Since I was working in the area, I popped along to the clinic to make a few appointments rather than waste ages on the phone. While I was there cheerfully appointing myself for blood tests, dieticians and the secret code-word "Medical" tests I realised that the guy next to me was this really sweet guy who I'd talked to one night about films and things and we'd said we'd do DVD nights and stuff some time. He was sniffing a lot and avoided eye contact, then the receptionist who was dealing with him was saying, "Oh, yes, we need to set you up with anumber because this is your first Medical Appointment." So yeah, I guess it does happen to other people I know, and not just people who I've known who've had it for ages and ages.

It's odd, it's not so long since I was that man, awkwardly not knowing how to say it's not a sexual health screen I'm booking in for, then they told me to ask for a "Medical appointment" rather than say, "No, I'm positive, I need a check-up for that." Now, I'm breezing up to the counter, my clinic number stored in my mind, booking myself in.

Am I really that okay with it already? I guess so, although I had low points over the weekend, they might have been coming anyway. Perhaps it's self-preservation that has made it all seem like a glib anecdote, that has turned it into a thing of numbers and figures rather than reflecting on just how poisonous I have become. It was certainly self-preservation that kept me from turning to the guy next to me, giving him a huge hug and taking him for coffee.

I think it's been really useful for me to have people who I've told about this who can talk to me about their perceptions and their experiences, but I'm still aware that I really should be exceptionally careful about how many people I have told. The temptation is, of course, to be bolshy and up-front about it, to tell the world, to blog elsewhere about it, to have a t-shirt made that says "breakfast PEP Included." in some kind of move to force it so hard into other people's faces that I can say, "I DO NOT HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THIS!" so loudly that it's bound to be very obvious indeed that I really do have quite a profound problem with it.

A friend of mine who seems to know a bizarre amount about immunology and HIV for someone with an arts job said a few things that left me wondering about where I got it from, but as another friend said, how would knowing that actually change things? Would I find the man who infected me and do what, casually mention that he's murdered me? Beat him up to give me some perverse sense of retribution? No, there's nothing to be gained through that kind of knowledge or retaliation. I'm not retaliatory, although I suppose if I could pin it down to a specific mistake or moment, then I could feasibly make sure that person knows their status because I can't imagine anything more frightening than the thought that I could have infected people during the period between my infection and my diagnosis.

I remember talking to a man who burst into tears rather than have sex with me, telling me he'd just found out he was positive and told me about his daughter, his girlfriend and just how incredibly frightened he was about how, in his mind, he just saw himself totally as a toxin, as a biological weapon. It's funny, but since diagnosis, I've sort of perversely liked how toxic I am. Someone pulls a knife on you in the street, you bleed on them. You win. Other people's fear of what your very nature has become is quite empowering.

Is that such an awful thing to say? In some ways, I really like that I'm positive now. I like that my body contains enough of the virus to strike terror into people. Without condoms in a sauna, I'm a suicide bomber and we all know how romantic a notion that would be. I feel much less of an urge to top myself, to cut myself, to smoke, to take too much drugs. What's the point in making subtle moves to hurt myself or to bring my death forward when my body's taking care of that in a very real sense.

Don't worry, I'm not going to start barebacking or seeding anyone any time soon, I think the responsibility for inflicting something like this onto someone else is something for which I would not like to have just now. It's just the notion that I could. Deadly force. Becoming the medusa. It's power.

Playing Doctors And Nurses

I had my first medical appointment last week. In the end, like with most things on this front so far, it was a period of anxious anticipation followed by vague disappointment and confusion after the appointment at what any of it actually means in practical terms. In essence, I found out nothing that I hadn't inferred from the blood test results that had been given to me the week before. I have slightly high cholesterol, my liver was a tiny bit strained, probably from having had a drink the day before or something like that, so that's nothing to worry about, my CD4 count is 527 and my viral load is something like 26351, again quite okay. I don't carry toxoplasmosis or CMV, which again makes for a good prognosis.

So yeah, I'm okay, I've got to talk to a dietician and I've got to have an appointment again in three months and other than that, life goes on as normal, unless somehow I can vampire kiss a crocodile some time soon.

Enough Looking Back

I'm sure the back story is something you can guess. I've had a couple of weeks of agitation since my diagnosis, I've received my CD4 count and Viral Load results, which would indicate that I'm only relatively recently infected, so we need to test regularly to see where my baseline figures lie. I've told a few of my friends, been enormously supported by them and my lover, regretted telling only one person who was upset by it. I've learned an awful lot from my friends, I've had sex and done SM and managed not to feel too guilty or poisonous while doing it or afterwards, although I did wonder if I had deliberately thrown myself back into that pattern as a way of denying what had happened to me. Bleeding after being flogged was a strange, painful catharsis, and the man who did it to me was an angel and by the end of the evening I'd lost a lot of my fears, not only about the venom I carry in my system, but also I'd been able to examine my fear of my skin being broken, of letting go of my pride in public.

