Inexorable

A few guys I've spoken to have said that the thought of infection turns them on. Specifically not just the thought of flesh-to-flesh contact without the barrier of a condom, but the prospect of contracting HIV. While I think there's a bit of urban mythology about bugchasing, I think there's some slight truth in it for some people I've spoken to. What they talk about is an end to the fear and uncertainty of being "negative at my last test" and the ongoing dread that accompanies each of those tests. There's also the way that HIV positive people have had to go through a challenging period of self-evaluation and some of us come out of that chewing our own faces off in clubs, getting fucked by strangers, while others have used that crisis as a springboard into a position where we value our health and our lives a lot more than we used to.

Neither's any more appropriate a response than the other to the acquisition of a potentially life-threatening disease, but to willingly choose a slow, inexorable suicide seems like an interesting choice. Personally, I've not attempted suicide or been anywhere near it since my diagnosis, but had been previously. On one level or another I think I acknowledged that the matter taken out of my hands now so there was no merit in trying to hurry it along. Far from being nihilistic, knowing that death swam with me gave me a lot more to find good about life.

I wonder if that low-level creeping nihilism that underpins the ennui that many people feel these days drives some of us to situations where the matter could be taken out of our hands and we'd seek out, consciously or otherwise, an end to the fear and uncertainty that comes with being negative to replace it with the inexorable certainty of being HIV positive.

I don't for a moment think that the majority of people feel this way, but I have had conversations with more than a few guys who have said that they fantasise about it and secretly wish for situations where it could happen.

I don't plan on granting anyone's wish this Christmas.

How to do a CD4 Count

Still here. Here, still.

Sorry that this blog's been offline for a little while; I was trying to work out some better ways of keeping it anonymous, which hasn't worked brilliantly so far, but I've now got it working from a new email address that's specifically for this blog, so I'm feeling a little more able to talk here again.

I'm glad that I've got that sorted out, although I'm sure that my identity is the worst kept secret in the world, as is my status. It comes through in so many subtle little things, and I'm generally open about it, just not to people I work with, for the main part, and not with people I think will be stupid about it.

I got my latest blood test results through. My cd4 count is 351 and my viral load is 3,150 or something like that. While it's obviously heartening that the viral load is coming down, the wave of anxiety I felt while waiting for the results broke onto the shores of, well, sadness when the results came through. My numbers have been all over the place, to the extent that I've run sweepstakes on what my scores will be, but I've got to accept that they're unlikely to get better and I have to resign myself that while I'm not on medication, I do have a progressive and life-threatening condition. Of course, medication changes that and makes it manageable, but there's still a sense of bereavement for a chapter of my life that has passed and can never quite be regained.

I still struggle with the dilemma about how open I should be about my status - I mean, I shouldn't feel like it's something I have to hide from people, but I still feel that it's a failure on my part that I got infected. I mean, we all know how to avoid it, don't we? I still don't know how I caught it, who I got it from or much like that - there's a few times when I took moderate risks, but I didn't do any of the high risk stuff you're always warned about, so there's, I guess, a sense of anger as well as the sadness about this whole thing. A desire to make sense of stuff that never will.

My boyfriend continues to be amazing about all of this and is hugely supportive and sensitive about my status, saying that if he gets infected, then we've got to remember that it's a shared responsibility. Intellectually, I know this, but it would have passed from me to him, so I'd blame myself, not necessarily for the act that infected him but for the fact I got infected in the first place and therefore bring an extra complication to a relationship.

Drawing In

Got a letter through today, telling me I should make an appointment for a flu/pneumonia jab because I'm on the list of people who need that kind of thing. That's nice to know - apparently I'm frail. I won't complain, though - the thought of a winter without the flu is a nice one and not to be sniffed at (sorry). Still, I think it kinda highlights how the GP and the specialists give me totally different takes on HIV. The GP gives me antibiotics every time I go, "just in case" even when it's obvious that it's just something that everyone's getting and thinks I need a flu jab because my immune system is compromised.

It's not; not yet, at least. I've got a CD4 count of 444 and a viral load of 22,691 - according to received wisdom, it's unlikely I'll have an immune system that's compromised for another five to ten years. I don't have a co-infection of hepatitis or anything else. When the GP's so twitchy about my HIV status, it makes me wonder what it must feel like to be someone who doesn't have good specialist care at their disposal and is only given that concerned look every time they go to complain about a bad back or anything.

It's funny - I'm also being encouraged to apply for a grant that I am only entitled to ask for if I'm prepared to say that I'm disabled, which I think the DDA says I am, kinda, now. Doesn't make it terribly comfortable, though, to be ticking a box and wondering what questions they'll ask and what they'll do with that information. It's funny, before, when I was ill with PTSD and had a psychiatric diagnosis and was on medication and the like, I was quite happy to be disabled, but this, which is clearly not my fault, I'm ashamed of.

