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44 Diagnosis HospitalVisits I was angry. It had taken me far too long to get the first appointment at the infectious diseases clinic. (Actually, HIV patients go to the internal medicine department, where, I was told beforehand, no one in the waiting area would know why I was there.“Internal medicine” is a bit like the black plastic wrapper in which Poz magazine comes in the mail.Anyway, after a while we all learn to recognize each other, and, as with homosexuality, a passing glance is all the confirmation we need.) My regular doctor had already told me that my blood had been tested against twenty-­ nine different combination therapies and that the virus offered no resistance to any of them. All I had to do was try to relax and wait for the call, which was supposed to come within a few days.Well,it didn’t.Although I was better informed than many and I knew that I probably had little to worry about, I was still an emotional wreck. I had heard about the treatments’ terrible side effects and how some patients had become sicker under the meds than they had been without them. In fact, that’s exactly what happened to my friend Hervé. Like so many people, he actually became very sick when the meds started to work. The people at the hospital knew better, though, and they felt no need to see me right away. But I felt utterly neglected. After two weeks that felt like two years, I got to see a nurse and a social worker. Both were fabulous. The nurse explained to me what I could expect the treatment to be like and that its main side effect could be kidney damage, which is entirely reversible in any case and, besides, affects primarily African American women.“I’d be very surprised if you died of HIV.”“I know,” I retorted.“I’ll die of lung cancer.” She smiled:“That’s the spirit!” As for the social worker, she handed me a form and urged me to write my will. That’s the spirit. And to contact and inform all the sexual partners I had during the previous three years.“Hmm . . . But it’s, er . . . I . . . They . . .”“I know, I know, just do the best you can.”This is how I learned that you may be tested anonymously but that your personal information has to be transmitted to the local health authorities once you are under treatment. Sure enough, a few days later I had to explain to the Washtenaw County official who called me at home that I had been very very bad and that there was no way in hell I could possibly contact people whose name I never even knew. She must have heard that sort of story before, because she didn’t sound fazed at all.“Just do the best you can.” Still, the kindly, understanding tone could not change the fact that twice in a row I found myself in the position of Diagnosis 45 confessing to having been sexually promiscuous and contracting HIV. No one asked me to establish a causal relationship between the two, and that was the beauty of it: it was left to me to stitch the yarn together.And things didn’t stop there either.As it turned out,in the state of Michigan,where this story takes place, I had also become legally obligated to divulge my HIV status to all future sexual partners before any penis entered any orifice, no matter whose or which and regardless of actual risk and whether protection is used. The question of disclosure had now taken center stage in my life, becoming inextricably linked to the disease itself and to its experience. I finally got to see the doctor, a few more weeks later. It didn’t go well at all. He entered the examination room with a young student in tow, and she was visibly freaking out. After a few minutes, and without a word of explanation , I was asked to pull down my pants and underwear and lie down on my side so that the two of them could take a close look at my rectum.Why? What the fuck were they expecting to see in there? A bunch of sweaty little viruses dancing bare chested to the beat of “It’s Raining Men”? Is the rectum a cavernous disco? A back room? A crime scene to be dusted for fingerprints? What was...

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