It's a strange feeling siting in the big Lazyboy chair at the hospital while the nice lady sucks out half a dozen tubes of blood, meticulously shaking and labelling them. The months of full-on side-effects have settled down now into a routine of niggly background inconveniences which I can mostly live with. I know that, with the best will in the world, I've missed doses. If the combination is present in my body sufficiently consistently and at suitably high levels to retard the virus I will be overjoyed but there's the chance it won't be and the blood in those tubes now carries the answer. It's too late to psych myself into absolute 100% adherence to the pill schedule for a couple of weeks before being tested. Two weeks later I'm meeting with the HIV specialist who has helped me fight the virus since my first treatments. He's a knowledgeable, caring and remarkably supportive chap who combines pragmatism and sensitivity. I know he won't beat about the bush if the results show the pills or my resolve haven't been enough. I know he will show no criticism or judgement, that he will calmly and with an air of wisdom discuss alternative options and that I will feel a grinding sense of failure. He will leave room for the possibility that the combination was sadly not as effective as he and I hoped, but I will know that I ran out of steam on too many days and drifted off drug compliance. I'ts not just a test of the drugs and the virus and my immune system, it's a test of me. He flips open the folder and I realise I'm holding my breath, staring at the graphs prepared by the laboratory yet not seeing them, taking nothing in while I wait for his pronouncement. It's always like this. Every test of drug effectiveness has been like the first HIV test I ever took in 1994 when my hands shook and my palms sweated and my eyes gazed unseeingly as my GP, Matt, found the best words he could to humanely tell me I was HIV positive. Matt had been through that little ritual many, many times with many, many gay men. His phrase "The test results show that you have been in contact with the HIV virus" softened the blow, broke the realisation into two gentler mental steps. I remember thinking "I've been in contact with it..." then moments later "then I've got it." I hope that my specialist will similarly soften the blow, gentle me into the bad news. But he doesn't. He comes straight out with it, cool, professional, direct. "It's a good result." I hardly hear him say "Your CD4 count has come up a little and your viral load level has gone undetectable again." But I do hear him say "Congratulations, feel his handshake and see his smile. It's been a close shave I am sure. I mentally resolve not to squander this opportunity to live healthier, longer. There's not much more for us to say except "keep taking the tablets" which we do with a smile and a sense of relief. We discuss the side effects and he makes a few suggestions for living and dealing with them and after less than 10 minutes I'm out of the outpatients' office, in the car and driving home, relieved, determined thankful. In three months' time they'll take more blood as I sit in the Lazyboy staring at the Immunise your Children" poster and we'll go through this whole thing again. But until then I can relax, get on with life and keep... taking... the... pills! Every time! on time! I bloody well will! It's a sunny day, I've got the afternoon off work so I head to the beach for a quiet little celebration... an ice cream and a swim and an hour in the sun. Editor's note: Although John had agreed to write a further diary entry following his next blood tests he has asked to be excused from that chore. His next 3-monthly test showed that the pills were already not as effective as they had been, and three months after that test his level of HIV had risen markedly and his immune system indicators had dropped. These results prompted an evaluation of his medications and he has in the past few days embarked on a new combination of HIV pills. We wish him well and acknowledge his contribution to this aspect of HIV awareness. John Stone; GayNZ.com - 15th February 2005
Credit: John Stone; GayNZ.com
First published: Tuesday, 15th February 2005 - 12:00pm