Russell
Fleet
ALIVE AND KICKING
As I type, I’m shifting around on my chair in a state of extreme discomfort.
I had an operation on my bottom at the beginning of June and it’s still
healing up inside.
Not only that, but the op gave me a dreadful case of the Sigmunds, as well
as a few fissures. It turns out I had one rather large wart up there, quite
far up so as to be untreatable using regular outpatient methods like liquid
nitrogen or hyfrecation. The only way to do it was to knock me out, give me
a right double fisting and send in men with lasers. Talk about a cheap remake
of The Black Hole.
So why am I sharing this? As a character in a Victoria Wood sketch once said: “I don’t normally toss my bowels into the conversation this early
on...” I’m writing about it because it’s of one the trials
of living with HIV. OK, so it’s not Kaposi’s sarcoma, it won’t
kill me (thankfully, the biopsy revealed that my strain of HPV isn’t
carcinogenic) but it can be very, very painful, upsetting, depressing and
even disfiguring. I forgot to mention that in the mid 90s I had warts all
over my face, neck and fingers as well, but some aggressive treatment shifted
them and they haven’t recurred since, unlike the bum which has been
through this four times in 12 years.
I realise the Elizas out there have already decided I’m the Catflu Club’s
answer to Harold Shipman, but I’m going to have to disappoint them.
I’m afraid this is not the wages of my barebacking sin. I had HPV long
before my HIV diagnosis, way back in the mid to late 80s when I was the condom
poster boy.
Having
HIV gives HPV a free run, as many straight pozzies can testify. In fact, 46
per cent of them also present at clinics with a bum full of cauliflowers,
despite a well publicised aversion to backdoor action of any kind. And just
so I don’t get accused of spreading HPV, studies from all over the world
indicate HPV prevalence of over 90 per cent among HIV positive gay men and
over 50 per cent among HIV negative gay men, so it really is far more common
than people think.Another reason for raising this is that I’d like to
correct the impression people might have gained that I’m one of the
guys who think HIV is no big deal and the rest of you should just stop whining
and get over it. I’m well aware of how hard it is to live with this
condition. I’ve been doing so knowingly for 15 years and unknowingly
for six years prior to my diagnosis. So I get a bit hacked off when people
diagnosed last year presume to lecture me about how I shouldn’t be telling
people that this is a chronic manageable condition. Isn’t it? So what
have I been doing for the last 15 years? That seems pretty chronic to me.
Also, I know I’m not dead; at least I wasn’t the last time I checked.
That doesn’t mean that I haven’t been ill, I have been. But I
haven’t been incapacitated to such a degree that my life isn’t
worth living. Therefore, I conclude that I must have been ‘managing’
my condition, meaning that I have integrated it into my life, factoring in
the inconvenience, the disruption, the periods of pain, illness, depression
and all the other demands it makes on me. No one ever said that having a chronic
manageable condition means never being ill. And in defence of my friends who
have type 1 diabetes, the nasty insulin dependent type, I’d like to
point out that diabetes is not an easy option compared to HIV infection. Its
complications include a doubled risk of heart disease, chronic kidney failure
which can result in daily dialysis, retinal damage which can lead to blindness,
nerve damage which can lead to impotence, and gangrene with risk of amputation
of toes, feet, and even legs. Notwithstanding the dramatically curtailed lifespan
of course. Creating a hierarchy of suffering helps no one, and however you
respond to your condition, you are ‘managing’ it, the choice is
either to take charge of it, or become its victim.So, if you don’t wish
to believe HIV infection is a chronic manageable condition, that’s your
choice. Just be aware that while you’re spending the next 15 years dying
with dignity, you’ll be managing a chronic condition.
