I'm Patrick, and I was first diagnosed in November of 1991 with HIV. Certainly, there's the process that you go through of dealing with 'oh my God' then you start realizing you're living with a life-threatening disease. And at that point, with the medications that were out—there weren't very many—and it was almost a death Nell. But there were medications out, and I started immediately and began trying to take better care of myself.
As far as just our daily lives, we drink from the same cups. If there's...if I see that there's a cut or something Ð his background is health Ð he's not afraid if I get a cut or something like that. He's there to help bandage me. We don't live our life in fear of anything. We take as much precautions and try to watch out for each other for other health issues as well. He's borderline diabetic, so I have to watch out for him and say 'hey, you know, watch the chip eating, and watch the rice and the mashed potatoes.' So, it's part of our life.
I would tell somebody if they're newly diagnosed, I think it's good to find a good support group, whether it is a church or friends or family. Sometimes I think people assume too much. You assume that they're going to be prejudice about something or they're going to be and act a certain way, and the truth is they're not. As I said, knowledge is power. The more you know, the more you're going to help yourself.
My partner Tom and I met almost 10 years ago, it was in 1997, and prior to that, when I come in contact with anyone, whether family, friend, straight, gay or whatever, I try to put out there that I'm gay, and somewhere in the conversation, if I feel like it's important, I will work in that I'm HIV+, if I feel like it's going to be relevant. And in the case of dating, I put it out there. And the first night that I met Tom, we were talking and I said, 'I just need to tell you something, I'm HIV+.' And that led into a discussion, and he actually found that very refreshing. And it's one of the things he always says, from that moment on, he felt like he could trust me about things. That he could ask me a question, and I would be honest with him about that.