Yesterday I went to the doctor for my winter appointment. While there, I got a chance to talk to him and to his wife, Susan, about how long it's been since I started seeing them. I made a comment how it really hasn't seemed like nearly three years. Susan asked me if I remembered how timid and scared I was the very first time I walked through their office doors and I smiled and said I did remember. Because I do. Of course I do. I'll probably remember it forever.
I first found out I am HIV positive on Friday, September 28, 2007. I'm not going to go into all that diatribe again. If you're so inclined, this is where all that can be found. Anyway: back then, I was a mess. Corey and I were talking recently about it, briefly, and he said how much of a turnaround I seem to have had since the original diagnosis and now. He's right.
Look, I can only say that the first year after finding out I was positive was very difficult for me. And, as I look back, I see someone who isn't who I am now. Which is the only possible outcome as far as I'm concerned. As Corey and I were talking then, I remember saying how very much I would kick myself in the ass if I could; if I could go back in time and talk to 2007 me, I would totally have to tell him to stop with the histrionics and foolishness. But that's for an imaginary life. Now, as things turned out, my numbers are the highest/lowest they've been since I first started seeing my doctor. Way back when, my T-Cell count was 333, and my viral load was over 49000. Yesterday, T-Cells were at 712 and viral load was less than 75. All of which is infinitely good for me. My doctor says the same thing every single time I see him: he says he doesn't see why I keep going to visit him, he says I'm always damn healthy, my blood tests always show that everything is working properly and nothing else indicates anything else. Since I started seeing him, I decided to keep track of my doctor's visits (which has morphed a little into my adventures with general and specialized medicine).
There are some days when I'm fully aware of the virus. And sometimes it gets me down a bit, I'll admit. Usually, it happens when I've forgotten to take my meds or when I need to refill them. It's happened recently, early this winter, as the entire family seemed to be struck with a vicious cold one at a time, and my niece was kept at home so as to not be around me. My older brother's said that there have been times when if Emma, my niece, is sick, he'd rather not expose me to all the little terrors she picks up from the monsters at her school. My father's said I should get the swine flu shot because I am already sick. You know, things like these. Which, as I've said before, makes me feel a little down because everything seems to be a little emergency now.
Still, it seems more like a nuisance than anything else. You know, like getting up and going to work in the damn early predawn hours: you do it because you must, there's no point in crying about it.
I don't know, after leaving the doctor's yesterday, of course everything was made of chocolate and whipped cream! And I think a lot about what could have been, probably more than it's healthy to. But at the same time, I think about myself and how, to Corey's point, there's been such a change, which has been totally unconscious. Used to be I was very good in the middle of a bad situation and it was long-term that I wasn't very good at. Who'd guess things might change? Certainly, not me.
(For your information: here, and here.)
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