Opportunistic Infection-Personal Narrative

I first meet Alan Venters through the 'HIV and Positive' self–help group, although he wasn't part of that group for long. Venters didn't look after himself very well, and soon developed one of the many opportunistic infections we're prone to. I always find the term 'opportunistic infection' amusing.
In our culture, it seems to invoke some admirable quality. I think of the 'opportunism' of the entrepreneur who spots a gap in the market, or that of the striker in the penalty box. Tricky buggers, those opportunistic infections.
The members of the group were in a roughly similar medical condition. We were all anti– body positive, but still largely asymptomatic. Paranoia was never far from the surface at our meetings; everybody seemed to be furtively checking out everyone else's lymph glands for signs of
swelling.
It was disconcerting to feel people's eyes stray to the side of your face during conversation.
This type of behaviour added further to the sense of unreality which hung over me at the time. I really couldn't conceive of what had happened to me. The test results at first just seemed unbelievable, so incongruous with the healthy way I felt and looked. Part of me remained convinced that there had to be a mistake, in spite of taking the test three times. My self–delusion should have been shattered when Donna refused to see me, but it was always hanging on in the background with a grim resolution. We always seem to believe what we want to believe.
I stopped going to the group meetings after they put Alan Venters in the hospice. It just depressed me and, anyway, I wanted to spend my time visiting him. Tom, my key worker and one of the group counsellors, reluctantly accepted my decision.
– Look Dave, I think that you seeing Alan in hospital is really great; for him. I'm more concerned about you at the moment, though. You're in great health, and the purpose of the group is
to encourage us to make the most of things. We don't stop living just because we're HIV positive. . .
Poor Tom. His first faux Pas of the day. – Is that the royal 'we' Tom? When you're HIV positive, tell me aw about it. Tom's healthy, pink cheeks flushed. He couldn't help it. Years of intensive interpersonal skills practice had taught him to hide the nervy visual and verbal giveaways. No shifty eye contact or quavering voice from him in the face of embarrassment. Not old Tom. Unfortunately, Tom cannae do a thing about the glowing red smears which rush up the side of his face on such occasions. – I'm sorry, Tom apologised assertively. He had the right to make mistakes. He always said that people had that right. Try telling that to my damaged immune system.
– I'm just concerned that you're choosing to spend your time with Alan. Watching him wasting away won't be good for you and, besides, Alan was hardly the most positive member of the group. – He was certainly the most HIV positive member.
Tom chose to ignore my remark. He had a right not to respond to the negative behaviour of others. We all had such a right, he told us. I liked Tom; he ploughed a lonely furrow, always trying to be positive. I thought that my job, which involved watching slumbering bodies being opened up by the cruel scalpel of Howison, was depressing and alienating. It’s a veritable picnic however, compared to watching souls being wrenched apart. That was what Tom had to put up with at the group meetings.
Most members of 'HIV and Positive' were intravenous drug–users. They picked up HIV from the shooting galleries which flourished in the city in the mid–eighties, after the Bread Street surgical suppliers was shut down. That stopped the flow of fresh needles and syringes. After that, it was large communal syringes and share and share alike. I've got a mate called Tommy who started using smack through hanging around with these guys in Leith. One of them I know, a guy called
Mark Renton, whom I worked with way back in my chippy days. It's ironic that Mark has been shooting smack for years, and is, so far as I know, still not infected with HIV, while I've never touched the stuff in my life. There were, however, enough smack–heads present in the group to make you realise that he could be the exception, rather than the rule.