i have been safe during, always, always; whether with at-risk partners or not. still get tested quarterly, even when i’m not getting any. it can never hurt to be careful. and there is no such thing as “too careful.”
Yeah, Oh. My. God. is what I thought, too, when I read your first post.
**Many ** partners?! Hell, I’d suggest that folks get tested if they have even **one ** partner! I mean, even if I were to be involved in a presumably monogamous relationship (which I wouldn’t b/c I know that I could **never ** promise that to anyone), I know that people lie about being sexually fidelitous too many times for my comfort, and I’d be afraid that my presumably monogamous partner was, in actuality, not. (Yeah, I know I have some issues, which is partly why its’ a good thing that I’m single and likely wouldn’t be annoyed if I remained that way.) [/my own slight hijack]
No, no, baby*–please don’t **even ** put that out there in the universe. Just continue to be careful, and I’ll be hoping that you **never ** find yourself in that situation. 
*I sincerely hope that “baby” doesn’t offend you here. I’m so used to hearing it from nurturing black women that it’s become a part of my speech. And though I’m a dude, I’m a (relatively nurturing) gay dude, so I figure that I can get away with it. 
I agree. I was just trying to be funny with the “you ohmygod” stuff. It’s all done with and I’m fine. I just couldn’t believe it when it happened again. The irony was that I just got through telling a brand new resident that he should be careful around this pt, and I stuck myself. He looked at me (he was foreign) and said, “you tell me to be careful-who is telling you to be careful?”. Which was funny, even then.
I’ve never dated in the AIDS era (it was becoming epidemic when I married), but I agree-everyone who is active at all should be tested.
Because then people can ask “Skald, why such a long face?”
I am truly sorry to hear about your friend. Please wish her well from all of us.
No offense taken, don’t worry.
I’m ridiculously careful, to the point that it amuses some of my more apathetic co-workers. I’m all about Universal Precautions, trust me. It’s the actions of others that worry me sometimes. Like the guy in ICU who kept sending down blood gas specimens with the needle still attached. :rolleyes:
And just to add to what I posted before, here’s the statistic that freaked me out:
(WARNING: PDF FILE)
36% of Grade 11 kids in Canada believe that there is a vaccine available to prevent HIV/AIDS.
Source: Councils of Ministers of Education, Canada. Canadian Youth, Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS Study. Factors influencing knowledge, attitudes and behaviours. Council of Ministers of Education, 2003
You would think, but there are people out there who don’t share/lie about their status (the doctor recently arrested in GA for child molestation comes to mind…) and when coupled with an appearance of lack of caution on the part of the younger generation, it can be dangerous. At the infection control class I took last week, only three of us in the room were alive when AIDs was still fairly unknown (prior to the Rock Hudson news)- everyone else had always lived in a time when AIDs/HIV was a known thing, and as a result they admitted they weren’t as paranoid as us “old folks.”
That’s good news, Skald- be sure to get a recheck next year for that extra little boost.
Seconded.
Furthermore, if the OP could give an update regarding her current medical condition that would be good.
Question. How long after an encounter does one not need to be tested anymore? After 1 year, and theres no way you would’ve gotten it? I am curious, as I stupidly had se with someone in September and found out later he was seeing someone and she had an std. And I was stupid and no condom.
Yeah, that’s worrying. But when I was in college and there was no cure and it was mostly still a ‘gay disease,’ a good few of my gay friends had a kind of fatalistic notion that they would be dead by 30 no matter what they did–so they weren’t really very careful. I suppose maybe it’s human nature for some percentage of people to rationalize some reason why protection won’t work, or something?
I think the thought that protection won’t work isn’t really rational…A lot of Gay men internalize the hate thrown at them, and start to think we deserve to die… After all, we hear from the rabid right all the time that our “lifestyle is deadly”, we “die young” (sorry, I forget what age they like to throw out there), and other loving, “Christian” ideas.
Also, many of us had many friends die of AIDS for many years and developed “survivor guilt”. And when your friends are your support system when you’ve been rejected by or estranged from your family, when those friends die, it’s pretty easy to become depressed and fatalistic.
AIDS has taken a major toll on our community through the years - physically and mentally.
And here’s the OP back. Sorry for the delay, but I’m working 11 shifts with an hour commute each way, so I have a bit less time for the Dope than one might hope.
My friend is as yet asymptomatic. She swears, and I believe her, that she hasn’t had unsafe sex since she went sober, which was 10 years back; she is evidently one of that tiny, tiny percentage whom condoms fail. She’s torn just now between relief that I’m negative and envious rage at my good fortune, particularly since the diagnosis caused her girlfriend to break up with her.
More another time; I think I shall read some of my other threads.
Seconding my well wishes. Lordy, that’s a horrible thing to happen.
~Tasha