Several years ago, my former partner tested positive with HIV/AIDS. We had separated ways five years back. His situation was getting serious and needed to opt for Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy immediately. HAART is a combination or “cocktail” of several medicines used to treat HIV/AIDS. Once you start it, you can’t leave it, so he will be having a pill a day for the rest of his life.

1. My America Unlikely Drug Dealer
Several years ago, my former partner tested positive with HIV/AIDS. We had separated ways five years
back.
His situation was getting serious and needed to opt for Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy immediately.
HAART is a combination or “cocktail” of several medicines used to treat HIV/AIDS. Once you start it, you
can't leave it, so he will be having a pill a day for the rest of his life.
I got tested. I was negative and still am. He didn’t tell anyone – just two of us friends. Regardless of the
progress society has made, being HIV+ is still considered taboo and can bring a lot of trouble. I respected
his decision.
When he got tested he was living a three hour drive away from my home town, and that's where he
visited his doctor and got HAART pills. He moved back home since then, and he had no means to get
there on his own, since he didn't have a job or a car at that time.
I owned a car and had a job and because of that I could drive there when needed. So for the next three
years I drove him to the hospital every time he needed to pick up his meds or see his doctor. That's
about once every three months.
Then he emigrated to another country where HAART therapy is free. But it turned out that it is free after
some months of stay in that country and he was running out of pills. And he told me only two weeks in
advance. And because of the nature of the therapy, he could not skip his meds.

2. So one particular weekend, several years after we broke up, I had to make up some ridiculous excuse at
my workplace, drive for three hours to his hospital, explain the situation to his former doctor, persuade
him to give me two months-worth of HAART therapy worth roughly $2,000, and have them mailed to my
ex. I was the only one with the means to do so.
No shipping service will let you ship medication unless you pay really high bills, and sending by mail is
legally forbidden, so I had to take the pills out of their boxes, wrap them up in tin foil and hide them
among DVDs so that they could make their way through customs in three separate packages to three
separate addresses, to improve the chances.
I felt like a drug trafficker. The difference is that a person's life doesn't depend on marijuana. It was not
exciting. But my ex survived for a few years.
They all arrived in a two weeks.
Story by: Anonymous
From: USA
Read more short stories:
http://www.shortstoriescorner.com
Please check out the E-Book Store for more fabulous books:
http://www.shortstoriescorner.com/e-book-store
Image courtesy of Image courtesy of Download "Health Care Medicine" by
tungphoto FreeDigitalPhotos.net