my HIV scare

I think it's really important to be honest, especially about the bad things in life- the things that people keep quiet about and pretend like they're not happening. I was born in the mid 80s, so HIV has been around my whole life- sometimes I wonder if I was lucky to have been born then, or I'm unlucky to have been born at that time, because it has made sex a heavily regulated and planned thing in life, when I know it was never meant to be so constrained. But anyways...

About 2 years ago I got an HIV test. It was my second one. It's really important to know your status, considering that HIV kills you, and there is not an available cure yet at this time. I often think that the only thing worse than being diagnosed HIV positive would be to give it to someone else, because that's the kind of guilt one could never get over. I went to my primary care physician, and went through the steps necessary to get tested. I signed the waiver and shit, which I interpreted as they would call me only if something was wrong, it was the same test I had gotten before, which came out negative the first time, so I felt comfortable doing it again. Although nervous, in my mind I felt like I was ok. Just a precaution, I hadn't done anything that "bad" so I'm sure I'm ok.

2 weeks later on a Friday I got a voicemail after 6pm saying I needed to call the doctor's office for my results. I called immediately, but found that I could not get my results until Monday, business hours. Immediately, I went into a manic panic, that was a combination of fear, regret, worry, sadness, and fury over getting a that message when I couldn't easily resolve the uncertainty over my HIV status. The whole weekend was really terrible, it was probably the worst weekend of my life. I did a bunch of drugs, because I figured it didn't matter, since I was going to die. I didn't have sex with my lover that weekend, I was more worried than anything about what I was going to say to him about what was going on, so I didn't say anything to anyone, except my mom, but looking back on it now I think I just did it to make her upset on purpose, kind of like when I told her about my "career" in porn.

Monday came, and I called to get my results. The office girl (not a doctor) who left me a message on Friday told me what I wanted to hear- that I was HIV negative. I mean, I wanted to go off and be a HUGE BITCH about the way I got a message and then couldn't find out my status, but I was so overcome with relief that I just said thank you and hung up. Moral of the story- get tested. The fear of maybe being positive is nothing compared to actually having the disease.