My name is Eric, and I am HIV Positive. Asymptomatic for those that are curious

To give you some prespective on my life with HIV I have to start at the begininig. I was born in March 13,1981 and the first cases of what was first called Gay Cancer, later Gay Releated Immune Disease aka GRID and finally HIV/AIDS were reported in LA on June 1st of 1981. In other words I haven't known a world that wasn't haunted by the dangers of HIV/AIDS and the message of safer sex. I moved to San Diego from Kansas City to atttend the University of San Diego, and the very first person I met was a girl who I'll call C for her privacy. She was the first person at USD I came out to, and I was the only person at the school who knew her dad was not only gay but had an AIDS diagnosis. Our freshman year we went to Las Veags to visit her dad who was in the hospital because of complications with his meds. He would die a year later because of those same complications. They had given him high blood pressure and caused him to have heart attack and finally a stroke. He was only 55. This was about the time I started experimenting in the party scene of SD's gay community...On March 15, 2001 I was diagnosed with HIV. After that I met the first guy I'd ever date a man by the name of Rick who was 6 years older than I, and also HIV Positive. We dated for a few months before he moved back to ATL to escape the "scene" and sober up. Rick and I kept in contact however in 2002 Rick would get nonHutchkins Lymphopia and meniginitis and was unable to recover from them and is no longer with us. His cause of death was listed as compication of AIDS.

Though I'm expected to live a full healthy and happy life thanks to advances of medication it is no walk in the park. I'm on Sustiva and Epizcom and suffer from perodic insominia, diarreha, vommitting, and sometimes a general lack of appitite. My doctor is also concerned about my blood pressure and we have to keep a constant monitor on that. I also seem to get one or two mystery infections every year and have had two outbreaks of MRSA. I'm at the doctors office 2-3 times a quater. Thankfully I have insurence and some other assitance to help cover the cost.

This year's theme of World AIDS Day is Lead! Keep the Promise! Stop AIDS! There are some trends in HIV/AIDS that worry me. One is the rising rate of HIV in women of color. Because of the homophobia in the black and latino communties many people do not get tested. However more and more infections are occuring to women of color. This something that is preventable by people stepping up and encouraging people to get tested and using safer sex methods. The other thing that worries me about current infection trends is in 30 years 52% of gay men in my age group 30-19, will be HIV postive. Today I'm asking everyone to take a leadership role. Get tested! Take a friend of yours who has never been tested. Take a family member as well. HIV/AIDS is stoppable but the only people who can stop it is us! We have to lead and be the change we expect to see. This isn't something that won't happen to you. Each and everyone of us knows someone who is either affected or effected by it. Don't become a statistic, don't make a mistake, don't take the risks that I did.

for more info
http://www.thebody.com/
http://www.aidsinfo.nih.gov/
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/re...actsheets/
http://www.worldaidscampaign.org/

I'm hopeful for the future of fighting this disease. I would have never felt that way 15 years ago. I thought we were all doomed.

Thanks for sharing.

thanks Eric! i think it's really brave to come out like this. it is very important too.

i have been working on and off for Dance4Life, an organisation that motivates youth (through dance) to fight HIV/AIDS, and to support people living with it.



i am a presenter for the show that visits schools in Holland, educating the students about the situation of HIV/AIDS, and how they can eliminate their own risk. i am the one that teaches them the actual drill. the show also has guests, dutch people living with HIV, and people from Southern Africa (where the epidemy is worst). after the show (for a few weeks) the students collect money in ways that gain attention to the disease. when they collect 50 EUR or more, they are invited to this big dance event, dressed in white.

here is a link to watch this amazing event on saturday. in the meantime you can see the Dance4Life commercial, that was voted as best anti-HIV/AIDS commercial of the past 25 years (just press play):

DANCE 4 LIFE live feed

Watch on 29th November, when 50,000 young people in 19 countries are united live via satellite to celebrate their achievements in pushing back the spread of HIV and AIDS.

Tune in at 1600 hrs GMT and witness for yourself this worldwide celebration live! Invite your friends and family to do the same! Watch these young people, support these young people and start Dancing, stop AIDS!
[Edited 11/27/08 3:05am]

this is a subject that can not escape our attention EVER.

Allthough I've read posts from you mentioning AIDS before, let me take this opportunity to say that you are one of the people that make the org, the org.
True and real people, with an opinion, a story and a goal.

On the other hand, I happened to stumble upon a documentary about AIDS in the UK today and there were some really upsetting segments. Especially one about a guy who (19 years old) had asked other HIV positive guys to 'pos him up' or (like he said it) to give him 'the gift'. That has to stop, AIDS is too serious.

Lemme change my sig for a while.

Thanks for your story ! Keep on leading.

Preaching on it this Sunday!

Mars23 said:

i hope so!

union119 said:

dawntreader said:

i'f i'm home i'll check it out! good luck!

BlueZebra said:

most people in the 1st world don't know someone who has died of AIDS, that ads to Bugchasing

bluesbaby said:

you better be taking people to get tested as well

ehuffnsd said:

we are pretty good about encouraging testing..we have people trained to do it, actually. But I know at least a few youth who should have it done if they haven't already. That is real "practice makes perfect". Taking the step to get tested.

to you.

