''grin and bear it''
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The big World Aids Conference is in Barcelona this year. So PN asked Barça boy and Aids activist Xavier Franquet to write a series for PN about positive living in the country with the highest HIV prevalence in the EU
A few months ago I attended a meeting for HIV positive people in the
Canary Islands where an HIV specialist suggested that three diarrhoea
episodes a day was: "something that one should learn to live with."
In this case, she said, a change of treatment could not be justified,
as though switching one drug for another was just a whim. She topped the
meeting off by advising that the effects of lipodystrophy were exaggerated.
In her opinion, it could be in some way also due to ageing. "I myself",
she said, "did not have this middle age spread 10 years ago".
This attitude is far too common. For these and many other reasons, I decided
to become an HIV activist, an uncommon occupation in a country with one
of the largest HIV epidemics in Europe. There's a lot to do over here.
This year, the International Aids Conference will be held in Barcelona
and I hope that my country can be more than just a beautiful setting for
this event, that our weak HIV community can renew its energies, and that
we all start to work together to make real changes. I've learned from
personal experience that help is out there and sharing information can
make a huge difference.
You see, some time ago, while visiting my doctor, something very strange
would often happen. I would go into his office feeling nervous and hoping
anxiously that he would say something reassuring. After pronouncing the
magic word "undetectable"
" and following a small mathematical operation giving me the gift of an
