ribbon School, where she stayed until she graduated from high school.
She was glad to be admitted to the university, but her father was vague and her mother was even more evasive. "When I mention money, she either says she has no money or she doesn't talk."
This time, she brought the admission notice. Liu Liping immediately made a decision on her, without consulting her family. "You must go to school." If she really can't make up the money, her alma mater will find a way for her.
Besides study and health, Liu Liping has to take care of the food and clothing consumption of more than 20 students: she chooses clothes for students, gives them snacks and even asks her for pocket money.
Liu Liping thinks he is a strict teacher, and often plays the good COP and the bad COP with President Guo Xiaoping. Guo Xiaoping said that when he coaxed the children, Liu Liping was responsible for criticism, and when he was angry, he would scare the students. Some students indicated that Liu Liping was a "tigress" in the mobile phone address book.
She and two other life teachers keep an eye on the students and hand in their mobile phones from Monday to Friday. Once you find possession, you are not allowed to use your mobile phone for half a year.
Liu Liping's sternness comes from worry. As an AIDS patient, she understands that the road ahead for AIDS groups is difficult.
Turning point in life
Red Ribbon School is located in the suburb of Linfen, and many taxi drivers can't find their way-after turning off the main road of the city, take a kilometer of field path and then turn two corners.
In 2005, Guo Xiaoping, then the president of Linfen Third Hospital, found that several small AIDS patients in the hospital had nowhere to go to school and were eager to go to school, so he called several medical staff to set up a "love classroom".
The turning point of Liu Liping's life also happened in 2005.
This year, a layer of white sore has grown on my tongue. It hurts to eat and drink, and spicy things can't be touched at all. The doctor in Xinjiang county, where her family lives, saw her symptoms and politely asked her to go to the city for a blood test.
I was tested in the hospital in Yuncheng. Two hours later, I received a phone call informing me that I had tested positive for HIV. "I suddenly feel very dark."
In fact, the disease has already begun to appear. In those years, Liu Liping often had tonsillitis. "Like diphtheria, my throat is completely white." She concluded that the source of the virus infection dates back to 1996, when she needed blood transfusion for ectopic pregnancy. "At that time, the hospital was in chaos. Blood is drawn from blood donors and given to you without testing. The blood type is the same. "
Liu Liping recalled that she immediately rushed to the Third Hospital of Linfen for treatment. Standing at the entrance of the AIDS ward of the hospital, I saw the corridor marked "1 ward" long and gloomy, as hopeless as a bottomless pit. "I thought I wouldn't go in, and I really became an AIDS patient as soon as I went in." She couldn't help crying at the door.
At this time, a nurse led a girl in the corridor, "chubby, about seven or eight years old." That was one of the first students who later attended the Red Ribbon School. The girl ran to Liu Liping and stared at her. "What do you think you are crying over there?"
The nurse told Liu Liping that the child was transmitted from mother to child. Liu Liping described himself as "suddenly calm".
"I think this sick child will have it? I have lived healthily for at least decades, and they have no choice at all since birth. "
Guo Xiaoping said that Liu Liping began to receive treatment in the hospital in May 2005. After her condition stabilized, she went to the "Love Class" to be a volunteer teacher.
The original "love small class" had four children. On September 2006 1, the small class was upgraded to a school, and the number of children increased from four to eight. Liu Liping stayed as a life teacher.
"The most important thing is companionship."
At the beginning, the teacher was particularly difficult to recruit, and there was no preparation, so I could only ask the private teacher in the small village. The first foreign teacher stayed for less than a year, wearing a mask and a white medical suit when getting along with the children. The second teacher only stayed for one semester. Children who want to be close, hug and hold hands with their teachers will deliberately avoid it. "There is no physical contact at all, and they will not directly touch what the children have touched."
20 1 1 Red Ribbon School is included in the national compulsory education. With the establishment, teachers can be formally recruited. At present, the school has ten teachers and dozens of supernumerary staff.
The existing 28 children in Red Ribbon School were discriminated by the local education system after being diagnosed with AIDS, so they could not continue to go to school. Some of them never went to school at the age of eight or nine because of their early onset.
He Yanqing, a math teacher, said that many children have come, and we have to start with the understanding of Arabic numerals, not to mention simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Study habits are not in place, "take other people's things, hear the bell, don't know how to enter the classroom, and don't want to do homework." The first-grade Chinese class in ordinary schools can be taught in two or three months, but in Red Ribbon School, it will be taught repeatedly for one year. Let children keep up with the learning rhythm of ordinary schools, from one year to two or three years.
Lv Kun, a student in Xichong County, Sichuan Province, wears a pair of thick myopia glasses. He is 15 years old, less than 1.4 meters tall and as thin as a stick figure. His parents have disappeared and have been taken care of by his grandfather.
20 14 was "dismissed" by his hometown fellow who wrote a joint letter. After that, I was contacted by good people and sent to Red Ribbon School on 20 15.
When she first came to school, Lv Kun's cognitive and linguistic abilities were only three or four years old. He can't say more than one cross sentence and often sneaks out of school. Liu Liping came across mountains to find him, eating, attending classes and talking, bit by bit.
