life after AIDS

[em]

I had AIDS and witnessed the world change

feeling a bit emotional about so much loss

I know I should not think such things but woke up and felt like sharing a thought or two

what ifs and could have been the road to unhealthy thought

I should be grateful just to be alive

sometimes in life stuff happens like becoming HIV positive

so many missed opportunities in my own life do to  AIDS devastating our society

when I was younger I was not all that bad looking and could have gone places if there were places to go left absent creating an  empty void left from AIDS taking away so many gifted people in the arts and entertainment. so many stories left untold and so many dreams snuffed out along with the dreamers 


IN my own life making choices based on short term life expectancy I did not make many long term plans that I could have planted nurtured and had  chance to bare fruit I mostly now blame myself for not rising to the challenge. Making the most of what could be by dewing more

Not that  I was or am now gifted socially or have a great talent of any kind

It is midnight here  and wanted to ponder and share some thoughts

My life has some good stuff in it now life like many things could always be better in some way or another just pondering where I might have gone instead of spending or wasting so much time trying to understand and get a better grip on how to rather than doing I guess

please pardon my drifty late night banter

thank you for having  this place to write too

well at least I have the chance to write about it

again many thanks and all my best

[flashdance]

"drifty late night banter"....lol...when I was reading the post I thought it was very poetic.

I am at that same place, too.

[em]

I was beginning to think I was having a pity party for one

with me just jotting down feelings and emotions to share with whomever would  like reading it.  letters to the great void of interspace that is the internet written to serve the purpose of which  I do not know.

Other than the hole having HIV has caused in my life. Taking away my self confidence opportunities and hope filled future leaving behind nothing in its wake but a great empty void empty of the pride accomplishments bring to one's life . IN that not dying can be seen as an accomplishment one would think.

There is a lot to be grateful for but stigma of HIV and the accompanying mental illness causing a feeling of lacking in accomplishments having the tandem weight of both negation of opportunities  the two  previous diagnosis entail.

life could have always been better and the inverse is also true life can also be worse

I have the pills to make living an opportunity. do not see me running any marathons in my near future but other things I have planed and am working on to full fill childhood dreams of what I might have wanted do as an adult. raising children was a big one of those dreams and that one HIV has not robbed from me. not to mention no limits to the number of days left in to live.

sorry to ramble and go on the rule of the short term attention span of the internet readers must be  taken into consideration and I should really not take up to much of your time not saying anything of real substance.

read re read and read yet again to try and make sure the pointless babbling ramble expresses  the intended emotion expression that might be imprinted and or   inspiring the intended emotions in the reader one would expect from a late night  letter to whom it may concern  for anyone could or might read

hoping you all the best



   

[flashdance]

another great read...tnx

[em]

A long answer

I had written a response to a post about GI issues  and making it to the bathroom.
If  I post here it might not scare the newbies as much making it harder to find
over twenty years ago now. I had this growth on my face and all over my body but the one on my face made me the most nervous cause it could not be hidden very well. vanity and all that. so I made an appointment to see a dermatologist.

 I started a new med a short while later that made it less as bad as it was boosting my number for my immune system where it counts and decreasing the viral load just as impressive even  at the same time. making my viral load eventually undetectable granted it had taken time but they did and do work.  they saved my life and are now even better . My t cell count was 7 and my viral load was outrageous

the GI issues diarrhea and throwing up at least for me have not been an issue for quite a few years. I see no reason you should not have bright future ahead of you

well I go on and on about the twenty  years ago and GI issues

want to hear about it?

one time I was having this growth removed from my face and checked by a biopsy I thought it might be a sarcoma it was over twenty years ago now  I was at a dermatologist. I said I had just taken my pills and about an hour ago they do not stay down most of the time so he gives me a thing that looked like it was for a banana split cup? I say I need something much bigger so I grab a trash pale I projectile vomit almost filling the thing with the pills and water I had drank plus the food from hours earlier still in my digestive track. kind of like mr Creosote from monty python. I gave the trash pale back to him .  except without being a large man I was about a hundred and ten pounds back then. diarrhea and vomiting kind of keep the pounds off

I look at him like why are you offering that little cup thing to throw up in ? 

sorry to make fun of being sick but you should have seen that poor dermatologist face . it is funny memory now. I do not miss the diarrhea  and vomiting. that was a long time ago   

you will be alright
maybe in twenty years you can share some of your distant memories too

sorry if it was not a short answer

but I had to share it the look on his face of shock and disgust was priceless.

