The Misery Of Waiting For Your HIV Results

I sat in the clinic waiting room, scared.  Shifting from side to side, I glared at the clock on the wall, angry it wouldn’t tick faster. Twenty minutes they promised me.  That’s all they needed to tell me whether I lived or died.  Whether I spent the rest of my life on toxic medicine or in eternal gratitude.

It used to take two weeks to get HIV results.  But now clinics have a new rapid-testing system.   They can scare the hell out of you in 20 minutes instead of 14 days. I’ve taken both kinds of tests.  Each made me sick.  The 14-day test felt like a low-grade fever ending with a heart attack.  The 20-minute test feels like a heart attack without the low-grade fever.

Like a lot of people, I prefer the rapid test.  Since the recent national rollout years ago, some clinics report a 400% increase in the number of people getting tested. And people are staying to find out if they’re infected, too.  In the 14-day test only 60% have the courage to come back for the verdict.

Taking an HIV test is like jumping off a high-dive board.  Think too long and you’ll do something even more dangerous than jumping off:  climbing down. That’s the beauty of rapid testing.  It doesn’t give you time to talk yourself down.  It blocks the stairs and flings you off the board.

As a sex advice columnist there’s no question in my mind that rapid testing will slow the spread of HIV.  About 30% of HIV positive people don’t know they’re infected and they’re unwittingly spreading it.  A faster, more popular test will shrink that figure.  But as a member of a high-risk group, I know how hard it is to take *any* HIV test, rapid or not.   First, you have to take the test twice a year if you’re single and sexually active.  Doctor’s orders.  If you “pass” the test you gain nothing except the chance to do it over again in six months.

If you fail, you lose everything.   No, it’s not an automatic death sentence anymore, but tell that to the 17,000 Americans who die of aids every year. Back in the waiting room, I fought the impulse to run away as the clock neared the 20-minute mark.  But the metaphorical stairs had been blocked.

The clinician opened the door.

He called my number.  I froze in place.

He shut the door.  I held my breath.

He read the verdict.  I closed my eyes.

And then I made an appointment to come back in six months.  My sentence was commuted.  I walked out a free man.

The only real difference between the two tests is the time it takes to get the results.  But whether it’s 20 minutes or 14 days, when that clinician opens the door and calls your number, waiting for the results feels like an eternity.