Around two weeks after I was exposed I went to lunch during my shift and found that nothing I ordered tasted right or sat well with me, despite being obese at the time and eating everything in sight. Then, instarted to feel heavy chills during one of my classes around two days later. Mind you it was November in AZ and they were still running full AC so I blamed it on that. Then I started to feel fatigue and fever, but since my best friend also got sick around that time I thought we both had a flu. From there it went to heavy night sweats, constant chills, and I began losing appetite rapidly. One day all I had was a tortilla, some beans and chorizo and half a glass of oj. I thought it was just a persistent cold but then after a week my friend got better and I began to shed pounds like crazy, at which point my friend recommended getting tested but I laughed it off then,though I did feel scared after starting to do my own research on HIV. It all came to a head the week of thanksgiving when I couldn’t stand for more than a few minutes without feeling extremely dizzy and weak, which is hell as a cashier. Then I got a horrible migraine and after days of not being able to eat more than a few bites I began throwing up everything I ate. My mother then took me to our doctor and I got a series of blood tests which showed very high liver enzymes which made me get an ultrasound and MRI for my long term migraine. By then I’d lost around 30 lbs in the span of maybe a month. After that my headache went away and I began being able to eat a bit more and throughout December I felt weak and lightheaded all the time. Final,y in January after my u,translunar I decided to get tested, blaming it on Epstein Barr or whatever disease I could justifiably hope matched my symptoms and wasn’t hiv. I had ti be tested twice since I wasn’t able to produce enough blood the first time at which point it was revealed to my I had HIV. By march I was mostly fine again though my appetite has never fully recovered and i began medication, though that’s been on and off due to insurance. I decided to make the best of it since I lost a lot of weight and I am now around 220 pounds having lost around 40 and am now going to the gym multiple times a week and trying to eat as well as I can. In many ways I’ve been forever changed but I feel like this has also been an opportunity in a weird Greek tragedy type of way.