"I was given two years to live" – ​​a patient with AIDS tells of his survival 30 years later

Pensioner Tom Matthews contracted AIDS in the dark and ruthless days when he was nicknamed the homosexual plague, his victims were dismissed as lepers and the bigots labeled the illness just right from the top.

Tom, one of the UK's longest surviving AIDS patients, or even the longest, was diagnosed when the disease was sentenced to death. He was given two years before his immune system was overwhelmed.

Two years to live.

The sinister diagnosis proved true for all his close friends. He attended all their funerals.

But Tom, who lives and breathes in the history of medicine, is always with us.

This bomb diagnosis was made more than 30 years ago.

Against all odds, he challenged the deadly virus and overcame the stigma that accompanied it. His body does not betray any trace of an illness that has swept away much of the gay community.

Tom became HIV-positive in 1986 when there was simply no treatment. In the early nineties, he swallowed 39 tablets five times a day, just to defeat the devil who was threatening him.

He has no definitive explanation for his current state of brutal health, but thinks that his determination is "open" from the first day of illness, while others, huddled in the shadows, have played their part. .

Tom does not know if he holds the record of survival, but, as an AIDS worker, he has yet met anyone who has lived longer with the disease.

He was very very open. He was the first and only person to pose for Birmingham Mail's cameras when World AIDS Day was unveiled for the first time in the city.

He has already announced at a busy public event: "My hope for the future is to be as proud to be HIV positive as to be a gay man."

The proverbial pin could be heard falling.

The value of honesty was hammered home by death after death. The narrow circle with which Tom socialized is in the In Memoriam columns. Some of them died in denial.

A friend was hospitalized three months after a vacation with Tom. In the end, he refused to accept an HIV test, a test that would confirm the cause of his decline.

"I was really mad at him," Tom says. "I was so angry for a very long time. I lost a very nice friend who was so scared that he would rather die than be diagnosed positive. "

Watch Tom talk about his incredible survival

"Maybe I survived because I was not ashamed of that and they did it," added the 71-year-old Kings Heath player.

"In the first five years, 99% of my peer group died. After so many funerals, you develop Lazarus syndrome. You wonder why you are the only person here.

These early years were a toxic cocktail of dread and paranoia.

"At the time, one of the biggest problems was skin cancer," he recalls. "I suddenly realized how many moles I had on my body. I said that I was going to map them. Of course, I did not do it.

"In 1989, I went to Amsterdam with friends. Last night, I had a lesion on my face and I just said that I did not want to talk about it. In three days he was gone.

It was not until 2005 that Tom realized that he had a future, but AIDS remains like a sleeping beast in his body. He was tamed, not finished.

Tom's recklessness collapsed after a call from an ex. He was diagnosed with Kaposi's sarcoma, a skin cancer associated with HIV. Tom, he pleaded, had to be tested.

These tests revealed the terrible truth: Tom was dying of an illness that sick people dared not reveal in public.

There was no medicine to fight the virus, only leaflets and lines of assistance. He was not armed against the disease and the almost medieval superstition that surrounded AIDS.

"You think it will not be you," Tom said. "Two years to live. I do not know why, but I accepted it.

"I was in a relationship for 19 years and I had two beautiful dogs. We live in a world that believes that tomorrow will bring you something bigger and better than today. I had to focus on today.

"The pressure you experience when you examine your own mortality makes you realize that quality of life is more important than longevity. I do not want to stay alive. For me, the quality of life, it is to have my independence, to have my dogs.

"The quality of life is paramount. I do not want to be a carcass that is pushed and stuffed. "

"At that time, the Sun and the Daily Mirror ran almost daily outrageous reports about AIDS, full of scientific inaccuracies. Very volatile things. One MP stated that AIDS, associated with gay men and drug addicts, provides excellent service.

Tom fought these deep prejudices by joining – or even training – a multitude of AIDS support groups that aimed to erase the thick list of misconceptions conveyed by the public and even by members of the medical community. They were necessary.

While working for the West Midlands Health Authority as an AIDS project manager and responsible for distributing cash to districts battling the disease, Tom was briefed by a senior NHS executive: We have no gay men in our district – we do not have a theater! "

Tom, who grew up in Leeds, is the product of a working-class and sensible family – his father played for Bolton Wanderers. To inform them of her sexuality was difficult, to confess that her illness was a torture.

"Dad was a real man," Tom said, remembering when he was out of the closet. "His passions were football, fishing and gardening. I thought my mother-in-law would be fine, but she was not.

"She called me a pervert and asked me out of the house.

"But dad was fine. He did not understand, but he was fine. At each visit, he made me a hug, a very tactile man.

They also did not understand the ramifications of positive HIV.

Tom moved to Birmingham in 1989, working with his partner in the nascent HIV sector. They were pioneers.

He has been a key player in support groups such as Body Positive, ABplus and was, until recently, president of the Positive West Midlands charity. His story has helped thousands of people infected with HIV.

Tom is mostly a torchbearer for the first generation of homosexual men slaughtered by AIDS. Attitude certainly played a role in his survival. The practical approach to prescription drugs also seems to be paying off.

Thirty years ago, the benefits of AZT – used to control seizures – were discovered. Tom knew that this miracle had a cost.

"It made you very, very sick," he says. "You can look like a poster for the third world. A friend in San Francisco took 100 milligrams five times a day. In the UK it was 1,500 milligrams a day. "

Tom insisted that the dosage be lower and stayed in place as medical advances followed medical progress.

In 1996, the tests of 1592 – a new weapon in the war against AIDS – unfolded. He is now allowed. Kivexa, a pill that should only be taken once a day, has released Tom and the other treadmill patients with tablets and treatments.

Poignant, he met the man who gave him the virus. He met her on her deathbed, located in a hospital room littered with bio-random stickers.

"He was in an oxygen tent," recalls Tom. "They had hung his paintings around the room. A conversation was impossible, so I simply put myself in the oxygen tent. The nurse was in shock.

At a time when the world was avoiding the victims of AIDS, Tom kissed them. That's because he was one of them.

And he is immensely proud to be part of it.

How did Tom meet Freddie

A relationship with someone involved in the management of the super rock band Queen's brought Tom into contact with Freddie Mercury, perhaps the most prominent AIDS victim,

Tom is saddened by the fact that Freddie could not bring himself to tell the world the true cause of his worsening health. Freddie's fight against AIDS has only been posthumously revealed.

"I know he was an incredibly generous guy," Tom says. "Every Christmas day he had an open house. I loved the fact that you can go to clubs like Heaven and there.

"The fact that nobody knows about HIV – and I mean nobody, not even close friends – is very sad."