What happens when an “HIV-positive” person needs emergency medical care? Tragically, we hear from many who have been denied this care as soon as they were deemed to have “AIDS.” Join us as Joe Stokely shares memories of his late wife, Karri Stokely, the agonies of her years on the “antiretroviral” AIDS drugs (ARVs), her remarkable recovery off them, and her struggle to get basic health care for a life-threatening condition later — without re-submitting to the drugs. Finally, Joe speaks movingly of her tragic death.

The Stokelys were the very template for the American family — honest, hard-working, churchgoing people with two children. Karri’s 1996 diagnosis as “HIV positive” followed a serious, months-long infection resulting from the C-section delivery of her second child. She was at first the perfect AIDS patient, regularly taking her drugs and accepting her health decline as part of her supposedly fatal illness.

Then, in 2007, Joe stumbled on some alternative views, opening up some avenues of information that had been so far hidden to the Stokelys, and within a few weeks Karri decided to stop taking her drugs. She suffered terrible withdrawal symptoms but eventually enjoyed renewed health and spoke movingly at the Rethinking AIDS 2009 conference in Oakland, California.  Nonetheless, about a year later, Karri’s health started to decline when an internal ulcer grew. She had to fight to get appropriate treatment without going back on antiretrovirals, and after months of complications, finally succumbed in April 2011.

Karri’s own “Thoughts, Musings, and Ramblings” stand as a testament to her triumph, her despair, and her anger at the betrayal of trust by doctors and other medical professionals.  Ironically, the denial of access to competent medical care led to Karri’s untimely death.

Joe Stokely later told us that he will soon remarry.  We wish him and his new bride love, supportive family, and the American dream of freedom from oppression.

 

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