Saturday 13 February 2010

How Time Flys - My Valentine

Tomorrow will be the third Valentines day we have shared since we have known we were HIV!

Of course having been married for over 23 years and known each other for about 30 years we have shared many other Valentines and probably several others when we had HIV but did not know it as we have probably now had HIV for approximately  but since the HIV diagnosis Valentines day has taken on a special significance for us .

As by co-incidence Valentines day 3 years ago was the day Barry started HIV meds for the first time and he had only been back home from hospital  and out of danger from dying of PCP for a short time.

So for me Valentines Day will always now mark the first day us both becoming full members of the 'living with HIV' club.

This sounds depressing, but today I feel slightly better and able to take a different perspective.

As it also marks us ( knowingly) surviving with HIV for over 2  years, as their was a time in the beginning  and there was a time in the beginning when I really feared that one or the other of us would not survive as Barry was so ill and I too was unwell. But more importantly it marks that we have survived as a couple , that our relationship has survived and is strong despite when I wrote in my last post.

If our marriage can survive this it can survive anything, as what can be more of a test to a relationship than finding out in such a hard way that your partner of so many years has been unfaithful, and that unfaithfulness led to us both acquiring what is an incurable virus. Few relationships have been so tested and in fact I know few couples that get along and love each other more than us .

So today I feel more positive.

We have made our third Valentines with our relationship still in tact despite the ups and downs that are bound to happen under the circumstances and with us both relatively healthy.

There is of course a lot more of our journey to go, a lot more learning for us both to do  and who knows how it will end .
But right now we are both here and together and basically in tact .

We have survived!!

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