AIDSfree: ‘Aids, cancer, I was at my lowest ebb. Then HIV drug therapy came in’

A charity boss has said how advances in treatment helped him to make a remarkable recovery after he was diagnosed with HIV.

Garry Brough was a 23-year-old university student when he was told he was HIV positive and had only five years to live. The devastating diagnosis began a chain of events that led to him developing Aids and cancer — and contemplating suicide.

Nearly 30 years on, the 51-year-old recalls that the standard approach to such a prognosis was to “cash in your pension and go to Disneyworld”.

“In 1991 the doctors estimated I had three years of health and two years of ill health, then death. They said I wouldn’t see 30,” he said.

However, Mr Brough decided to complete his degree at the University of Westminster. Things started off positively and his friends and family were extremely supportive. He said: “I took an approach that knowledge was power. I wouldn’t go on benefits and wait to die – I would do everything I would to look after myself.

“For four years I took every complementary therapy, cut out meat, had no dairy, sugar or caffeine, [tried] homeopathy, Chinese herbs, acupuncture.

“I did every alternative therapy that I knew wouldn’t do any harm. It was the one area where I could be in control.

“I had an idea I could dismantle the equation HIV plus Aids equals death.”

But despite his best efforts, Mr Brough was diagnosed with Aids and skin and lung cancer in 1995. He said: “That was where everything changed. I had spent four years doing everything I could to look after myself and all that hope fell apart. I thought, ‘This is it, I am done now’.

“I had done everything I could to be positive, but the Aids diagnosis was more than I could bear. It was the first time I cried. I had never had any self- pity, but Aids was devastating news. I was at my lowest ebb.”

Mr Brough said he even spoke to his parents about suicide, adding: “My parents were very clear they would look after me but I didn’t want that to happen and slowly die.”

He underwent two years of chemotherapy to treat the cancer and was so ill he had to give up work.

But advances in combination therapy came in the nick of time.

On his 30th birthday in 1997, he started taking anti-retroviral drugs. He said: “It was a phenomenal change. I had a massive boost of energy, like I had been carrying 50lb weights around and they had been taken away.” The HIV is now undetectable in Mr Brough’s blood, meaning it cannot be passed on. Chemotherapy was also successful and he has been cancer-free for 20 years.

He said: “HIV has been the most defining experience of my life – the greatest teacher I have ever had in relation to my understanding of what life means to me and how important it is, and how passionately I need to engage with it.”

He now works as CEO of Positively UK, an HIV charity. He said: “For the last 20 years all my work has been in sharing my learning about how to live with HIV rather than how to die well.”

Our Christmas charity campaign is raising money for the Elton John AIDS Foundation – to help create a world free of Aids.

Extraordinary recovery: Garry Brough’s health declined despite his best efforts. Now the HIV virus cannot be detected in his blood