Excerpt 5

Here is the latest excerpt from my new novel, How and why Lisa's Dad got to be famous. Please remember that, if this excerpt is of the slightest interest, a free pdf copy of the entire book can be obtained through this link. Also, should you be overwhelmed by an irresistible urge to buy a copy of the book, you can obtain one at an amazingly low price from Amazon.co.uk or, if you prefer, from Amazon.com.

A simple explanation

The truth is, I don’t really have AIDS at all. But nobody ever believes that.

When it all first started – the TV programme I mean – I used to try to explain to people about AIDS. But nobody ever understood, so I soon gave up.

I wasn’t even going to bother writing anything about it here. But since this is the official version of what happened – at least according to me – I think I’ll give it one more go. Especially as I want Lisa to understand.

What happens is this.

You start with an ordinary healthy human being. Let’s say it’s a man called John.

John goes off one night and he has sex with a woman who’s got a virus in her bloodstream. A virus is a sort of germ that gives you an illness. It might be a flu virus, in which case John might get the flu. But let’s say that this particular woman that John has sex with has got the HIV virus.

Not everyone who has sex with a person who has the HIV virus is going to catch it. They may not get infected the first time. But they may.

So, let’s say that it happens to John. John now has the HIV virus living in his bloodstream.

John may not have the faintest clue that he’s been infected. It’s possible that he might feel a bit poorly, in the first few days. He may feel as if he’s got a dose of flu. Or he may feel sick. Or have diarrhoea. Or he may feel nothing at all.

In my case I don’t remember feeling anything much. I think I remember feeling a bit seedy, but not bad enough to stay at home. I just felt a bit off-colour for a few days.

Once John has recovered from feeling poorly, if he ever does, he feels just the same way as he always did. He goes on with life as usual. But meanwhile, in his body, things are happening.

Fortunately, things usually happen very slowly. What happens is, the HIV virus begins to try to attack the body. It begins trying to damage John’s system, and make him really ill. But it doesn’t succeed, because the body has various ways of fighting off viruses and bugs, and usually our defence systems win.

This can continue for years and years. Perhaps ten years. Fifteen. Even longer. And while it’s happening you don’t feel any different. You just get on with your life, and you may not know that you’ve got the virus. Most people don’t.

And now we come to the AIDS bit. So far, John has not got AIDS. He’s just been what the doctors call HIV positive. In other words, if they tested his blood, they would find the virus there, even though John feels perfectly well.

It seems that, the younger and fitter and stronger you are to start with, the longer it takes for the HIV virus to do any real damage.

But, as the years go by, the virus usually gets stronger and stronger, and the body’s defences gradually get weaker. In the end, usually, the virus wins.

What happens then is that the patient begins to feel really ill. John will begin to suffer from a variety of nasty conditions, which his system can’t deal with. And it is then, and only then, that John actually has AIDS.

My situation is that after I was divorced I had sex with someone who was HIV positive, and I caught the virus off her. So now I’m HIV positive too. The only reason I know this is because someone warned me about it. They told me that I might have been infected. So I went off to the clinic in Bristol and got myself tested. It seemed the best thing to do. Although some people prefer not to know.

Personally I wanted to be sure, one way or the other. Because I wanted to do a bit of planning. I had Lisa to think about.

So that’s how the HIV and AIDS business works. It seems fairly simple to me, and I’m not a genius, so I don’t see why people find it so hard to understand. But they do.

The whole world seems to know me as Harry, the man with AIDS. (Thanks, Con.) And they write to me from all over the place, asking for help and advice. I reply to as many people as I can, and I know Con deals with a lot more.

I’ve had letters from Iceland, China, Brazil, Denmark, you name it. Most people write to me c/o the TV company, but I even had one that was just addressed to Harry – the Man with AIDS, England. The postman delivered it. No problem. He did say he would have preferred it to have a postcode, if the person was going to write to me again, but it got to me just the same.