#hivpositve

[mygayirishdiary]

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Ive got my own imperfections. I cant hold your heart when im fixing mine

[mygayirishdiary]

Dear Diary

19/12/2022

I will never forget that moment when the nurse told me I was HIV Positive…

I was living my normal happy 36 year old life in Dublin, happily married, good friends, good job and just about to go on a trip to Mexico with my husband for a month to meet his family, I was so excited. Life was good. I had fought so hard in my life to get from were I was scrubbing floors in Wicklow to a good paid office job living in Dublin City Center and happy married, things were not perfect but, things were going good for me.

As I was just about to go on a trip to Mexico with my husband, with just 10 days to go, I was packing my bags and starting to get everything organized and over those next few days I started to notice stinging pains in my lower legs and back pains, major loss of appetite, diarrhea, headaches, fever and sweats so I started taking antibiotics i had, I just thought it was a bad flu and I would be fine in a few days.

3 days later I had not improved, my symptoms had gotten far worse and then one night, I started heaving, vomiting uncontrollably and violently, I couldn't stop, and the stinging in my legs had gotten to a stage that I needed my husband to lean on to walk to the toliet even, and one night I needed help from my husband to get a shower so he walked me into the bathroom and while undressing me that night we noticed my body was covered in little red spots, my brain started screaming to me that this is not natural, and I decided I needed to go to the hospital immediatly.

The hospital took me in and did a few of their usual tests on patients, and found something "not right" , as they said, and then put me in an infectious disease ward!! Holy Shit!!!!!!! Whats wrong with me?....

After days of covid masks, covid tests, needles, blood tests, scans, poo and pee samples, std tests and the worst and most horrible experience of my life- spinal fluid being took, as I lay in the hospital bed waiting for results in isolation, and i was getting better with the right medication, i was starting to feel better. The rash on my body was fading, the leg pains were getting better the headaches had stopped , the weight loss did concern me a bit ( I lost a lot of weight in a few days), but I put it down to being sick and being a fussy eater and trying to lose weight and eat healthier, i lost weight, i didnt care, that i was happy enough with, but apart from that I assumed the doctors would be letting me go home soon, and with hopes I could still go to Mexico.

In this time of waiting for results in the isolation ward, I received a phone call that my father went into hospital and had sadly passed away, this was obviously heart breaking, my father had just died, and how helpless I was, and guilty that I couldn’t be there, and then as well my vacation was getting closer, and how much money we spent on it, I decided my husband should go on his own and finally visit his family in Mexico without me, it was important for him to go, he hadnt seen his family in 3 years. It hurt me so bad having to miss out on my first very expensive trip out of Ireland (I'd never been on holiday before) , I was so disappointed I couldn't go, but I felt I was in the safest place in hospital and my symptoms were starting to clear up, my father had just passed away, I wasn’t going to be much fun on holiday, and it did cost a lot of money and plus the fact I was in isolation, he couldn’t even visit me to say goodbye, so I sent him packing to Mexico with a kiss through a glass door.

The next morning it was a cold winter morning outside but the sun was shining through my window giving a real orange winter morning glow in the hospital room, the nurses were doing their rounds, I was trying to get another hour or 2 of sleep before my fathers funeral started later that day, which I would have to watch online from my hospital room, so I wanted to bury my head in the pillow and cry or sleep or whatever until then, I felt like shit. Then my doctor came in and asked if she could talk to me, so I sat up and woke myself up, sun streams in my eyes blinding me, and I could tell how she was holding herself, in very sympathetic body language towards me and how kind she was to me, this was not a good sign for me, and it was making me anxious and it made me brace myself for bad news.

“I am sorry to tell you, but we did some tests and we did find something, and I have to sadly inform you that you are HIV positive”......... , the doctor did continue to talk about what was probably important information that I should have been listening to, but I heard nothing else after those first words. I was in shock, stunned, it still leaves me speechless 3 weeks later. I had no words.

So there I was in an isolation hospital bed, with my husband on a plane to Mexico, I have just been told I am HIV positive and then I had to watch my fathers funeral online on my phone, it's difficult to describe this feeling I had in that moment, pure torment, guilt, loss, hurt, regret, stupidity, anger, helplessness all rolled into one confusing ball, I wasn't sure what I was feeling, just that it hurt so bad.

I know being HIV is ok in this age, I am going to be ok, my husband is HIV undetectable (which I knew he was HIV undetectable before we got married, completely unrelated to my story) so I know I can live a healthy life by taking this little tablet once a day for the rest of my life, so I know I will be ok, but mentally I am not there yet, not even close to feeling ok, part of me is still speechless.

Obviously, the first thing you think of is the who, the how… I am a happy married man, who had a threesome, that's it. Me and my husband don’t sleep around or have gangbangs or do anything that wild, actually we are pretty traditional couple, we work, we pay bills, go out to dinner dates, a normal life (sometimes a boring life) , but to keep the spark alive, maybe once or twice a year we would invite a random guy over, someone to share our bed with us and do something exciting and try something different, to get our hearts racing and bout 4 months ago, what was not a trashy sleazy night, but a classy night, dinner, dancing and back to our hotel, and we invited a guy over. There was champagne and jokes and good conversation and music, a night when I made a stupid mistake when I was feeling kinky brave and decided this guy clearly looks after himself and he was so hot and I let him cum in me in the heat of the moment, and now that moment I will regret for the rest of my life…at least I think it was this guy, well it’s the only time it can be…But like the doctor said to me “the who, how and where.. doesn’t matter, what matters now is moving forward with your life and this new reality”

3 weeks after that, which brings me up to present day, my husband is still in Mexico (but back in a few days), I had no work as I should have been in sunny Mexico, so all I have done in the last 3 weeks since I got the news of being HIV positive is distance myself from people and have laid in bed and cried and smoked pot, ate junk food and masturbated ever since

My therapist says that I should write my story and my feelings out because that was a lot of pain I had to deal with, so that’s what this is, how I adjust back to this new reality of fitting back into a world where I am not the same person…