Issues with returning to work

I've sent an email to the dept head asking about exactly what's involved with my returning to work. I assume some sort of lighter duties than my normal 3 tonnes per day lift of paper will be the go, and working within the air conditioned area so the Perma-cath bandage doesn't come off with sweating (Sydney is the hottest in Feb). Am not in a hurry waiting to hear back from him, but said maybe to see how the next 2 weeks went with dialysis on only Tues and Sat's, giving Wed's-Fri's free. Maybe a day or two during those Wed's-Fri's would be a good way to start getting back into the job.

I'm feeling a bit nervous about it. Not as it's a challenge re skills as I'm well experienced and capable in various other work quite apart from my usual lifting slog, but there's other things involved. The whole thing about being around people for one. There's quite a social scene at the place. It's a big site and being there for as long as I have there's a lot of interactions involved. Needless to say hardly anyone knows of my HIV status, only those who need to know in authority. How do I explain to the next bloke on the shop floor WTF just happened for me to have 2 months off work? 

I've said before that if my HIV status went through the whole factory I'd just leave. There's people there who just wouldn't understand. Probably not say it to my face, but consider I had the plague and be dropping dead shortly. Family parents from Sydney's western suburbia, who no matter what you said to them just wouldn't understand. 

The Grim Reaper add on the telly back in 1987 did a lot to limit the spread of AIDS here in Australia, but unfortunately some of the hysteria remains. At the time it was shocking and controversial as it was the first time such things had been talked about so openly on free to air nationally broadcast TV. It made a huge impact, and to this day in Australia the HIV virus remains largely confined to the gay community here, unlike other countries. However for family people in suburbia today, this add is still what comes to mind when HIV/AIDS is mentioned, and in some ways it reinforces prejudices against gays:

For all the good that it did in limiting the spread of  HIV/AIDS back in 1987, the above add remains the limit of some people's education about HIV/AIDS to this day. It's 24 years old.

Then there's the thing that I'm just not the same person I was 2 months ago. How could I be after what's happened? I don't actually like being around people at the moment and am finding I get quite annoyed on buses and in shopping centres. I don't really know why this is. Maybe it'll be different with people I've known for years, likely so.