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Rob

I used to be a firm believer in the phrase "hope springs eternal" till May 18 , 2012 when my long time Dr. walked into the exam room and began to cry. She had ordered the full blook work ups that I go through regulary since being diagnosed with severe adult asthma that evolved into COPD in my early 50's. Life changed for me in so many ways as she delivered the life changing diagnosis that I was POZ. My mind raced along with my heart as we went over all the bloor work results. My heart sank and my fears rose. To this day my diagnosis/sentence is known by only a very few people that I trust totally to hold the secret unfder lock and key. Life as I knew it since the passing of my long time partner several years prior to the diagnosis had hit the wall and stopped. I avoided any contact with people other than purely social and even that was held to a bare minimum. Panic and shame had taken over along with fear and isolationism. Self imposed celibacy was the new rule and people were held at bay for fear that people would discover what I was holding as a secret. Suddenly the hope of possibly ever meeting a new person to grow old and make memories with was gone for good. Fear struk when a call came form a local health department staffer with questions on "if you need anything since the diganosis" Deep panic combined with pure anger and it was all aimed at this person who along with some governmental agency was severely invading my privacy. I told them "don't ever call me again, the last thing I want in this nightmare is some government office compiling info, building a file on me and monitoring my moves. Despite registering with a local AIDS organization , the loneliness and fears deepened.My Dr helped me find the right Dr who specialized in infectious diseases and the meds were prescribed. A wonderful pharmacist saw the panic in my face and helped me to find co-pay payment assistance on the horribly high priced meds. The feelings of fear, loneliness, isolation, shame and more still cover me like a dark cloud each and every day and even counseling can't make things all that much better. What little family I have will never know about this. My closest of life long friends will never know of any of this. The anger at the man that gave this to me and 12 others that I have found out about and then fled to NJ cannot be measured. The anger at myself for being so stupid as to have allowed this to happen to me is off the scale. I read articles in POZ and other publications ( always in private) seem to highlight optomism, and in many cases show people smiling in pictures. I can't comprehend how anyone can be optomistic about a life sentence, let alone smile for any reason. The gay community from what I have seen still very much looks down on those that are diagnosed as POZ. You are an outcast and stupid fears run rampant. Hard enough to live on after having been sentenced as POZ due to a very stupid mistake, but even harder to face the very high probablility of being shunned and totally shut out by your own gay community if the life changing sentence becomes common knowledge. Life will certainly never be the same ever again, the smiles and joy are gone

May 2, 2013