I had some education around HIV before my partner became ill. But obviously not enough. My partner and I did test at the same time, and mine returned negative. But nursing her was an intimate experience and opened up possibilities for me to become infected after that first test. It’s not something I have talked about.
At the time I didn’t have time to think a lot about it. We were both living in unsanitary conditions at the hospital, I was mostly on my own, and the nurses did very little. It was The Philippines and we were dumped in a shipping container labelled “Leprosy Ward” far away from everyone else. All I could think about was her.
This Wasn’t a Deception
We had a loving relationship, sorta, for seven years. They say it can take up to ten years for HIV to show. We had two theories on how she was infected, there was no way to tell which one was true. This wasn’t a deception on her part, she had no idea what was wrong. I was the one that suspected it long before we had a diagnosis.
I was in queer community when AIDs was first a thing. With it’s stigma, and look, and when we lost beautiful souls at an alarming rate. She had that look. That thought process around HIV was triggered by her viral pneumonia.
I Protected Myself As Well As I Could
Australia has tough and very strongly adhered to protocols around HIV. The Philippines were in the grip of a local epidemic in 2017 and didn’t seem to know what to do with patients except ignore them, or pretty much so. Infections were even coming through blood transfusions, the community told me the horror stories. Others infected with HIV helped me look after her, would stay while I had a break, her family were barely there, I was it.
Its not like Australia, we are removed from death. The nurses and doctors are the front line. Where we were, where we had to be, a family member did the nursing, I lived in the room with her. Chased the rats away, changed her diapers, gave her medicine and failed at coaxing her into eating.
No windows just holes in the metal, a broken hospital bed and a slab of wood where I slept for five weeks, or tried to.
Nursing Her was Not Easy Or Necessarily Safe
Everything was a battle and it was nobody’s fault. Important medicine went missing, they forgot daily doses I had to chase them down. I washed clothes in a bucket, had to buy more when she vomited over herself. Her forty kilos became heavy when her clothes had to be changed, when she became immobile. Fighting for her to wear adult diapers to prevent face first falls onto the cement floor.
Washing her, feeding her, loving her. She took it all, never a word of complaint, it was the most intimate experience of my life.
When her mind departed, she would rip out her IV’s, blood would spray. I only had gloves for protection. Sometimes it would cover me, I wiped it off. What else could I do except doing the best I could. She was vulnerable, she was dying, who was I to complain.
After She Died
She died, I have talked about this, so wont go into it here. One early morning she stopped breathing. I went home, to the farm. To close our life. It was then that I worried about my own safety. Every sniffle, every sign of unwell. I wondered.
Nine months later, I closed up the farm for the last time and travelled to the capital where I could be tested. I caught up with the head nurse from our time at the hospital. She took blood and tested me for HIV. Negative. I breathed out.
I was tested again when I went to Australia for 6 months, again negative. After a bout of pneumonia in Batanes, I tested again when I flew back to Manila. That one had me scared I was so sick. Still negative. Every time negative, and every time I breathed easily until the next, worried that one day it may pop up and take me by surprise.
Test Early For Peace Of Mind
If you have been unprotected in your intimate times, think you may have been exposed, get tested. HIV is not so much the killer its late diagnosis and access to medicines. If you know, you can act. I lost my beautiful partner because of stigma, limited access to testing, peoples dumb mistakes, and a community in denial.
For a long time I was terrified. I didn’t want HIV for myself, but having been on the front lines it was a possibility. The best I could do for myself was get tested, and tested and tested. Peace of mind over fear any day.
HIV is not a judgment on lifestyle, its simply a devastating virus.
PeAce oUT
Her Name was Bella. She was a fighter.