It’s only two weeks since I was up at the HIV clinic at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast. That appointment was an emergency one due to the somewhat awful cough and chest infection from which I was suffering at the time. The news back then was that the results from May’s blood tests were very encouraging:

CD4 = 190 (9%)
VL = undetectable

Well, today I had the results of the tests on the blood taken two weeks ago. Whilst the CD4 count is down numerically to 140, the percentage is the same at 9%. This was not entirely unexpected as my body was fighting the chest infection at the time. Viral Load was once again undetectable.

My consultant, Dr Carol Emerson, reckoned that this was all down to a certain Andrew. She wondered if she could prescribe

Atripla with an Andrew once a day.

to every patient with adherence difficulties. Whilst I appreciate what she was saying – there is only one Andrew McFarland – and he is not available for cloning. His attitude towards my meds, is however, one that could be cloned: or at least suggested as a model to partners of positive people. But we’ll leave him to explain that one himself.

In other news, with the pains in my knees becoming much worse in recent weeks, Dr Emerson sent me down to the X-ray department where the radiographer put my legs in all sorts of positions (most of which made my knees sore!) and we’ll wait and see what can be seen from the X-rays taken. At least now, someone is trying to get to the bottom of the problem.