Coming out as HIV-positive: A Galway nurse discusses her experiences

Coming out as HIV-positive: A Galway nurse discusses her experiences
by u/Defiant_Pollution_69 in ireland

16 comments

  1. “Coming out” sounds a bit weird. You’d never hear someone referring to someone ‘coming out as diabetic ‘. Odd.

  2. You rarely hear about HIV in the news or anything these days. Back in school I remember them really trying to scare us about HIV, and telling us the importance of using protection.

  3. Yeah, still a stigma about it, but it’s far far less than it was. And the meds now are so much better. You can lead an essentially normal life, with a close to normal life expectancy. I’m with her in preferring hiv to cancer any day.

  4. Something that needs to be discussed. The amount of the younger generation in my workplace that laughs and jokes about not using protection is terrible

  5. For anyone wondering, U = U means undetectable = untransmittable. HIV treatment is so effective now that a positive person actually can’t transmit it if their viral load is low enough.

  8. I mean I get it I suppose? I had cancer and it sucked but I got through it, but for many it’s not if it comes back it’s when it comes back, and that’s like a threat that’s hanging over your head the rest of your days, and the mental health effects are woeful where every lump gives you an anxiety attack

    But no matter what cancer isn’t(ymmv) transmissible and that would be the real thing I’d be worried about even with u=u I’d be paranoid about it constantly, but tbf that probably says more about me

  9. I’m 45 and grew up with all the stories like Vincent Hanly, Freddie Mercury and the absolute horrors around AIDs being a death sentence and like every junkie in the country wanted to stick you with a bloody needle. Even now, I’ve got this mental scarring around the disease that it feels like young people are acting so cavalier around it and that a positive test is just an “oh well” moment. But thats on the back of also knowing we’ve had decades of research and progress so I should know better. Mad how early mental trauma can come back to haunt you later in life.

  10. Way to blasé attitude about being careless and contracting a life threatening disease. She actively knew her sexual partner had HIV. Lucky for her she lives in a country where she can easily access the medical care she requires to live a long and continued care free life.

  11. Hiv is a life threatening disease, and she’s just saying oh well it’s grand I got it. I don’t think it’s really hit her yet. There’s still loads of bad side effects from the disease and the drugs you have to take for the rest of your life.

  12. I’ve a friend with HIV. He takes a pill a day, just like taking a multivitamin, and his HIV is undetectable, meaning he can’t infect anyone. He’s healthy and lives a totally normal life.

  13. Despite treatment, my brother, who is HIV positive, has developed severe, progressive dementia at age 56 and cannot care for himself in any way. We are not sure if it’s due to the meds not crossing the blood-brain barrier (therefore allowing HIV to continue to cause inflammation and catastrophic damage) or if it’s due to the treatment itself. Either way it sucks. His infectious disease doctor said that people with HIV are more likely to develop dementia (HAND) despite treatment, then those without HIV, so people should still take it very seriously. Please use protection, get tested regularly, and pray that there is a vaccine soon. It’s likely too late for my beloved brother, but what a difference it would make to prevent infection in the first place.

  15. The really bizarre thing here is that not everyone living with and treated for HIV lives a totally grand, carefree life. It can still be harsh on your health and wellbeing even though we’ve made huge strides.

    The mind boggles at the casual mindset at work here. This is not good.

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