At the age of 28, in 1992, I was told I had HIV and maybe “a good five years” to live. By the time the autumn of 2008 rolled around, I’d outlived my use-by date three times over, and then some. Not only had my body remarkably held it together without need for treatment or medical intervention, the HIV had never even begun to conquer my immune system. In the previous five years, however, another culprit – stress – had taken hold, and the damage was irreversible.