I wonder if there's still some issues to work through about the whole thing. I'm sure I can understand how people wind up saying things like that they're Poz and Proud and all that, but I don't want that, nor do I want people's sympathy when I say I'm positive. There is still that odd dissonance about the distinction between the friends who know and the friends who don't know. Sometimes it's just not come up in conversation, so it's tricky, thinking that they might feel left out by not knowing.

The headfuck of HIV is more of a disability than having fewer white blood cells of a particular variety than I used to.

The End of the World, Two Years On

It's been two years since I was diagnosed and I'm not really sure how much longer than that since I got infected. As before, there's not an awful lot to say, which is why this blog's been quiet. After the 300 moment, my counts went back up to 500 and I've just given bloods to get an email in a couple of weeks with where it's all at now. I'm not really sure how much more there is to say about any of it at this point. After diagnosis, I was caught up in the vortex of the breakdown of the relationship I was in and the descent of my then-partner into dark places where I couldn't bear to follow him, then the struggle to come to terms with the infection and the break-up. After that, there was the strange joy of dating someone negative who was utterly freaked out by my status, which left me feeling more diseased than ever. Now, two years on from the end of the world and I'm in a solid, happy relationship with someone who isn't freaked out by my status (and isn't bugchasing either) and a trip to the clinic feels like a trip to the hairdresser's, where it's chats about work, holidays, boyfriends and a quick jab and you're out of there. I'm not sure why there was a point where I thought I was going to need a psychiatrist to help me come to terms with that.

While I was at the clinic last week, I talked to the nurse about how the messages given to my boyfriend about HIV differed so much from the ones I get. He laughed and told me that he thinks it's a bit mental that a doctor told him off for telling a negative client that it wasn't the end of the world if he was diagnosed with HIV.

"Young people don't realise how bad it used to be!" said the doctor.

"Why should they? It isn't that bad any more." said the nurse.

Having grown up in the shadow of THAT tombstone, I can agree. It really isn't all that bad. It's horrible that it's something I have no choice about and it's horrible that it's hassle and some people are horrible about it, but the thing itself? It ain't so bad.

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Went for bloods last month and, well, I've only got a few more little soldiers than Leonidas had. Soon, it seems, my viral load shall blot out the sun and we shall fight in the shade. Got to repeat the blood test soon but sounds like those years I thought I had left before I'd have to start on medication are fewer than I'd hoped in number.

The Western Front

...all quiet.

The clamour, the shock, the newsworthiness of it all fell away. I had a boyfriend who was so terrified of infection that he started to desire it, I had another boyfriend for whom I was his first, which was weird - the virgin and the whore - then I think I've given up looking for salvation between the legs of innocent men. This is no bad thing, I reckon. I'm just ticking over now. Considering what's important. Stability, unfortunately, doesn't seem to automatically include someone else as part of that equation. I'm getting places career-wise I'd not thought I'd get to. I get on better with my ex now than I think I did when we got into all this silly mess. My heart's in a holding pattern. Sure, I do keep finding myself spending time with this one guy, but I think the slightest whisper of belonging would be enough to send me running for the hills right now.

I'm slightly annoyed with myself for over-disclosing in the earlier stages of this. People I barely know start asking me how I got it.

"I know this guy who said he got it from a blow job. I mean, is that possible? How did you get it?"

"Bareback double anal."

The conversation doesn't often go further than that. Funny, really, how people's perceptions of you change according to how they think you were infected. I'm a nice man - now, at least - so surely I'm a victim of this. Heh. As if. If anything, as I mentioned before, this saved my life in several ways. Or, least, it shook things up a little bit.

Anyhow, hello. As I said, nothing really to report here just yet. Am going with a friend for him to get tested in a couple of weeks. I'm not really sure I'm best qualified for this, only that I'd be able to find good things in either result. It's odd, though, that sense of seeing someone's fear of becoming what I am already. Strange days.

Updating You

Not sure if this blog fell off everyone's radars this last month or two. When I changed over to blogger beta, it linked everything together through my gmail account and it became quite easy to get to my identity through this, which isn't something I was really prepared to risk, so I made the blog private for a little while. It's sorted now, so things should be ok.

That said, as much as no news is good news, good news is no news, so there's not been that much to say on here of late.

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These results are starting to sound like buses. Another set of bloods back, another reassurance that nothing's happening yet that needs any kind of intervention. Given that there's plenty of friends of mine who have had it for a decade, or longer, who don't need medication, I wonder if perhaps I was a bit of a fool to think there was any point in thinking about the infection at all. Sure, it's a pain, and it's certainly a factor that damages relationships for me - not because of their fear of me infecting them, but more because of my own anxiety about it meaning I'm left overcompensating, hoping that they'll like me in spite of the virus.