My Fourteenth World AIDS Day.

Just wanted to share.

I was diagnosed HIV-positive in 2004.
I always failed maths, but then this is my 14th World AIDS Day!

This is me tonight.


Do you have an HIV/AIDS story to share?

A critique lately has been that HIV-poz people are no longer open enough, or accessible to the newly diagnosed.

And it's true, fourteen or so years ago policies in South Africa were still horrendous.

But everybody could name a couple of Aids activists, or celebrities and politicians living with HIV.

It seems to have gone back into the closet.

Well I'm not going back into any closet!

Cheers to you man, live long and prosper.


a reply to: halfoldman

a reply to: halfoldman

Ahhh, well I am glad that you are still alive and looking quite happy.

I have no AIDS/HIV story to share however my sister in law was an IV drug user for 17 years. Heroin was her drug of choice and as you can imagine she prostituted herself and spent much time in houses shooting up with everyone, this was Detroit Michigan in the 70s and 80s. She wound up with Hepatitis and Herpes in her eye.

She "luckily" made it out by moving to Florida to become addicted to crack, to get off of the heroin, then became an alcoholic to stop the crack...vicious cycle.

It was Hepatitis and Cirrhosis that finally took her life at the age of 56.

halfoldman

I'm glad that you are still kicking around and seem to be more or less enjoying life. Here's to more years of relative health. Maybe you'll outlast it and they'll find a way to get rid of it yet.

I don't think HIV/AIDS has gone underground or in the closet so much as that current therapies have gotten so good at slowing or halting progression that people no longer regard it with the alarm they used to, so it's off the front page. I'm not sure that's the proper way to treat it since it's still a very, very serious thing, but people being people ... well, you know how we all tend to be.

When Queen really got activist:

Congrats! I just read an article on the saga of Freddie Mercury (though I've known his story since it came out) and how he bravely faced it more or less alone over the course of nearly a decade. Being a Queen fan for years I had a sense Mercury was HIV positive as any pictures of him in the mid-80's showed his face growing gaunt. His death did more for AIDs awareness than anything could and even in death he made the world change.

To you and Freddy and all my friends who have suffered with AIDs I can only applaud you all for your bravery and courage in facing such a difficult thing. I had lost 2 friends in the early 80's before we even knew what was killing people.

Stay healthy and live well !

While I'm a major Queen and Freddy fan, how much of an AIDS-activist was he really?

He admitted it a day before he died.

Then the remainder of Queen took off in this activist direction.

I'm not saying, let's not celebrate Freddy, but there were people who basically lived on the street who we should remember too.

I don't know their names, but brothers and sisters, I remember you.

I guess it depends how you like your history - top down, or bottom up.

At least as far the 1980's and early 1990's were concerned.

Not so sure now, the left (and everybody else) seems to have lost the plot.
At least as far as sensible and popular discussions on HIV/AIDS are concerned.

People think the pills will save them, but those pills don't last forever, and the money on finding new ones is reduced.

An HIV vaccine program - even if it existed.
How many people would go?
I think the name alone would make most people run to the hills.

a reply to: halfoldman

I had 2 good friends die before we even knew what to call it.
Mercury didn't personally do anything for AIDS awareness but his death brought it front and center.
He lived for his art and wouldn't have dreamed of politicizing anything - especially not something so personal.

So glad you are a survivor. Aids has come a long way and the stigma is not quite as severe as it was due to very loud education of the people.

Those on the front lines in the 80's were the brave ones.

I applaud your openness. Hopefully, we will get a cure soon.

So at the gym today with mixed feelings.

But then this dude spoke to me, and he was so heart-broken that he never made the men's provincial netball team.
I'm thinking, the what team?
In my youth men weren't even allowed to play netball.
I didn't say that though.

I thought, should I tell him today is World AIDS Day?
Nope, cracked a few jokes.
I told him the world's your oyster.
One journey ends; a new one begins.
Just my conviction, I never said what experience it was coming from.

But he said, "I always feel better after chatting to you".

That made my day.

Our struggle continues.

The funniest thing, my 2018 AIDS ribbon.

I had several, even beaded ones, but they all got lost somewhere.

No this AIDS ribbon they pinned on my dad two days ago at a food distribution place he's volunteering at.

And he never knew what it meant!

He came in all proud and told my mum, look what they put on my shirt for Christmas!

I mean that ribbon you've got to keep.

And I will.

A good friend of mine who happens to be trans ended up getting tested months ago, because there was a place in Detroit doing it for free to anyone that came in that weekend. She ended up being positive sadly. But she caught it so early that they told her she will live a long and pretty healthy life, provided she takes her medication and takes care of herself.

Pills or no pills.
You go to sleep, and wake up with HIV.
It's like a demon-pet type thing.

It Follows - I thought I'm doing the metaphor?

I took nothing until the first symptoms appeared.

Almost ten years I took nothing.

But seems to be working fine.

But looking at my pill-box - is this a life?

I guess it has to be.

But hearing now a lot about treatment non-adherence.
It's a huge second-wave problem.

And they're not pills you take sometimes, and sometimes not.

Then you will get problems.