He did not even check the growth just sent me home. I cut it off and put a bandaid over the hole. then shingles scars made it harder to seethe scar . Ya I am not a hansom man. at least I am still alive to brag about it??

disgusting and funny at least to me now.

[em]

this is a disclosure story that did not go well I had heard at a support group back a long time ago 

 it was told to me in the early nineties a few years after it happened
 
it must have went down in the eighties some time

it had stuck with me and thought it might be a story worth sharing

disclosure gone bad


this one is about telling someone you once new intimately after you find out

I knew this girl who had after finding out her status had told an old boyfriend

she had said she ran into him

then she had said to him we need to talk 

then when she had him close and felt comfortable enough she thought she needed  to tell him

 she said to him you should know I just found out I have HIV

she gave him a hug

 with his eyes bugging and shock running through his body he looked angrily at her and said what about me then pushed her away and left her

then a while later she ran into him and said how are you ?

he said angrily you slut

then walked off

 she later heard he passed away

he probably died thinking she had given him the virus but if the truth wherever possible to discover it would be even more likely he gave it to her or even they had both gotten the virus from other people who knows

no one will ever know it is just a bad thing all the way around and the truth may never be found

that was one of many disclosure stories I had heard

sometimes life can be painful and I am sure some disclosures have gone even more awry then that one had

all my best to you

[em]

Is this me ?

enough about me lets talk about you

what do you think about me?





Have you ever had that friend who talks all the time and never really says anything of interest but seems to always want you to respond?

why do I ask?  I guess on this web site that guy is me.

 

my deepest wholeheartedly apology  for wasting so much of your time trying to figure out how I have spent the last three decades  trying to figure out and quantify how, and why  my life has gone down this path with the burden of HIV. 


it seems to me that some have thrived it  appears  just to spite and overcome  the strength HIV has on them others like myself have just floundered in the mud not doing much of anything proactive constructive accomplishing little

there I go again writing a great deal about nothing.

I can say this if I could make through the dark days of AIDS when there was nothing but the guarantee of certain death without any viable treatment or cure anywhere to be found or seen on the horizon  just the hope that someday things could get better . Like a few of us have. than anyone now should  have a much better run of it

let me consult my all seeing eye for glimpse into the future.

HIV has become a minor bump in the road not the disaster it once was considered to be.

over stating the obvious maybe but I feel worth saying out loud


all my best to you

[flashdance]

em, you are still writing like you are in my brain.

[em]

 have been reading and posting here for a long time

Just recollecting about reading about the Toronto AMG and thinking wow would that be something to attend and talk to others who have HIV like myself saw the pictures of the pub crawl and stuff they did

Myself have been living in the same spot now for over twenty years. Been going to ID docs for appointments for a long time now.



Just had a thought about the now. I make this cabbage stew that no one in my house likes I think great more for me

What I like best is it improves circulation and relieves joint pain and mobility warms me up from the inside when it gets cold

down side it makes my farts seriously deadly and my older relatives think it is going to be the death of me cause I make it from chicken stock that I make myself

You know the expression that person thinks their excrement does not stink. Me my stuff does so stinks from the cabbage and chicken stew. whatever I can move my fingers to type and get stuff done around the house so all is good in the world
sorry not a big deal just thought worth sharing

what to say about having hiv for so long and where is everyone else

all I keep seeing here is am i infected ; should be tales of sexual exploits where the intent of the endeavor is to see how many active users go away after the post is made  it is scored by awarding points for the level of frustration form the moderators

kids today way back when before the internet hiv and AIDS was a one ticket to an early dirt nap and most people turned a blind eye

maybe someday if anyone cares to read about it or help me make a story about it I will tell you about it

I am not alone in this others have told about it and more will do the same to bad my old fingers can not type up a book to sell and make money to do the things I have dreamed about before hIV may not have killed me but it has very limited my ability to make dreams come true


sorry I have nothing to say that would go viral or make a big change in the world or even get the attention and anyone who might be able to do anything

myself I am quite proud of the little life I have lived and the meger ness of it

I may not be jetsetter big mogul wheeler dealer but my life unbeknown at that time it was happening was quite the adventure at least to me it was and now that I have slowed down and become that annoying old man

life after AIDS like as in a cure would that be a day to see
for now I should have posted life after my cd4  t cells went above  200 again and stayed there for over twenty years.

thank you so much for having this place to write too