Thank you Eric...much love and respect to you...
good looking out and great advice...
I can feel your warmth and sincerity and I am touched

Thank you for sharing and linking us up to some sites.....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/a...w_C5QGw_IE

The global misiformation machine in full effect....

reneGade20 said:

wow just the headline is scary.

aids eating up funding? wow! but i get the point that there r many more diseases to focus on that just that, but still wow.

please watch the recorded live show of DANCE4LIFE with a moving speech of Desmond Tutu here:

DANCE4LIFE live connection

rates in my city have gone up three fold over last year.




to all my org friends doing something about it. get tested!

because what i am feeling right now can not be expressed in words; i simply say, thank you Eric.









let's reclaim our earth and FIGHT BACK!!!

Thoughts are with everyone affected.....

I get to share my story! I get to share my story! Nah-na-na-na-nah-nah! LOL. Permit me to tell you a tale and ramble a while...

I have been living with HIV/AIDS since May 9, 1990, and I celebrate the day of my diagnosis, because it's another year I've defeated the beast. I learned that I tested positive for HIV through a doctor at the (blood) plasma bank I used to donate to. I was 20 years old, and this was right when everyone was dropping like flies, years before protease inhibitors. I accepted it but was still kind of numb about it. In my mind, I was going through the "you're going to die" thoughts that everyone who tests positive has. My next thought was, "it's just as well, cuz I never expected to live past 25 anyway" - I used to have these premonitions that I would die in my sleep by the time I was 25. When I got home to my boyfriend and told him, and then I said, "so I've got two years left to live." He sat me down right then and there and gave me a good talking to, and told me that "it ain't so", and told me what the test results the doctor gave me really meant - that I had tested positive for the antibodies to HIV. I may not have much to thank him for in the five years we were together, but that was one of those times.

That said, I didn't do anything about it - I felt healthy, and was still in my "young, dumb and full of you-know-what" phase, and was also using crystal meth at the time. About a year and a half later, I started to get thrush, a fungal opportunistic infection that appears on the throat, which led to HIV wasting syndrome and one or two other things. I went to get re-tested, and got my first t-cell test done - the results were 321.

The next five years were the worst of the disease for me. My t-cell count gradually declined until January 1996, which was when it fell below 200 for the first time - by the CDC's standards at the time, that was enough to give me a diagnosis of "full blown AIDS." That year was very rough for me - I had about 20 OIs (opport. infections), including PCP and MAC (Mycobacterium Avium Complex, which you get from bird droppings or any animal who's litter kicks up dust). Along with MAC, people generally test TB+. I spent Thanksgiving 1996 week in the hospital, had a t-cell count of about 43, along with a viral load of about 500,000 (at one point that year, it had been up to 2.2 million).

But I survived. I survived hacking up my lung every night. I survived a wildly fluctuating temperature (105 degrees one minute, 99 degrees five minutes later). I survived six weeks of taking about 50 pills a day (HIV meds mixed with other HIV-related episode drugs like Septra and that little pink traingular pill whose name escapes me but is the most bitter pill I've ever taken. I survived daily visits from the County Health Nurse in San Diego. And I wondered why I was left alive (o, God, why hast thou forsaken me). During my visit in the hospital, I asked a close friend, Persephone, to buy me Prince's Emancipation album, cuz I thought it would help me relax and have a little fun. I had a cute, muscular doctor at UCSD hospital, but since I weighed about 115 pounds and had meth teeth, what really could I have done? LOL. I digress.

Two months later, I went to the doctors office for a routine visit, and got some very good news. My t-cell count had gone up 100 points, and my viral load, which was 163,000 at the last test, was now UNDETECTABLE. I had decided in November, coincidentally, to start on a cocktail, and the first step was to give me everything but the inhibitor. It was working, and over the next five years, my t-cell numbers continued to climb, and at their highest they have been over 900, plus my body started to get healthy again and I gained about 40 pounds over the next year.

Long story short, and there are things I could tell you about this disease and the system that we had to fight for, that would make you cringe, or make you mad as HELL at the Reagan/Bush admin. I could also tell you a story about how even after years of taking HIV meds, it's still possible to think yourself invincible and that you don't have to take pills, only then to find out that you're horribly mistaken. But I could also tell you stories that would make it unmistakably clear how kind and loving people really can be. (Sometimes I wonder if the only way people learn how to love and care for others is through diseases.) But I'm hear, and will celebrate 19 years of living with HIV. The celebration is that I am still alive and have gotten to do things in my lifetime that I would not have dreamed when I was first diagnosed (that kid would look at me now in shock, I think.) I've gotten to do things many rich men have only dreamed about doing. And it's all because I decided that I wasn't done with myself yet and starting helping myself. Peace.

eaglebear4839 said:

what can i say? you should be so fucking proud of yourself.

I am also HIV+, it depends on the country, I have AIDS. It was detected back in 1984, so have it since a quarter of a century, that is a lot! At the moment I am still able to lieve without any treatment, but the doctors mean it is the time to begin with. My virusload was at 100'000 and my CD4 amoung 180, the last time I did let mess them. I have not had any bigger health problems, in all the years. Still I am. I feel sometimes, almost, happy and sad. Can you understand me? I feel sad, because not every HIV+/AIDS affected person, can lieve so long as I am doing and be still so good by health. This causes me depressions. Sometimes, I would like to die.

Hate AIDS and protect you from an infection. But please do not hate affected people! We can be so cruel!

I think that even though we finally seem to have gotten past the stigma of HIV/AIDS as a for-gays-only problem, everyone who lives with it should share their stories, if for no other reason than to counter all the ignorant folks (young and old) who get on youtube and craigslist and other places and belch their ignorance into cyberspace.)

sataninas said: