Together: Take Me Home

Take me home, but first…

Our world and our lives are full of risk; some risks are larger than others. I, of course, am speaking of sexual risk, and specifically, the risk of contracting HIV. Promiscuity carries with it, an immense level of risk, and it can be mitigated a lot easier than most others. It is for this reason, that today I would like to advocate for a national program called: Together: Take Me Home.

Together: Take Me Home(TTMH) is a collaboration between Emory University, Building Healthy Online Communities, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, NASTAD, Orasure, and Signal. The TTMH pilot program was released in certain cities on a small scale in 2020, and has been expanding ever since. The program is fully funded by the CDC through it’s Ending the HIV Epidemic Initiative, which, in total, has been funded with approximately $850mln in 2024 alone.

Through TTMH, citizens throughout the entirety of the United States can order up to two at-home HIV tests in every three month period. This comes at no cost to you, not even a single cent on shipping.

How to order: addressing privacy.

Requesting a free test could not be easier! All you need to do is navigate over to: together.takemehome.org from there, enter your five digit zip code, if you live within the United States you qualify for this service. On the next page enter your birthday. After that, enter your name and email, it is perfectly okay to use a name that is different from your legal name, but please use valid information for the other fields. From there, you will need to enter a valid shipping address, select whether you want one or two tests, and confirm your free order.

That’s it, your tests will be delivered within about two weeks.

This service is entirely free of charge, and only fully anonymized information is shared with the CDC. This, unidentifiable information, is used explicitly to assess the effectiveness of the program in reaching, and serving, at risk communities.

Why is this important?

Historically, a lot of at risk communities have been underserved, if not forgotten entirely by the traditional testing regime. For a multitude of reasons, the communities that needed it most were nearly entirely unsupported. Latino and African American communities were underserved for decades. In some cases, it was, and still is, dangerous for some to simply approach a testing location, let alone enter them.

Presently, more than 1.2 million people in the US carry HIV, and estimates say that 1 in 7 do not even know; that 1 in 7 accounts for about 40% of transmission; and less than 40% of the adult population in the US has ever been tested for HIV.

Together: Take Me Home is an effort to change that.

We are living at a point in history when the diagnostic tools available to us, the ability to test at home, and often, far outweigh the relatively minor sensitivity issues of at home tests. Studies have shown that at home tests ordered through the internet, positively impact the availability and use of HIV tests.

So how do I use this thing? Do I boof it?

No. You do not, and can not, boof1 it.

Okay, so you’ve gotten your test kit.

It is in your hands. You are somewhere safe, comfortable, and as private as your heart desires. You have not eaten, drunk anything or chewed gum within the last fifteen minutes, and you have waited at least thirty minutes since using any type of oral care products.2

So let’s walk through this together! We’ll break the three steps into small, manageable chunks.

1. First off, prepare your work area. Lay down a clean absorbent mat over your work surface(kraft paper, newspaper, paper towels)

2. Open the box and remove the plastic case, go ahead and set it in the center of your workspace and open it up. You’ll see this:

3. Pull out the drawer and take the pouches out. Open up the pouch labelled ‘Test Tube’ and pull out the tube. Hold the tube firmly, and gently rock the lid back and forth to remove the lid, do not pull or twist the lid, and be careful not to splash.

4. Place the tube in the holder in the lid of the case, again, be gentle as to not cause any splashing. Make sure the tube is fully inserted within the holder and that you hear a click.

5. Remove the test stick from the pouch, and confirm that there is an absorbent packet with it. If the absorbent is missing, discard this test and get a new one.

6. Place the flat pad of the test stick on the surface of your gums, the placement of this is important, you must collect the sample from the outer gums, right above and below your teeth. Gently swab entirely around your gums, both top and bottom, you may use both sides of the pad, but do not need to. Do not collect the sample from your cheeks, tongue, or roof of your mouth.

7. With your sample collected, now, being careful not to cover the two holes on the back of the test stick; insert the pad into the tube of developer solution. Make sure to fully insert the pad into the tube, and that it is touching the bottom.

8. Now, all you have to do is wait. Set a timer for twenty minutes, and go drink an entire glass of water. Do not remove the test stick from the vial during testing!

9. Between twenty and forty minutes of inserting the pad into the vial, you must read your result. Consider results after forty minutes invalid.

Et voila! Your test is done, you have your result in mind, and you are ready to interpret it.

A test is nonreactive if; a complete reddish-purple line appears next to the triangle labelled ‘C’ and NOT the triangle marked ‘T’. ‘C’ is the control section of the test; designed both to assure the test is still functioning as designed, and that the test solution has saturated the test properly.

A nonreactive test looks like this(refer to mine above):

A test is reactive if; a complete reddish-purple line appears next to both the triangle labelled ‘C’ AND the triangle labelled ‘T’, one of these lines may be darker than the other. It does not matter how faint either line is as long as they go across the entirety of the observation window.

A reactive test looks like so, as said, it does not matter if one line is darker, or fainter:

It is also important to keep in mind that there are invalid results. Faulty tests DO happen. If a line does not appear next to the triangle labelled ‘C’, if no lines appear, if the observation window remains completely red and illegible, if either line is out of the bounds of the triangles, or if the lines do not completely cross the observation window; this test is invalid. You must discard this test and get a new one.

a small note: I was a bit surprised by the amount of plastic in this kit upon first opening the box, but after going through the test, I would say that this use of plastic is entirely necessary. The ease of use, built in test tube holder, and the layout that puts instructional and educational materials front and center; creates a wonderful, repeatable, and accurate testing experience. Could this be done with paperboard? Maybe, but the security and rigidity of the hard plastic case is hard to beat with any other material, especially when these are being shipped in soft packaging.

I took an online training to be able to more effectively communicate this, so I sincerely hope that this has been clear and easy to follow. If you would like in-person help with this, let me know, and I will be more than happy to help with test administration. And of course, I will hold your privacy in the highest regard.

What now?

Now, I would like to encourage all of you, at the very least, those of you who are not in committed, monogamous relationships(even if you are, for the most part, asexual and the opposite of promiscuous like myself) to go and order a pair of tests. Right now.

Test yourself.

Test your partner/s.

Do not let fear prevent you from testing.

HIV is not a death sentence, and modern therapies allow those that are HIV positive to live a long, healthy life. Modern therapies get viral load down so far that they are undetectable, and when they are? HIV is untransmissible.

I have tested myself here, in front of all of you, you can do it in the privacy of your own home. No one will know that you have tested, and no one will know your result but you, and those you share it with.

Be safe out there ya’ll.

Eevee

<3