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From: marco@ozdaltx.UUCP (marco)
Newsgroups: sci.med.aids
Subject: Re: Get tested
Message-ID: <28203@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 16 Oct 89 18:11:44 GMT
References: <27888@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> <28114@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> <28136@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
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Organization: OZ BBS - Dallas, TX
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Archive-number: 1361

Hi Steve.  I give HIV test results at the local community-based research
clinic here in Dallas.  When I walk into the room to give the client
their results (regardless if reactive or not), I always shake their
hand and tell them who I am, and immediately tell them *NOT* to tell
me their name with the warmest smile I can muster.  I *ALWAYS* remind
them this is a confidential (I can SEE these people out in the bars
but would NEVER even acknowledge them in any other setting but the
Clinic) and anonymous (I don't know who they are).
 
Sometimes they tell me their first names anyway, and I'll remember
and address them by that name thru-out the session of post-counseling.
 
Hope you plan on following up your seropositive results with some
conscientious monitoring of certain blood factors (T-cells, P24 antigen,
Beta-2, etc....).   If you should be one of those that have a propensity
to exhibit a decline in immune system functioning in the future, medical
intervention at the earliest stages *MAY* cause a state of remission
or (at worst) a level of maintenance not unlike someone with diabetes.
 
There is good reason to believe that you will live out your normal
lifetime with a minimum of medical intervention.  
 
Be in good cheer!  Send email if desired!  See ya!

-- 
Steve Giammarco
AIDS Resource Center
Dallas TX 75219
{ames,rutgers,texsun,smu}!attctc!ozdaltx!marco