‘They panicked and ran away when I went for my Covid jab’
Niamh Millar, 45, is single and lives in Glasgow. The former theatre worker was diagnosed 10 years ago.
‘It was May 2010 when I first showed signs of illness. I was a regular 35-year-old woman who worked in a theatre and enjoyed socialising. There was a cold going around at work and I remember joking to colleagues, “Stay away, I don’t want to catch your bug.” I came home from work and couldn’t eat because my throat was so sore.
By the next morning I’d lost my voice, my face started swelling and my breathing changed. I went to the GP who immediately referred me to hospital. There, I was told I either needed an emergency tracheotomy or to be put into a medical coma and transported to another hospital. They warned I might not survive the ambulance journey, so I went for the tracheotomy. No one seemed to know why it had happened, but life went back to normal. In hindsight, my body had been under attack from the virus, yet at no point had anyone suggested an HIV test. I think doctors are nervous about bringing it up.
In March 2011, a guy I’d been seeing on and off for four years told me he’d tested positive and that I needed to be tested too. When I learnt I was positive, I didn’t blame anyone. I kept calm but began therapy with an HIV specialist, which helped enormously.
I told just a few close friends initially then, while working on a youth theatre project about HIV, I felt hypocritical not to be honest about my status.
I finally told my mum three years ago. She shrugged and said, “Well, you’re not going to die and you’re not going to pass it on.” I was amazed this Northern Irish woman in her seventies was so clued up! But as a Coronation Street fan she’d been educated by a storyline. It’s fantastic when TV normalises these things.
I would like more women to know about PREP (pre-exposure prophylaxis, see box, below) – it’s a pill you take to protect against HIV.
Ironically, the worst times I’ve suffered prejudice have been with healthcare professionals. A few years ago I went for a routine internal examination and once I declared my HIV
status I was told I’d have to wait an extra four hours so they could “deep clean” after me. That was medically unnecessary and made me feel stigmatised. When I went for my second Covid jab, the person administering asked what my underlying health condition was. When I told her, she panicked and ran away saying she needed gloves. We had a frank conversation about her ill-founded fears.
There’s nothing to be ashamed of about having HIV. The virus won’t kill you. With medication you can’t pass it on. I have a reminder on my phone at 7.30pm to take my three daily pills. That’s it. The worst part is the stigma.
The Government hasn’t run a major HIV campaign in 35 years. So many developments have happened since then and it’s time people knew about them.
‘Corrie did an HIV storyline. It’s fantastic’