479

It's down again, but my results have been erratic from the start. Nothing needs doing at this point, other than trying to keep looking after myself as much as I can. When I got my last count, it was after months of abstinence from drugs, alcohol and cigarettes. I was eating very healthy food, having lots of exercise, getting acupuncture once a week and generally being very religious about looking after myself. This time, I'd just finished a four-month contract with work, was exhausted, I've started drinking and smoking again and I'd been dumped a few days before.

Of course, there are too many variables to consider in this to make for any kind of realistic correlation. Certainly, healthy living must help with staying healthy, but by the same token, I can't put my whole life on hold for this. Yes, I hear tales of men who, through meditation, yoga and tiptoe-living, have managed to remain off medication, but I also know plenty of guys who sleep around, take copious amounts of recreational drugs, bareback, smoke, drink, do steroids and the like. They still have a life - it may be a different kind of life, but it's not too good to get into value judgements. I'm not wanting to fall into fear that I might become that which I so nearly became with the lifestyle I was having before. Maybe, yes, I should go back to doing more for my health, but perhaps without the peity this time.

E-HIV and The Lands of Confusion

Had my bloods taken last week - they've set me up on this Option E thing they offer at the Victoria Clinic, whereby they email through your CD4 count and Viral Load without you having to go into the clinic. Of course (as happened with that odd result at Christmas) they call you in if there's a reason to, but it's more acknowledgement that you're not going to really have much to talk about with a doctor except if you need to start on medication in the first instance and if you're unfortunate enough to develop drug resistance.

This is all good - the nurse who administers Option E is friendly and really helpful, the system seems designed to minimise the need for interference in someone's life, which is good stuff, especially since I'm thinking of leaving London.

I think I need to do some serious research into the implications of attempting to be a migrant from here to Sweden and Australia with the HIV virus within me. I don't know if there's any way around the residency rules banning HIV+ people from settling in Australia... I'd like to find out.

Rate My AIDS

Submitted my second article; the editor liked it, said she may make it their lead feature for their July issue. That's quite good news, I'd say, but it remains to be seen if I can get further work with larger-circulation magazines. I'll just have to keep plugging at it.

Speaking of keeping on plugging at it, I've got my bloods this afternoon. As I've said before, I'm broadly ambivalent about getting this done. Academic curiosity about what me "score" is now is about the only big thing about it. Sure, if it's that I have more toes that CD4 cells, then perhaps I've got to think seriously about how to respond to that, but... I was about to say I hope my count's about the same as before and high, but I don't know that that's true. I'm healthy. I'm healthy however many little squiggly white cells are defending my body from invaders.

Still. Wish me luck, eh? The power of +ve thinking.

Believe

My friends who I told that he'd broken it off were shocked, tried to convince me to give it another go, but it's not my choice to make and I'm not going to paw after someone, no matter how in love I'd thought we were. Of course, I'm angry, hurt and upset, but what's there to say. It's a fait accompli and I have to respect that. I adore him and I can't imagine feeling otherwise, but he's torn up and confused at the moment and I add to his stress, rather than grant succour.

I'm sad - of course I'm torn up, it's all cliches and bad poetry in my heart right now, but that'll pass. For now, it's finding my feet again, going back to the gym, taking photos for a my friend who survived the hell of months in hospital, blood tests, acupuncture, writing articles; my thirtieth birthday.

The Ritardando Diminuendo of Grief

I was talking to a friend of mine on the train on Tuesday and she said that although she's used to me talking about my HIV status, what she realised, which I hadn't, is that the process of dealing with the initial grief associated with your HIV status isn't something you can immediately resolve. That it's an ongoing anxiety about blood tests, CD4 counts and the like, but also that you encounter barriers you hadn't known would be there before - that suddenly you're prevented from travelling to certain countries, you have to make all kinds of concessions and considerations in relationships, you have anxieties about work and the like.

Yes, it's waves of shock, frustration, fear and the like, but it's a cycle I'm becoming accustomed to, I hope. Yes, my freedom of movement has been arbitrarily limited. Yes, I'm a "threat to public health." Yes, I could face prosecution if I don't use condoms and discuss my status with any sexual partners. Yes, it sucks.

But, there's not much to be gained from that anger, that resentment, that bereavement for the life I had before I knew. So what do we do? Keep going, knowing that just as my CD4 count will oscillate, so will my ability to cope with it all. Luckily, the space of time between these wobbles seems to be growing; the severity of them diminishing.