We're so lucky in the New Zealand gay community! We can bonk around without fear of getting HIV and dying the often miserable deaths that an earlier generation suffered. It's not that HIV has gone, far from it. Latest figures of new infection rates show a more than alarming increase in the last two years that continues to this day. It's that the fear of dying, or even being sick with HIV-related illnesses seems to have gone. Because we have the new drugs! "Just a few pills a day" of powerful new drugs taken as part of what is known as "combination therapy" mean HIV may no longer be a death sentence. Even the treatment specialists who look at the increasing infection rates with concern say that with proper adherence to drug regimes people HIV positive people might be able to live out a normal life span. Yet in the rush by drug companies to market their HIV potions in glossy international magazines the downsides get airbrushed over. In our own human desire to get back to normality we filter out the crappy part of staying healthy despite HIV. But all the evidence shows that taking handfuls of HIV drugs is a far from normal existence. Side-effects, the day after day routine of taking the pills, the threat of HIV mutating round the drugs if they're not taken strictly as prescribed, all these aspects get ignored in favour of "Isn't he doing well... even with HIV he's still active and (dare we say it) alive!" GayNZ.com has decided to lift the lid on the realities of getting on to, and keeping to, a combination of standard HIV drugs. John Stone is a gay New Zealander of just on 50 who probably caught the virus in the early 1980s and was diagnosed in the mid-'90s. He is a self-employed businessman employing half a dozen staff. He has, through good clinical management and "good luck," never had an HIV-related illness. He remains fit and healthy, travelling frequently overseas for business and pleasure, leading an active life. John is about to go onto a new HIV drug combination, his previous combination having failed him. He has agreed to give you, through GayNZ.com and with some editing by us, access to his diary for three months as he tackles his new regime and settles into it. John will be starting his new combination on Friday September 24 and will be emailing his daily observations and thoughts through each week after that. His last "weekly report" will be at the end of December when he expects to be settled in to the combination and will leave town for a family gathering. Coincidentally this will also be the time when he is tested by his specialist to see if the combination is doing him any good. GayNZ.com strongly urges you to follow our edited weekly excerpts of his diary notes. If anyone you know might be having unsafe sex we urge you to draw John's ongoing 3-month journey to their attention. As part of this exercise we will be opening a specific topic section in our Message Board area so you can discuss his reports. We have invited the NZ AIDS Foundation and other HIV healthcare professionals to check that Message Board from time to time and add their comments to your own. We wish John well in his adoption of this new medication regime, and thank him for this access. We hope the new drugs keep his virus down to undetectable levels, his immune system functioning well and his life on track. Jay Bennie - 13th September 2004