Getting Tested When AIDS Was a Death Sentence
I want you to FEEL what it used to be like to get tested, back when no effective treatment existed. We have treatment today, of course, Treatment as Prevention.
That’s a critical concept in the prevention of HIV. In stopping the spread of the virus.
People living with HIV who enter treatment almost always see their viral levels reduced to undetectable. They don’t become ill. They can’t infect others. Frequent testing and treatment means that the virus stops circulating.
We have a real chance to end HIV with TASP, even without a vaccine.
I’ll never forget the day my buddy Howie went with me to keep me company during an HIV test. I was nervous. Hell, I nothing but a ball of electric nerves.
My stomach was acid and fire.
We jumped on the subway in Greenwich Village. Rode it way up into the upper reaches of Spanish Harlem. Everybody knew that you don’t get tested at a doctor’s office. If you did, and it came back positive, too much bad shit could happen. Your health insurance company finding out about the results could be just the beginning of your problems.
So we clacked along on elevated rails, Howie and I. He kept up a constant patter to distract me. Talked about his passions. Batman and Star Trek.
He’d tried to talk me out of getting tested the night before. “What happens if you are positive, man? What does that change? Why you wanna know?”
“I just do, OK? Like… maybe not knowing is worse. Like. I dunno. I could keep track of my T cells, maybe start AZT if they get low.”
“Fuck that, are you kidding me? That shit’ll kill you faster than AIDS. Seriously, fuck that shit, Blanche.”
He didn’t want me to get tested, but he went with me anyway. What else are friends for? We hiked past bodegas and pager stores as we squinted to try to spot the address of the clinic.
I eyed Dominican teens playing baseball in a vacant lot, wishing my dreams were as innocent as their Major League ambitions. We climbed two rickety flights of wooden steps and waited forever in a dingy lobby festooned with bowls of multicolored condoms and lollipops.
Posters of hot young guys hung on the wall. Shirtless and sexy. They were reminding us that safer sex is hotter sex.
I signed in anonymously, got my ID numbers, waited and waited, and finally sat and clenched my fist as the needle slid into a vein.
I balled the bit of cotton swab into my inner elbow and squeezed to make the bleeding stop. On the subway ride back, I almost let it fall (thoughtlessly) onto the seat beside me. I scooped it up and jammed it in my pocket, consumed with guilt even though the intellectual part of my brain knew the blood in it couldn’t infect anyone even if I were positive.
The hard part was going back two weeks later, stomach knotted hard in pain. Howie couldn’t come. Had to work. Wished me luck.
You couldn’t get your results over the phone. What if you freaked out? It’s a fucking death sentence, after all. Oh, we didn’t admit that. We weren’t AIDS victims. We were men and women living with HIV.
Except I wasn’t.
The big, burly Puerto Rican nurse in pink scrubs gave me the news.
Negative.
I sighed and relaxed, releasing tension and toxins that had been building for two weeks.
We didn’t want to get tested back then because all testing could tell us was that we were fucked. Some of us wanted to know if we were well and truly fucked. Some of us didn’t.
Knowing didn’t change anything. There was no effective treatment, anyway.
Howie tried to talk me out of it because he’d been positive for eight long years already. And he regretted knowing. He regretted the fear that gnawed at him and ate away at his soul for all those years.
He regretted waking up sweating at night and being terrified that it was the night sweats of AIDS soaking his sheets and not just a sultry August evening.
I wanted to know. Howie didn’t. Lots of people didn’t.
Everybody’s different.
Today, being tested is life saving.
Today, if you test positive, you can begin treatment to manage a chronic condition. You can make sure that the spread of the virus stops with you.
Yes, there’s stigma to face.
No, it’s not a walk in the park, not a bed of roses.
You can do it, though. And you can be healthy. You can seek happiness.
Nobody today should have to fear being tested.
If you’re a man or a transgender woman who has a lot of sex with men, testing is vital, and PrEP might be exactly what you need to stay virus free. Click this link to learn more.
If you already have HIV, click this link and learn how you can live a long, full, loving life. HIV is not a death sentence. Treatment works. With testing, condoms and PrEP, the day is coming when nobody will need treatment.
Getting Tested When AIDS Was a Death Sentence
Research & References of Getting Tested When AIDS Was a Death Sentence|A&C Accounting And Tax Services
Source
0 Comments