By Emmanuel Fashakin
Latrice came to see me one very bright Thursday morning in January 2023, stunningly beautiful and elegant as ever. It’s been almost three years since her husband died, but I still find it awkward that Latrice would come to the doctor without her husband in the room. For almost ten years, whenever Latrice came to us for follow-up care for her Diabetes and Hypertension, the husband would come in with her. He would take a chair in the corner of the room, reading a book or magazine, or simply staring at the far wall. Saying nothing. I once joked with him that if I have a wife as pretty as Latrice, I too would follow her wherever she goes.
Latrice and Nelson were a very unusual couple. First, there was an obvious age gap between them. Latrice was around forty years old, and Nelson was in his seventies when they met. And Nelson was HIV positive, a fact I only knew many years after he started accompanying his wife to our practice after he decided to enroll himself too. I was shocked to see that Nelson was HIV positive. Latrice remains HIV-negative to this day. Why would such a young pretty lady be married to a much older HIV-positive man? I often wondered.
I got to know about Nelson after he enrolled in our practice. A very calm and well-disposed man. He told me his life story. He was a policeman back in his home country in Guyana. Then he emigrated to the United States but kept contact with his roots in Guyana. He never told me how he became HIV positive, but I had a good guess. He was a graceful, kind, and gentle six-footer. He would be any lady’s delight. He was very strict with his medications, which included treatment for Blood pressure and diabetes, in addition to the HIV medications. This explains his longevity: all his diseases were well-managed and under control.
After Nelson enrolled in our practice, and he came to see me alone, I finally asked Nelson the questions which had been nagging me for a while: “Mr. Nelson, you are HIV-positive, and your wife is HIV-negative; how did you guys manage that? How do you copulate without infecting your wife?” “There are many ways to satisfy a woman”, he calmly explained. “We explore other ways to keep her happy without any risk of infecting her.” I breathed a sigh of relief. “I told her about my HIV status and she was comfortable with it. She readily agreed to marry me.”
In early March 2020, at the outbreak of the Covid pandemic in New York, one bright Saturday morning, I arrived fearfully at my Brooklyn office for work. Fearfully because the dead bodies were beginning to pile up in the streets outside the hospitals. Most of my colleagues had closed down their offices, but I kept Abbydek Family Medical open. I gave the staff the option to work or remain at home on paid leave. It was a scary situation. It was in this bad scenario I found Nelson waiting for me outside the office at about 9 am in the morning: 82-year-old Diabetic, Hypertensive HIV positive man, a very vulnerable demographic for the Covid virus.
“What are you doing here?” I yelled at Nelson. “I want you to check me out, I am afraid of this Covid virus thing”, he said slowly. “No, no, no, Nelson. You should stay at home. Please don’t come inside the office. I will call a taxi to take you home.” I called a taxi from my own cell phone and informed them that a gentleman was waiting outside the office. I had no idea then, but that was the last time I saw Nelson.
Latrice picked up the rest of the story. A few days after Nelson’s ill-advised trip to the office, Nelson fell sick. Fever, cough, and chills. The diagnosis was obvious in view of the raging Covid 19 pandemic. When Nelson’s condition deteriorated, the wife called the ambulance and they took him away to the hospital. Barely three days later, precisely one week after his trip to the office, Nelson died. The wife never saw him again after he was taken to the hospital. To avoid the risk of spreading the scourge, virtually all the patients who died of Covid virus in the hospital were given mass burial.
Finally this day in January 2023, Latrice was free and able to tell me her side of the story. Latrice told me how they met back in her home country of Guyana. She said about thirteen years earlier, she was working as a receptionist in a five-star hotel in Guyana. Nelson was a frequent visitor to the hotel on his many visits to the country from his abode in the USA. Nelson was known to be intimate friends with one of the receptionists in the hotel. She was therefore very surprised when on one of his visits, Nelson asked her out. It appeared that things did not work out between Nelson and Latrice co-worker. She did not know why and did not bother to ask.
Latrice needed help. She had five children: three for her first husband. When the marriage broke down, she got hooked with another man and had more children for that one. That relationship also turned sour. She was seeing someone else when she was approached by American Mr. Nelson. She promptly broke off with her new man when he found that Nelson was serious. She got married to Nelson and he filed papers for her and her five children and took them to New York.
“When did you find out Nelson had HIV disease?” Latrice confirmed what Nelson told me. “He was honest. He told me right at the beginning.” “And you were not afraid to marry an HIV-positive man?” “No. I was not. He used Sex toys. He was careful not to infect me. Nelson was a very good man. He took very good care of me.”
I agree. In all the years I knew him, Nelson was a perfect gentleman. It was a very unusual union, but it worked out beautifully for both parties. Latrice works as a Nursing Care Assistant and she is always beaming with smiles and provided Nelson with very good companionship until death did them part. May his kind soul Rest in Peace.
Emmanuel O. Fashakin, M.D., FMCS(Nig), FWACS, FRCS(Ed), FAAFP, Esq.
Attorney at Law & Medical Director,
Abbydek Family Medical Practice, P.C.
Web address: http://www.abbydek.com
Cell phone: +1-347-217-6175
“Primum non nocere”
