It's the time of year when everyone's talking about their amazing plans to radically change their lives - I thought I'd have a nosey through some other HIV-related blogs on the internet and came across this curious article about people who, through willpower alone, "beat" HIV. It struck me as a little bit sad. Not that I'm denying that remaining upbeat and trying not to allow HIV to make you its bitch can't help with your prognosis, it's just the sense that it's clutching at straws to say things like, "Well done!" to a guy in Berlin who stopped medicating for HIV and has seemingly remained healthy with a barely-detectable viral load. The patient seems to attribute his luck to his will, the doctors are less optimistic, saying that it looks more likely to be something to do with early intervention and experimental drugs if his spontaneous recovery proves to last at all.
The science of it is beyond me, but what interested me about it was the way that it was presented, offering a glimmer of hope to some people who are often quite desperate. I guess I'm pretty well-adjusted about the whole HIV thing - I can get on with life now without thinking about it all the time, I don't seem to be going through the depression or substance abuse that seems to be rife among other people with the virus and I'm pretty sanguine about the whole thing.
It sounds like what gets a lot of people with the virus is a very understandable fear. For my part, if a few people have had the good fortune to have tested HIV positive and now test negative - good luck to them, I say, but I've got plenty to be getting on with without spending half my time on my knees praying for a one in a million shot at divine intervention.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
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2 comments:
Thanks for the post and link to my own blog post. I want to clarify some points.
If I posted about Andrew, Tommy and the Berlin patient, it's because people were asking the question about people who may have 'beat hiv.' I only know three of them, so I wanted to let the world know. Why? Because... Well, do you ever hear about them anywhere in the press? Is this even an angle that research companies want made public?
The people I write about did not beat HIV through willpower alone. In fact, they 'beat hiv' without making any attempt to beat it and without exercising any willpower.They woke up one day and they no longer had hiv. Nobody could explain it.
The people I write about don't have undetectable hiv levels: they don't have hiv. They are hiv negative unlike me -maybe you. I have undetectable hiv loads, yet I would still test positive. These three people have no hiv at all nowhere. That is the puzzling thing.
Well, I certainly don't know what to make of it. What's interesting is that doctors don't know either.
I am your average guy with hiv who's wondering how they did it. No clutching at the hope of being hiv-free one day but interested in the possibility that hiv may disappear one day.
I live as good a life as I can - and if I didn't like cheese so much, I would be near perfect. :-)
If anything, it is a
"I've got plenty to be getting on with without spending half my time on my knees praying for a one in a million shot at divine intervention."
Fuck that. Just said one for you. Don't know if He's listening, since my ass dropped out of church at about the same time I came out to myself, but what's that stupid saying:
"Never hurts to ask."
I discovered your blog today, and would like to thank you taking the time to share your life here. Your words are needed, and your being is
[appreciated]
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