Wang Zichen, a graduate, is the first student in Red Ribbon School. His mother died of AIDS and lived with his father and grandmother. In his hometown, he separated the bowls and chopsticks at home and didn't put the dishes in a pot. Occasionally, when I go home, I call Liu Liping and cry, saying that I am at a loss at home and just want to go back to school at once.
Guo Xiaoping said that in their hometown, it is common for children to eat together and be apart. "Those children need a mother-like role like Miss Liu. She is a patient and an elder, and she knows how to empathize. Needless to say, cook a bowl of noodles, buy an apple, play with them and accompany them. " For AIDS patients, especially young sick children, besides treatment, "the most important thing is companionship."
In Red Ribbon School, there is no concept of winter vacation and weekends, children basically don't go back to their hometown, and teachers often have to live on campus and be on duty.
Liu Liping only comes home once every two or three weeks. Husband and daughter "don't support or object to her leaving home to go back to school." This is a kind of support in her view.
The Red Ribbon School became her other home. She didn't like the light, so she chose a dormitory without windows. The layout of the room is cloudy, it will be flooded, and the bedding in the room is often not cold. But after a long time, she got used to it: "I can't sleep at school, but I can't sleep well at home."
Liu Liping described himself and his students as "holding a group to keep warm and heal each other"-the world of AIDS patients, which is difficult for completely healthy people to deeply understand. She acts as a matchmaker in the "circle" and "finds an object internally" for AIDS patients. She feels that life is long, and compared with "double yang", the partner combination of "one yin and one yang" is full of greater uncertainty.
In 20 17, the first batch of students from Red Ribbon School 16 took the college entrance examination, and *** 14 students were admitted to junior college and undergraduate courses; Two students are about to take the postgraduate entrance examination this year. For these children with late enlightenment, "it is a qualitative leap."
Live like a normal person
When the school was first established, all the students went to the village to have their hair cut. As soon as the barber saw them, he said something was wrong and wanted to close the door and leave. The students came back crying, so Liu Liping had to take them to a farther and less familiar barber shop. "At that time, I felt that popular science was useless, I couldn't swear, I couldn't force others."
20 10 Liu Liping takes Wang Zichen as an extra in the movie Favorite. There are six AIDS group performances in the crew, and the film side should shoot a documentary about AIDS group performances at the same time, and ask the group performers one by one if they are willing to "show their faces" in front of the camera.
At first, Liu Liping subconsciously avoided the camera. After struggling for a few days, she decided to confess: "If you are discriminating against yourself, how can you fight against discrimination?" Finally, she, Wang Zichen and another male AIDS patient from Shanghai "appeared" to participate in the filming of the documentary.
20 12 on may 26th, Liu Liping and Guo Xiaoping jointly launched the international AIDS anti-discrimination lunch day, inviting volunteers from all walks of life to have dinner with AIDS children. Zhen Yule remembers that the first time she participated in the "Lunch Day", everyone moved the desks and chairs to the backyard of the school. Hundreds of people crowded into a small yard. "There are stars, entrepreneurs, college students, public welfare people and foreigners." Just eat some ordinary home-cooked dishes. Several children and volunteers sit at each table and help each other with food. "I think it is very meaningful, so that more people are not afraid of AIDS patients and do not discriminate."
This year, the International AIDS Anti-discrimination Lunch Day has been held for the ninth time on May 26th, becoming the AIDS theme publicity activity in China after World AIDS Day.
Having participated in public welfare activities all the year round and been frequently exposed by the media, Liu Liping is no longer ashamed to tell the public his identity as an AIDS patient. Gradually, her attitude towards herself changed from avoidance to recognition: "It's not a shame, it's not my fault."
Zhen Yule said that Liu Liping is the backbone and instructor of the students. "She will tell us not to feel inferior because we are infected with HIV. As long as we eat the medicine well, we can live like normal people. "
Before coming to Red Ribbon School, Liu Liping worked as an insurance salesman in a clothing store and a gas station. She was born in the countryside, but she doesn't like rural life and finds it slow and boring. Now she lives the slowest life, wandering between the dormitory and the teaching building every day.
There was no fence in the school before, but the fruit trees planted in the yard were never stolen. Picked the fruit and sent it to a nearby village, and no one dared to ask for it. Now, the school has harvested fruits and vegetables, and the villagers also want to get some food. "In the past, the propaganda work was not in place, and everyone was afraid and understandable. Later, we publicized AIDS prevention and treatment every year, and fewer and fewer people discriminated. "
On the evening of September 5th, Liu Liping walked out of school. The fields are open and there is a cool breeze blowing horizontally. Liu Liping said how comfortable he was.
The old farmer who was working in the field talked with her and gave her a handful of peanuts. It is common for students in groups to come back for food and go shopping on weekends. On this day, they asked the villagers to buy a bag of fried chicken collarbone. "Buy two Jin and get one Jin."
(Yan Yule, Wang Zichen and Lv Kun are pseudonyms in the text)