My boyfriend also tested positive. In some ways, it's a relief, because having different diagnoses would have made sex and the relationship so difficult, but at the same time, it's hard because it means one of us brought the illness into our relationship and, as such, we have to try to avoid thinking about where it came from, who fucked up, who infected whom, all that.I told the person who I'd had sex with who'd initiated the whole need to check and his reaction was also good. I'd worried he might blame me for putting him at risk, however infinitely small, but he was also a star. A few friends, a few lovers know now, but not my family. Not yet, anyway, although I've reason to think they may suspect.

Tch. I'd said I wouldn't dwell on the back story and there's me telling you all of this. Where's my head at now? I don't know, to be honest. For the main part, life continues as normal and I'm fit and healthy - as I should be when I go to the gym a lot and my CD4 count is 527, looking forward to going on holiday in a couple of weeks, slightly nervous about having my photo taken by a friend this weekend, looking at myself in the mirror too much, getting my hair cut.

In short, life is normal. About the only shift is that when I feel low, I have a hook to hang it on. I was out in a club on Sunday morning and couldn't get into the swing of it, so I started to people watch and noticed the number of people who appeared to be on antiretrovirals by the distribution of their body fat, or the number of people on roids or using drugs. Kind of disturbing to play those games, really.

I've got my first doctor's appointment at the clinic to talk through the results in some detail. I don't know what to expect, really, I'm assuming it will be somehting about which I'll get very nervous beforehand and then when it comes to it, the appointment itself will be pretty straightforward and practical. I'll keep you posted.

The Lottery No-One Wants To Win

A sinking feeling, just plain shock and confusion. Tears came quickly, then questions fell as quickly as the hot, frightened tears I cried. The Health Advisor talked to me, but all the while my mind was spinning with the horrific implications. Where did this come from? Who have I infected? Who would I have to tell? How long did I have? What did it mean?

I think that's the question that snagged. Inamongst the flashback rewind to everyone I'd had sex with in the last year came this weighty shadow of my own ignorance. What does being HIV+ actually mean now in 2005? My mind raced back through every cough, every sniff, every sleepless night, every time I woke up sweating next to my man. Were these signs that the end was nigh? Rationally, I knew it wasn't the death sentence it once was, that I wouldn't look like the living dead, that I wouldn't wither and die within months, but at the same time should I still think about getting a mortgage?

I felt dizzy and sick, such intense vertigo on a low, over-soft NHS chair, sat across from a stranger who'd just told me I now carry the world's most feared disease.He left me to make a phone call. I felt as though I'd just been convicted.

"Baby!"
"Habibi," I said, my voice dark. "I got my blood test results."
"...and?" his voice carried a tension.
"It's positive."
"Well, you had the antibiotic jab, there's nothing to be upset about."
"Honey, no. HIV."
"Oh."
"I tested positive."
"Darling, whatever happens - whatever happens - this changes nothing about how I feel about you. I love you so much."

I cried. He'd just made it all a thousand, thousand times worse. He agreed to come and pick me up from the clinic and we could travel home together. The health advisor returned to the room and talked about the practicalities of what happens now. I'd have to have quite a lot of blood taken to do a series of comprehensive tests, then visit him again in a week, I'd have to see a doctor to talk through what they actually mean and ask whatever questions I have on a medical side, then ultimately it's a waiting game. After a certain period of time I'd lose enough of my immune system that they would start me on medication, then from there it becomes a condition about as treatable as diabetes. A few tablets at fixed intervals and there it is, managed.

He was able to make it sound like an inconvenience rather than a death sentence, so I was starting to feel a little better about it all, right up to the point where he handed me a leaflet explaining viral load and CD4 count. In itself no problem, but across the top it said, "A guide to viral load and CD4 count for HIV positive men." All I could think was that I shouldn't be given something like this leaflet. There was something about seeing it written that gave much greater power to the words.I gave my blood, watched it filling little vacuum vials, thinking, "This is poison." The nurse and I made bitter jokes, laughter coming nervously to my throat. I didn't know the etiquette for situations like this, I didn't know the rules, the norms, what was expected, so I had nowhere to fall into a script I could just relax into and pretend everything made sense.

I met my man in the street and he held me close. I stood there, shivering my tears against his chest, ignoring the people who walked by us in the square outside that strange-looking church. He kissed my hair, my neck, promised me, promised me everything would be alright.The train home alternated between us pulling faces at each other like two-year olds and me bursting into tears. Once we got home, we spent the evening on the sofa, talking through what had been said to me, how he'd have to get the test, too, how we'd deal with his result, positive or negative. It was one of the hardest conversations we've ever had.

What This Is All About

"Please come in."His body language, his tone. The way he'd said my name then broken eye contact in the waiting room. I walked into the room, muttering, "Fuck" repeatedly on my way to the low chair that looked far more comfortable than it was to be sat there at that moment."We have your HIV result." I felt tears welling up in my eyes at the second of silence that followed.

"It's positive."