Instagram model shares HIV/AIDS shock
An Instagram model romantically linked to a number of celebrities including Chris Brown, Chris Keef, and Nick Cannon has shared how she nearly succumbed to AIDS.
Gena Tow, 27, spoke about her experiences in a video, telling her followers she doesn’t know when or how she contracted the sexually transmitted disease leading to her condition.
She adds that doctors estimated she’d been living with the virus for about eight to 10 years due to the gravity of her body’s deterioration to death.
“I do not know who gave it to me or where I got it, how I got it. All I know is because I was so sick to the point of death, that they said I had to have had it for eight to 10 years,” she explains in the video.
“And in that time frame, I was living in New York City, and I was homeless. I did get raped a couple of times, not something I like to talk about,” she shared.
“I have had a couple free tattoos so it could have been a dirty needle; I don’t know. Do I know those people? No. Did I say anything when those things happened? No. Because I was naive, and I was stupid, and I was young.”
She talked about how she even discovered she was sick during a checkup at a hospital when a doctor asked her if she knew she had AIDS. That’s how she found out.
“I lost a lot of weight because I was in the hospital; I don’t know what happened. From losing all that weight, I lost mobility in my legs, so I can’t walk or stand right now. But I do my therapy every day and take my pills every day like I’m supposed to. I take five pills a day.”
She doctors warned her she would be dead if she had not sought medical attention any later.