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Blood types have always been somewhat fascinating to me, the fact that our cells can be classified into different groups and are either compatible with each, or not, made me wonder for a long time which group I was part of. A few years ago I went to my doctor for a routine blood test to make sure my iron and folic acid was alright and I decided to throw in an HIV screening as well. I asked the doctor if it was possible to find out what blood type I was just for the hell of it and he ticked off a box on the laboratory requisition form and told me to come back in a few weeks.

Now, I was quite certain that HIV was not something I had to be worried about at that time but I'm sure that everybody has a little anxiety when they are getting tested for HIV as it is such a life-altering and frightening diagnosis.

A few weeks later I was back at my doctor's who had the test results waiting for me. He walked into the exam room looking rather somber and started telling me something along the lines of "Andrea, life is hard and there are moments when things don't really make sense or can seem hopeless and awful". At this point I was shitting my pants, afraid that he had bad news for me that I was, in fact, HIV positive, riddled with cancer or terminally ill with some untreatable disease. He paused for a brief second and then went on to say "So when life is hard I always want you to remember your blood type, and be positive".

As it turns out my blood type is B+ and HIV free.

Needless to say I found a new family doctor.