"My unfaithful boyfriend infected me with HIV and I managed to get justice"

Diane Reeve did not expect to regain love after the collapse of her marriage that had lasted 18 years, but in 2002, at the age of 50, it was Is produced.

However, it turned out that his new partner, Philippe Padieu, was sleeping with other women and she transmitted him HIV.

It's her story told by herself.

I had abandoned love more or less, but a few people. they convinced me that I was too young for that and that I had to go back to the market. It was suggested to me to use online dating apps and the experience was pretty brutal.

I was about to resign when I received a message from Philippe.

It was a brief "I like your profile, I would like to meet you," but I was intrigued. . He was French and handsome, and I thought, "Well, one last time and now."

We met at my martial arts school – he also practiced them – then we went to a nearby restaurant and drank drinks and snacks. We sit for an hour and talk. I was fascinated and imagined that it was the same.

He told me good stories and told me a lot about him. It was refreshing because it is usually the opposite, the woman is talking all the time and that has seemed exhausting to me.

This first appointment interested me a lot, but I did not know he felt the same thing. However, suddenly, he made an insinuating comment and I thought "okay, he is interested"

From that point on, we started going out quite often.

Philippe was a security badyst for a large company, but he was fired for one year. To get out while I was looking for a job, I asked him to help me at the school where I worked.

When I taught, we left together after work and spent the night together. We had talked about not going out with other people since the beginning of the relationship so we saw each other three or four times a week. The rest of the time, I was busy with my school.

I was happy, he was happy, he was good and we had been together for four and a half years.

Disenchanting

In 2006, my daughter was getting married and we had a great ceremony.

Philip was there – he took a video of the big occasion – and we were all going to a family dinner later. However, later he called me from his cell phone to tell him that he could not come because he was not feeling well.

He has not called since his home number, which has made me mistrustful. I was furious because dinner was very important to me.

I went there alone, but on my way home, I thought about going through Philippe's apartment to see how sick I was not to go to dinner in family.

The door was closed, the house was dark and I did not see his car.

I sat on the doorstep and cried for a long time. Then I started to get angry.

While I was paying her phone bills, I could hear her voice messages. Two different women had left him messages, and it was obvious that it was about acquaintances with whom he had plans.

I waited an hour and a half longer, then I saw him appear around the corner.

Seeing my car immediately he sped up – I knew something was happening – so I followed him into the streets of the neighborhood until he was finally on l & # 39; highway.

I was going at 145 km / h and I was just behind. I thought, "I can chase you all night, I have the tank full."

He ends up moving away. I screamed and accused him of deceiving me. He said "you should not have entered my voicemail!" and so we were discussing. I was so angry that he started hitting the car and that it scared me, so I decided that it was the end.

We broke on a Saturday. The following Monday, I went to a medical examination and, when the results reached us, I discovered that there were abnormalities in the cells of the cervix of the uterus.

It was said that it was the papillomavirus. I never had it before, so I knew it had happened.

It shocked me and scared me: they had to operate to remove these cells and I did not know if it would turn into cancer. 19659006] I was wondering if I should warn the other two women. I checked nine months of Philippe's phone records. I called the different numbers and when a woman answered me, I asked her: "Do you see Philippe Padieu?" And if they answered yes, he replied: "I need to talk to you."

I found nine other women.

One call

Some were angry, others hung up, others were very interested and some were grateful: I had all sorts of answers.

A woman who had seen Philippe and lived nearby He was so angry that we decided to meet. We had a very interesting meal, comparing the impressions, and we took a picture with an obscene gesture that we then sent him.

There is another woman I contacted later. We are in a small jazz bar. She had seen Philippe three times a week for about a year and a half.

I did not have an exclusive relationship with him, but I expected that to happen (I think). I told him everything that had happened to me, how romantic they were. for years, we built a house, we moved in together when we parted.

I told him about the papilloma virus and the fact that he still had health problems.

He listened very carefully to what he had to do. I told him: "It's your decision and if you want to keep seeing it, it's up to you" and I thought it would be the last time we would see each other.

Three months later, they called me from the Ministry of Health and told me that they'd do a review I panicked because I'd 39 had many health problems, in addition to the result of abnormal cells.

I had saved Philippe's cell phone in case someone would call and I could therefore warn them.

I checked the phone again afterwards. I contacted the health department and realized that the last person I phoned was the woman I had met at the jazz bar.

I contacted her to tell her, "I just called the health department.What can you tell me about this?"

She says three words that I n & # 39; I will never forget: "We must speak."

She had continued to see Philippe after my meeting but had decided to leave him later.

Worried about badually transmitted diseases and had pbaded tests.

Her doctor called her to tell him bad news. I had HIV.

At that time, I knew that everything that had happened in the past six months consisted of health problems, lack of energy, things I had attributed to make me a little older and misplaced puzzle pieces. I knew what I was facing.

The next day, I had an appointment with my gynecologist and they took me blood. A few days later, they called me with the results.

"Diane, I'm sorry, it's positive."

I dropped the phone and knelt down. I thought I was going to die.

I did not follow news about HIV closely. I remembered the lack of treatment and I knew that there were treatments today, but I did not really know how effective they were. And I knew that I was very, very sick.

That happened in January 2007.

When I went to do other tests, I discovered that I had AIDS. This means that your immune system is damaged to the point that you are vulnerable to any disease.

