In 1990, only ten years after the discovery of the HIV virus, Eloïse Caron, a successful young advertising executive, learns not only that she has contracted the virus but that it was passed on to her by her long-term boyfriend, who would die of AIDS a few years later.

Thus began, for the author, thirteen years of secrecy (at first only her brother is aware of her condition), and a relentless fight to survive and stay healthy. A search for a miracle cure takes her as far as Mexico for a treatment by a doctor who turns out to be a charlatan.

In this poignant testimony, the author, who decides to live and not to renounce love, focuses particularly on the difficulty of being in an intimate relationship while being HIV positive. How can she still have a normal sex and love life? How to reconcile caution and prevention (tri-therapy treatment was not on the market yet) without playing down the importance of her condition, seen at the time as a shameful disease? As the author’s own words show, this is the greatest difficulty she will face.

Eloïse Caron eventually meets the man with whom she now shares her life.

As she mentions in the preface, she had to change her name to preserve her privacy, but please note that she is open to interviews that hide her face.