One too many

I was in a Facebook group one day and the question was posed:

Would you date someone who is HIV positive … ?

You can only imagine the responses that were posted.

Mostly negative; some supportive.

I get it.

But there was this one response that stuck out.

The lady was like,

It’s enough people with HIV. Why don’t they just stay with each other instead of trying to infect the world?

The hell?

But I responded out of love. ❤️

I asked her how was I supposed to find a man living with HIV if that man won’t tell nobody he has it?

I pointed out the fact that the comments on the post made it very clear why people don’t typically disclose their HIV positive status.

Who wants to set themselves up for that type of judgment? Who wants to be rejected?

And I get this too.

But it goes waaay deeper than that.

Let me tell you something –

– just because I am living with HIV doesn’t mean that I couldn’t catch HIV … again.

Shits crazy!

Like I said before, I am no doctor. This is just how I have made sense of this stuff in my head.

So HIV is a virus and there are different strains of it.

For the purpose of explaining this, let’s just say I got infected by Strain A.

Strain A is one that has been exposed to antiretroviral medication before.

I know this to be true because the first time talking to my doctor about beginning medicine, he let me know that my strain was already resistant to a medication by the name of Sustiva.

So you mean to tell me, somebody was taking medicine for this shit at some point? And then Strain A got smart and learned how to work around this HIV medication?

Yup. Pretty much.

I inherited resistance.

Thanks a fucking lot HIV donor.

With the help of my doctor, we figured out a regimen. I started taking the pills or whatever.

And I hated it.

It was actually a pill and a liquid twice a day.

The side effects were horrible.

So I stopped taking them cus I was tired of being sick because I was sick.

Hell, HIV itself was less painful than the medication.

Tip: Talk to your doctor before you begin or stop a medication. This was not a wise decision of mine.

It could have been bad.

Now, Strain A could possibly figure out a way to work around these two medications too.

Smh.

So what would happen if I were to go out and contract another strain of this virus (Strain B)?

Well, they call that a superinfection.

So then I would have HIV Strains A and B.

Yea, it’s the same virus but they could have very different responses to the medication.

What not to do: Don’t make a bad situation worse. Protect yourself.

What if Strain B is resistant to another set of medications?

Now, I would have to start that whole medicine shopping process over again.

This time, with less of a selection of medications to pick from.

And who has time for catching HIV twice?

Hell, once is way too many.

+ Ci Ci +