The shocking story of a man injected with HIV-infected blood when he was still 11 months old by his very own father has been spreading like wildfire, shocking the world.
According to the report from GQ, Brian Stewart, a phlebotomist at St. Louis hospital injected his 11-month old child with blood infected with HIV, simply to avoid paying for child care.
Stewart didn't expect his child, who was named after him, to reach past five years old. In a report from New York Daily News, Stewart told his wife that she wouldn't need child support because her son would not survive for long.
But Stewart had it all wrong. With the help of his family and own strength, Brian, who later changed his name to Brryan Jackson when he was eight years old, made it past 20 and is living life to the fullest.
"Man, either I could be sitting around being so mad at the situation, or I can sit around and have fun with it," Brryan told GQ. "Life's about having fun, having adventures."
But Brryan's life is not all fun and adventures. When he was seven, he suffered from fevers, a swollen liver, chronic ear infections, fungus growing under his fingernails. With his compromised immune system, he needed to take 23 oral medications. Due to his worsening condition, Brryan almost crossed over the line of death twice.
To make matters worse, when he was able enough to go to school, other students bullied him, sometimes pushing into the walls and pinning him down the floor. Some of the medications he was taking back then also hit his body.
After all the bad things that happened to Brryan because of the HIV-blood injected by his father, he had forgiven him already, although, they never even met.
"I don't really feel anything about him," Jackson said. "I don't know what he thinks of what he does, but since I've forgiven him, that's all I can do. Just live my life and show him what I'm made of."