Your body does not defend itself because the virus has damaged the cells that fight the infection.

A strange reaction

] I had health insurance because I was an independent worker and two months after the diagnosis, I had changed plans.

At the end of the new police, there was an exclusion: "Please, know that we do not cover HIV", which I had signed without problems because I knew that I did not have HIV. Two months later, I knew that I really knew it.

So I had insurance that did not cover HIV and the treatment cost about $ 2,000 a month, which I could not afford.

Almost immediately. after receiving the results, I went to therapy. I needed help to handle things. I was very depressed, scared and angry or even homicidal.

I decided to talk again with the woman I had met at the jazz bar. We cry together and we get angry together. When she received her diagnosis, she immediately called Philippe to warn him.

He replied, "Hey, it's not so bad either, everyone dies of something, why do not you continue your life and do not you leave me alone?"

It was a very strange reaction on the part of someone who should have been in shock.

We think that Philippe had infected us both and we thought we could do something

We inquired a few weeks after the diagnosis. we had filed a police report.

We wanted the police to stop him. We wanted them to know when he was really infected with the virus and if we could do anything to prevent it from harming other women.

The police were very empathetic and understanding, but she said that since we were only two, we could not do it.

But if four or five other women spoke, they may have gone to the prosecutor to examine them.

We returned to the telephone records. The first person I called was the one who lived in the Philippe neighborhood I had met before. He has pbaded the exams and has also been diagnosed with HIV.

He helped us by watching the house and noting the number plates of the cars stopped at Philippe's house at night.

We were very busy because he spent every night with a woman.

I had a friend who could find names and addresses on the registration plates and we went to visit them

In total, we found 13 women with HIV.

I was devastated because it had been going on for so long. I had been seeing Philip since 2002, but some of the women I spoke with had predicted, and with a different car every night at the door of his house, many women had been exposed.

the police department and the prosecutor's office began to intervene.

In an attempt to prove that Philip knew that he had been diagnosed, the police organized what is called a pretense phone call.

I called him at the police station. to try to make him admit that he knew that he was living with HIV. It did not go very well.

He said, "How did you get that number?"

I said, "Hey, I heard you did not feel very well and I called to find out how you are doing," and he hung me up at nose.

There was a woman from the Department of Health who helped me find women. I asked her if she had seen it before, but it did not sound good.

Then, I remembered that Philippe sometimes used a pseudonym, the name of Phil White, and she remembered it. The period during which she had seen him was more or less the same as the one in which I remembered having sent him to the doctor because he had the impression of having kidney stones. .

I thought to myself, "I wonder if it was at that time." they diagnosed. "

It was in 2005. A year and a half before the breakup.I had gone to the doctor and I had pbaded examinations.

I had paid for it treatment, then I recovered those checks and took them to the attorney: it was the first time that I saw her smile.

"probable cause" to ask for your medical history, then he l & # 39; Otherwise, it would have been very difficult, if not impossible, to get them because of the privacy laws, and that's how we proved that he had received HIV diagnosis

Of the 13 women diagnosed with HIV diagnosed, only five accepted to testify because of the stigma badociated with the virus

We created a support group. and we are regularly at home, we have lived all this together.

One of the reasons for all this was that the state of Texas was paying for medical treatment if the harm resulted from a crime and that Philip was being prosecuted for "badault with a deadly weapon".

Finding a woman has been a long process, five or six months. We watched almost every day of the week.

It was exhausting – I was always with AIDS – but we were determined to stop it from doing it at another.

Trial and sentence

The trial finally began in 2009, three years after the separation of Philippe and me and two years after my diagnosis.

The prosecutor had warned us that any dirty clothes Philippe had on us would be shared in public. Although I was prepared there, I did not know that I was going to be as brutal as that: I was at the booth for an hour, but I was putting it back.

After the sentence, we gathered all our friends and family and we celebrated our birthday because we knew that I could not hurt anyone else.

Philippe never badumed his responsibility. He said it was me who infected everyone with HIV, which was obviously absurd. We found a woman in Michigan who had transmitted the virus in 1997.

We also conducted a very rigorous DNA study that showed that the virus that was in each of us had a common origin, and Philippe we had in common.

I suppose he was transmitting HIV to women knowingly for years before meeting him and that the 2005 diagnosis was not the first.

I had trouble forgiving. But I'm at peace because, honestly, when life gave me lemons, I made lemonade.

But one of the things that makes me blame Philippe and other women for what she did is that it destroyed my ability to trust, and that makes relationships very difficult.

I'm putting off, but it's a difficult process.

I am very lucky to now have a good relationship with someone who understands, who likes me and who accepts me.

We started to see each other. in 2008 and at the second appointment I told him. I started crying and he took me and said, "It's okay, my brother has died of AIDS," and this experience has helped me a lot.

Medicine has progressed so much that for many people today it is enough to take one tablet a day, and that is what I have been doing for a long time.

I have an undetectable viral load, which implies that the virus can not be detected in my blood.

It has been shown that if you live with HIV and have for six months, with a constant undetectable viral load, the risk of transmission is zero. It changed everything for us.

I am still in touch with many other women. I went to the Grand Canyon on vacation with one of them, the jazz bar, last year.

If I had not met her, she would never have examined herself and if she had not given my name to the health department, I would never have done it. They would have called to examine me. We really saved our lives.

(Source: BBC)