Gena Tew Confirms She's Not in Hospice Amid Rumors: 'Almost'

Instagram model Gena Tew has confirmed that she is not currently under hospice care as she continues to document the challenges of living with AIDS.

The 27-year-old model, who last week underwent surgery in a bid to restore sight in her left eye, has been documenting her health struggles in a series of social media posts since going public with her diagnosis in March.

In one TikTok video clip, which was shared on June 11 and has been viewed more than 12 million times, the social media star showed herself struggling to get up from her bed as her weight plummeted and muscle atrophy weakened her legs.

As part of documenting her health journey on social media, Tew has been answering a number of questions sent to her by followers.

On Monday, the subject of interest was whether Tew was in a hospice, with one follower writing: "I really admire you sharing and the awareness. If you don't mind me asking, are you on hospice?"

Tew responded: "I really appreciate you, and I also don't even know if you're trying to be funny or serious. Because people keep saying I'm gone… I have a hospital bed, but I'm not on hospice. I am not on hospice and I'm alive, y'all. I'm alive!"

Responding to the video, another follower commented that "hospice isn't just for the dying. They can also give around the clock care for those who need longer care/rehabilitation."

"True!" Tew wrote in response. "They almost put me on hospice but I made it."

On August 18, Tew revealed that she had undergone eye surgery in Memphis, Tennessee, in a bid to combat her AIDS-related blindness.

"Most of you know I was blind in my left eye, like completely," she told her followers in a post-surgery video. "So I just had surgery to get the blood sucked out of it. So let's see if I get any [improved] vision."

After having a patch removed, Tew told her social media followers: "As you see, I can still not open my eye fully, Like I said, I had major surgery on it. I have a little bit—I can see shapes, so it's better than not seeing [anything] at all."

Tew added that she will be "taking this new prescription they're giving me for my eyes. It should get better and progress, because it's still healing. it's still really, really sore."

However, by Sunday, she posted a video on her Instagram Stories, in which she said that she was experiencing continued issues.

"Those of you asking me about my eye, it's still struggling, but it's doing something," she said. "I'm still taking my medicine, y'all. It's going to take a little while."

On one of her posts, Tew had used the hashtag "#CMV," in apparent reference to cytomegalovirus retinitis, which is known to be an ocular complication for people living with AIDS.

In July, Tew answered a question on how she acquired AIDS, explaining in a video: "I do not know who gave it to me or where I got it, how I got it. All I know is that because I was so sick to the point of death, they said I had to have it for eight to 10 years.

"And in that timeframe, I was living in New York City and I was homeless. I did get raped a couple times—not something I like to talk about. 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."

In recent months, Tew has shared a slew of videos on her health journey, including visits to doctors and posts from her home, where she revealed that she had lost sight in one eye and that her weight had dipped to a low of 65 pounds. On Sunday, she revealed that her weight was up to 94 pounds.

Thanks to advanced treatments, Tew has shown videos of herself having gained weight as she recovers from the worst of her health battle.

According to the Mayo Clinic, AIDS, or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, "is a chronic, potentially life-threatening condition caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). By damaging your immune system, HIV interferes with your body's ability to fight infection and disease.

"HIV is a sexually transmitted infection (STI). It can also be spread by contact with infected blood and from illicit injection drug use or sharing needles. It can also be spread from mother to child during pregnancy, childbirth or breastfeeding. Without medication, it may take years before HIV weakens your immune system to the point that you have AIDS."

While there is no cure for HIV/AIDS, medications can control the infection and greatly slow its progression.

"Access to better antiviral treatments has dramatically decreased deaths from AIDS worldwide, even in resource-poor countries," the Mayo Clinic states.

"Thanks to these life-saving treatments, most people with HIV in the U.S. today don't develop AIDS. Untreated, HIV typically turns into AIDS in about 8 to 10 years."