Positive: Living with HIV AIDS

251 Pages·2004·0.97 MB·English

by  David Menadue

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Positive
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DAVID MENADUE
POSITIVE
A L L E N & U N W I N
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First published in 2003
Copyright © David Menadue 2003
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the
publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a
maximum of one chapter or 10% of this book, whichever is the
greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its
educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or
body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to
Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Email:
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For Bridget and Colin
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Contents
Preface 1
Acknowledgements 3
Prologue—No Visitors Allowed 5
PART ONE
1 A Secure Place 15
2 Testing Times—1984 23
3 A Soulmate 31
4 Panic 47
5 Turmoil 59
6 Leaving Work 66
7 Living with a Prognosis 76
8 Attitudes to Death 83
PART TWO
9 Sandpits and Building Blocks 95
10 Bullies 109
11 The Golden Nine 117
12 Secrets 136
13 Lucky Breaks 146
14 Love and Lust 159
PART Three
15 Celebrations 171
16 AIDS Politics 187
17 New Hope 205
18 Education 217
19 Support 229
20 Positive 236
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preface
Being positive about being HIV-positive has been one of my
saving graces over the last twenty years. While I don’t subscribe
to the view that you can defeat something like AIDS with affir-
mative thought alone, taking an optimistic view about your
prognosis is an important ingredient in survival.
I have lived with HIV since the early 1980s, through a period
when people were stigmatised by the media, right-wing politi-
cians and church leaders, among others. Even some people in my
own gay community, where I expected support, were frightened
and unsure how to treat those of us willing to admit we were
positive.
There were trying times in the late eighties and early nineties,
when so many friends were dying from AIDS that it seemed we
were experiencing a holocaust, our own private war, with
hundreds of our friends being cut down.
I developed my first AIDS-defining illness in 1989 and was
given two to three years to live by my doctors. I have managed to
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survive for many years beyond this prognosis. Incredibly, I am
now one of the longest-surviving people with AIDS (as opposed
to HIV) in the country.
There may be factors in my life and character that have
helped in my approach to adversity. Certainly I think it has
helped that I have been out as a gay man and person with HIV.
There is a stigma around HIV/AIDS, and I have sometimes
wondered if this was a factor in the deterioration in the health of
my positive peers.
But I don’t have a particular answer to explain my survival. I
believe that a fortunate mix of luck, medical expertise and
improved treatments, support from friends and family—as well
as an almost blind optimism on my part—has helped me to stay
alive and tell my story.
HIV/AIDS remains a problem in Australia today, with a
recent small but significant rise in infections perhaps pointing to
a sense of complacency about the disease. In many countries
around the world, it has become an epidemic of catastrophic
proportions. Only a massive change in political will can change
the path of what is already one of the most devastating epidemics
in world history.
I like to think that the stories of positive people will play a
role in overturning the ignorance and bigotry often associated
with HIV/AIDS. If in some way my story can help to keep the
issue alive, or help others with their way forward in understand-
ing or living with the virus, then it will have been worth the
effort.
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