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Continue readingTag: autobiography
My journey with AIDS…and more!: Pill relief
I’m awaiting delivery of my next two weeks’ worth of medications with a major change in the blister packs. Gone will be Norvir, Prezista, Truvada and Nevirapine, all taken twice a day, and they’re being replaced with ONE pill, Genvoya, ONCE a day containing 4 new-to-me drugs in combination. What
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS…and more!: The flight was brief, the landing less than graceful
I was on my way for a hair-cut this morning when, at the corner of Sherbourne and Gerrard Streets, I momentarily took flight. Picture Peter Pan on his worst day. While still airborne I thought of Craig, of the 24th of April, 2007. But I was still conscious. I managed
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS…and more!: Do You Hear The People Shing?
This coming Thursday I am having a number of teeth and partial teeth extracted as my mouth make-over goes into high gear (This is the work that is more typically done by the fifth year of one’s sobriety but, as I didn’t think I’d live long enough to bother, I’ve
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS…and more!: It’s Bell Let’s Talk Day – let’s review
It is a measure of self-compassion on this Bell Let’s Talk Day when I can slow down and remind myself of where I am and where I’ve come from. I have a long history of, and recovery from, substance abuse – chiefly, but not solely, alcohol – begun shortly after
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS…and more!: The ever-present question: Now what?
I describe myself, rightly so I think, as a long-term survivor of AIDS and HIV. I offer as evidence my being diagnosed with HIV in 1989 and my long, slow recovery from AIDS-related Cryptosporidiosis in the early 90s – the effects of which shadow me to this day. Over the years,
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS…and more!: World AIDS Day 2016
The blank page stares up at me, “World AIDS Day 2016”. That will be Thursday. It’s not like it used to be when life was much more urgent, desperate. I think of the dead. I still sorely miss my friends, friends from our twenties and thirties. Gone. It’s like Remembrance
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS…and more!: Reprise: A human wreck at ‘Wreck Beach’
It was my first visit to the west coast, that summer of 1996, and – given my fragile health – I was determined to make it the trip of a lifetime. I would fly to Vancouver and then take the train across Canada to return home. My purpose in being
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS…and more!: No offence to ‘black dogs’ but I got real today
Bright and early this morning, before I could slip into dishonesty, I volunteered to my diabetes specialist that I was depressed. Actually it was more like joining in conversation with her as she wondered aloud if any ‘black dogs’ were about. There’s always something cathartic about admitting this after circular
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS…and more!: Remembering “The Romans” – The Romans II Health and Recreation Spa
just an illustration🙂 I found it in the Yellow Pages, which I was checking out at the Toronto Coach Terminal on Bay Street. I had just arrived from Niagara College. It was 1979. I was 19. I thumbed through the book, checking “Baths”, which brought up bathroom fixtures mostly, then
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS…and more!: Out for 35 years
Reading something which noted that 1981 was 35 years ago jarred me into realizing that it was three-and-a-half decades ago this very month that I officially came out of the closet, by which I mean letting my family know that I was gay. It was in the co…
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Chasing the HI on a glucose meter
I spent the afternoon yesterday in the Emergency Department of Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital after a drug overdose, albeit accidental, when I tried to eliminate a “HI” reading on my glucose meter with two, then three times the recomm…
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Leaving Unit 503 upright
I am surrounded by boxes, both packed and empty. This week I am changing units within my housing co-op, moving house for the first time since 1992. When I re-located to this building 23 years ago I thought, with good reason, that my death was imminent; that I would be
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: World AIDS Day 2014 has come and gone and something had me rattled
Here’s my Facebook feed today after I heard Shaun Proulx on CBC Radio’s Metro Morning today referring to his blog on HIV Divorce. I have AIDS, and have had for many years. I can’t seem to walk that back, to HIV only, so I think of myself as surviving HIV/AIDS.
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Lunch
I planned dessert first today after seeing Wanda’s Pie in the Sky picture on Facebook this morning. I walked over to Kensington Market on a near-empty stomach and plopped myself down on the patio at Caplansky’s Delicatessen on College Street: I was impressed with the way the water was delivered:
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: The certainty of uncertainty
In my ongoing quest to get to the bottom of my annoyingly reduced sleep, I received the results of a recent MRI of my brain when I visited my family doctor yesterday and the report was clearly not written for me to comprehend. Even my doctor was at a loss
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Sleep, no longer taken for granted, will soon be improving – hopefully
Early this month I had electrodes taped to my head, neck, chest and legs, then I was wished a good night for a sleep study to see why suddenly, to me at least, I couldn’t get a decent night of shut-eye. The results, which I received on Monday, showed that
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: A new low
“How long have you been wasting?” the chiropodist asked me a couple of weeks ago as she updated a history on me. The starkness of the verb, however accurate, stayed with me. I’ve always been thin, I said, but my weight has been falling a bit since last fall. Fast
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: April 30 revisited
Today marks eleven years since the beginning of events which form the basis of my autobiographical piece entitled Chopin, Roman Polanski and a cab. I will attempt to stay home after dark.
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