strange radiation: the pool of radiance archive

Adventures with an unreliable narrator.

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Feb 6 06: is there a doctor in the house?

As I attempt to retrofit something approximating, oh, a plot to a story I’m working on, I find I have some questions that need answering. I have a few avenues of investigation to check, but I thought that maybe the magic of the internet hive-mind might prove useful here as well. Thus:

Assume an HIV-positive patient, male, mid-forties, and in good apparent health due to prolonged use of a drug-therapy ‘cocktail’ regimen. As sometimes happens, the cocktail stops working for this patient. How quickly might the patient go from ‘I feel fine’ to ‘I have a potentially life-threatening secondary infection’?
Assume an HIV-positive male, mid-forties. Due to the failure of a therapeutic drug regimen, and a failure to begin a course of treatment, this patient has become ill with a potentially life-threatening secondary infection. Assume, now, that the HIV infection is eliminated—that the virus is completely removed from the body. How quickly would the patient’s immune system, in the absence of the virus, be able to create something like a standard complement of immune cells, and from there fight off the infection?

Can anybody shed any light here? Or recommend me to somebody who might? I’d be ever so grateful.

Commentary

Any joy as yet? Hello from Heathrow.

posted by grendel, Feb 12 06 4:19 AM

Enough joy to know where to go from here. Looking forward to seeing you upon your triumphant return.

posted by Andrew, Feb 15 06 4:42 PM