The Blue File

Well, I've been back to the clinic, had some more blood taken. I had a virus (another virus) at the time so I wonder if that will have dented my CD4 count when I pick the results up in a couple of weeks. Sitting in the clinic waiting room, I found myself thinking about my HIV status for the first time in a couple of weeks. To be honest, it doesn't play on my mind nearly as much now that the initial novelty or horror of it has worn off and there's still bills to pay, still work to do, still people to see.

After sitting there for a few minutes, I noticed that my file was a thick, blue, ring-bound file, whereas most of the other people there had thin, brown paper files. Clearly, the thick files are for HIV+ patients and I did kind of have a little bit of a sad, yearning moment there for the time when my file was a thin, brown paper file. It's probably not really brilliant in terms of disclosure that there is this differentiation, because after my initial sadness at being the only blue file case while I was waiting, a few other guys came in and after fifteen minutes of watching people going in to see doctors, nurses and health advisors, I knew the HIV status of all the people waiting there that day.

I talked to the doctor, who was very friendly and reassuring, mainly just to check in with them to know that I'm okay, which I am on the whole. It's still a learning curve, and I'm realising now that it's not some scythe hanging over me, it's not some black mark on my forehead, seared in my skin. The stuff in the papers about how HAART resistance is increasing and how HIV resides in the brain is hard to take, partly because of the way the papers talk about HIV infected people as some kind of "Other" which has a strange impact on how I feel I fit into society if I am suddenly some invisibly different and dangerous chameleon.

I also talked to the doctor about my moles, she's going to write me a referral letter to the dermatologist at the hospital to talk about options. I'm currently of the thinking that I'd like rid of every last one of them, but I don't think they would recognise that as a clinical need.

I've stopped thinking that every time someone doesn't text me back, say they're up for a shag when we used to shag or they don't reply on gaydar that it's because I'm positive and they hate me for it. Of course, that's only the people who I know now know, though, and that's not a pool of people I would like to see increased. The people who know, on the whole, it is on a need to know basis, that they're either likely to come into contact with me sexually, my blood, or that they are the people I turned to in what I thought was my darkest hour of recent months. I'm okay with those people knowing, and I really do appreciate the support and love I've been given during that time, but, for instance, one guy who knows doesn't seem to talk to me so much, I wonder if that's just that we've drifted apart and another guy I am less keen on spending time with than I was when I told him. I'm not so anxious that I think I need to keep him on-side in case he goes out and tells everyone. "So what?" would be the key response, I think.