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Stella,
1995.Stella
On the jungle gym in a park in the Upper Haight, near her apartment
April 26, 1995
Stella: I never thought I had HIV. I had been sick in the fall of 1989. Sick with a virus or a flu, a really funky flu. I never felt that way before. My eyes were blood shot. I was freezing cold. I was in school at the time and I really couldn't go. I was usually a healthy person. Since I got mono in high school, I knew that if my lymph nodes were swollen, I was getting sick. After I was sick this time, they stayed really big all over my body, even though I got better. I went to the doctor at the clinic at Haight Ashbury. They thought it was really weird that all of my lymph nodes were swollen. They said there are three things that are high on the list: Toxoplasmosis, Lymphoma, or HIV. I still wasn't worried. He sent me over to General with a handwritten note that said all of these things about me and that I was in a very low risk group for HIV but you might want to test for it.
That was in December. On January 9th, my birthday, I finally got my ass to the doctor and they did all these tests. They asked if I'd been to a tropical country and all these other things. They were residents; young and really conscientious. At the last minute, this was in 1990, one doctor said, "If you had AIDS, your lymph nodes wouldn't be swollen there," which is a total joke in retrospect. "But do you want to get an HIV anti-body test?" I was like, "yes, of course I do, throw it in there!" It sounds funny but it really was on a whim, just to be a responsible citizen or something. The doctors seemed reluctant to give the test.
I went back a couple of weeks later and they said, "we can't figure out what is wrong with you." The doctor said, "let me run upstairs because I haven't gotten the AIDS anti-body test." I'm dressed and everything at this point and on my way out. She comes back down with another doctor and they close the door behind them.
I know now that when your doctor comes back with another person, it's never good news. She told me the test was positive and I threw an absolute temper tantrum. I went crazy. Both doctors walked out of the room because they didn't know how to deal with me. I was losing my shit. I was really really crying.
I got tested again, but even before it came back, my T-cell count came back and it was 330, which is very low for a normal person and not even all that high for someone with HIV, so she was pretty sure at that point. She was a new doctor and she turned out to be a sweetie. The fact that I wasn't so different from her, I was 21, there was probably only a ten-year difference between us at the most. She was really good to me.
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