a long long time ago

so not really knowing where to start I guess ill go with the stuff that's been most influential in my life over the past 5 years to play a bit of catch up for those of you who don't know the full story

im a hiv + gay man and a few years ago I sat by the side of my soul mate while he experienced a pretty horrific "80's style" AIDS death. It came at a time of universal shit happening and kinda crushed the absolute life out of me. everything since then has been me trying to rebuild. sometimes I wish I were more like the hare than the tortoise but every step is progress ;)

ive always been a fan of chronological story telling so Im going to cut straight to something I wrote nearly 4 years ago to explain a lot of the detail. it gets you up to speed pretty fast but please remember it was written, and unedited quite some time ago and well, shit moves on.



ill never be able to sum up all of the intricate details and complications of the events but this is an attempt and retelling what happened. im doing this as a record for myself. im doing it because i get sick of typing for 45 mintues to recount the same story for people over and over again. and im doing it for jeff. for us. this is our story.
jeff and i had a very intense relationship. there was something special we had, but a lot of it was just a terrible experience. but i dont want to go into too much detail aside from to let it be known that, even though i will tell you i love him, and he was my best friend, he treated me terribly. lied cheated stole destroyed property, he was mentally and emotionally manipulative and abusive. still, i loved him the whole time.
eventually i had enough an ended the relationship for good. a few months later someone that i had known to be his friend approached me to say they wanted me to know they didnt believe all the things jeff had said about me. i had no idea what that was so we caught up for a chat. i found out a lot of unpleasant things. one thing being he had told people I have Hep C and had seen paperwork at my house to proove it. - something didnt feel right about it. while we were together he had told me he had overheard other people saying this about me. it was enough to make me feel something was up. i got checked, was told i look in great health and almost have nothing to be worried about. the tests came back hiv +
my doctors wanted to know if it had come from jeff or from an encounter since i had been single so I asked jeff to get tested and provide proof he was negative. for the next 3-4 months there was excuse after excuse why it didnt happen. got tested, forgot to get a printout, got tested, didnt get back to the doctor in time for results. etc etc, eventually when his new boyfriend arrived back in the country they both got tested. - during this time, jeff and i slept together once, it was instigated by jeff. we used condoms. - about 3 weeks after he slipped some comment into conversation that the condom broke - jeff and his boyfriend both tested positive, jeff made a comments to suggest it must have happened when the condom broke, and that he must have passed it onto his bf in the 48 he had been back in the country before they got the bloodtests.
jeff would likely have been positive for about 10 years, certainly a long time before i met him. i cant say for sure when jeff knew himself, but i have to tell two versions of the truth. jeff had no idea at all and was in complete denial. and. jeff was aware. there are enough things that prove that at the very latest when jeff moved away to live with his family during our breakup, he was aware he was hiv positive. but, he was a troubled person. my belief is that both versions are true.
jeffs results showed him at being late stage aids. a cd4 count of about 10 and viral load over a million. he went straight to hospital, turns out that ongoing cough was pneumonia. his health suddenly started to decline, as if his own denial had been keeping him healthy. before christmas they found cancer in his lymph nodes and had a biospy done. the wound got infected causing septicemia and cellulitis and was taken to emergency where his heart stopped. he was revived, but it was a slow recovery and jeff spent very little time outside of the hospital from this point on.
the next few months were spent trying to battle everything that was going wrong. but there was a lot. and everything you did to fix one thing, made something else worse. i wont go into much more detail, but the next 3 months i spent a lot of time by his bed. his boyfriend rarely spent much time with him and jeff was trying to keep this from his friends and family. i started to see his mood dropping, made contact with his friends and family so they could perk him up. but he got worse first. his visitors did make an improvement, i believe they gave him an extra week or two of life, but in the end it was too much and his body shut down.his boyfriend his mother and i were in the room when the machines were turned off. i held his hand the entire time, it felt so familiar to me, id held it so many times, and this would be the last time id ever hold it. i didnt want to forget how it felt.
that day i lost someone i cared for deeply, someone who had treated me worse than any other person will ever be given the chance to, someone i loved unconditionally, and i lost my best friend. my go to person for everything! barely a day went past without us talking. i also saw him die needlessly of a disease that could have been treated, because he refused to take responsibility, a disease he willingly passed on to me. i saw worst case scenario, upclose.
anyway thats about it, thanks for taking the time to get through that
let me know if you have any questions ;)

basic timeline -
jeff and i meet early 2007
august 2008 move to bribane
mid 2009 jeff moves to Casino
may 2010 jeff moves back
about sept 2010 the final breakup
jeffs mate approaches me march 2011
diagnosed april 28 2011
around july/aug 2011 jeff diagnosed
jeff in hospital serious condition early jan 2012
jeff passes march 29 2012