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.