In twelve hours I will have stopped PEP. Those pills are the last ones that I am going to take. I am extremely happy about this. It has been a month since my stomach didn't feel as if I were waiting to vomit, a month since my thought processes have seemed even remotely like mine. A month since I last worked, good grief, am I bored! A month of wondering if my life is about to change for the worst. A month of my mates looking sideways at me when I had to take the pills in front of them (but still enough my friends to laugh and joke with me about it). A month of having to get out of bed to eat breakfast, because the pills need food in my stomach. A month without shaving (why bother, I'm not allowed to have sex). A month of feeling just the tinest bit isolated. A month of people who I have never met, from places around the globe I have never seen, wishing me well. A month of always feeling grateful to those people, for this is the kindness of strangers – in itself a random act of reality.

All over now.

In two months I get to go for my HIV test, which should be fun and giggles.

But for now – I'm happy.