Printer-friendly versionJuly 10, 2003 seemed like just another day at work for Sam,* a College junior. He was at his on-campus summer job updating databases when his cell phone rang. It was his ex-boyfriend, who said he had some news for him.
"He called and said, `We have to talk,' and I had that gut reaction, that `uh-oh,'" Sam recalls. "I had an idea what it was going to be, and I made him tell me right then on the phone."
Sam's first instinct was right. His ex-boyfriend - with whom he had had unprotected sex on a regular basis - said he had tested positive for Human Immunodeficiency Virus during recent routine blood work, and suggested Sam get tested himself.
"A million things flooded through my head," Sam says. "I thought, `I have to tell my family, I have to tell my doctor, I have to change my lifestyle, I have to tell my friends, and how is it going to affect my life and my goals?'"
"That was pretty much the first and only time I cried about it and was upset."
Even though Sam says he was almost certain of the results, he still got a free, anonymous HIV test at Philadelphia Community Hospital. Although the doctor told him the results would be available soon, due to lab complications, Sam ended up waiting several weeks.
"I was pretty sure at that point that it was going to come back positive," Sam says. "That's the worst time of it, though, just waiting and wondering."
When his test results were finally ready, the hospital required Sam to go in and hear the news in person from a crisis counselor.
"I was prepared for him to come back and say, 'You're positive.' It almost put me at ease knowing for sure," Sam says.
But even though Sam was expecting the worst -- that he had tested positive for HIV -- he says he still saw many of his goals come crashing down around him when the counselor told him of his diagnosis.
"I was like 'Oh my gosh, I want to go to law school, I want to do all this stuff,'" he recalls, adding that he even questioned whether it was worthwhile to stay in school.
Since then, though, Sam has been assigned a doctor and a social worker and has taken a more optimistic view of his situation.
"I tend to take an attitude that it's really not as bad as it used to be," he says. "They treat it more as a chronic illness rather than a terminal illness. It's taken on a different perspective in the medical profession itself."
But Sam's worries still weren't over. He then faced the daunting task of informing his sexual partners about his diagnosis -- even though he'd had protected sex with both of them.
"At first they were scared ... because even though we were safe, you can never be totally sure," Sam says. "After that first reaction, though, they were very supportive. I gave them some places to get tested, and we are still in contact."
It is, in part, the support he has received from friends like these that has helped Sam cope with living with HIV.
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