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
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My 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!: Susan Mabey to receive 2017 Chaplin Memorial Award
“A Christian who happens to be a lesbian”, Susan Mabey’s is a name which has been more than incidental in the long struggle for LGBT inclusion in the United Church of Canada. Cited by the Chaplin Award committee for her recent bridge-building, even as a self-described ‘lightning rod’, as the
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!: This.
http://projects.sfchronicle.com/2016/aids-survivors/portraits/
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!: Generosity
As heard on CBC Radio’s Metro Morning today Wood Haven Country Lodge in the Kawarthas opens its heart next weekend to women and children from area shelters, offering them a get-away in the busy holiday season. David explained to Matt Galloway that when his partner died of AIDS several years ago,
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS…and more!: Did you see this?
Exciting news from the NIH! “Scientists from the National Institutes of Health have identified an antibody from an HIV-infected person that potently neutralized 98 percent of HIV isolates tested, including 16 of 20 strains resistant to other antibodies of the same class. The remarkable breadth and potency of this antibody,
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!: I’m back, breaking my blogging fast
Facebook, with its at-best superficial ways of linking me to my world, has taken me away from greater reflection possible in this blog so…I’m back – on my journey here. The past few weeks I have been involved with the Youth/Elders Project, a joint effort of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre,
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS…and more!: Medical update: It’s all good
While showing me a graph, with the trajectory of my health over the past few months, my endocrinologist remarked, “I wouldn’t have sold you life insurance in January!” Point taken. It was a rough patch, to be sure. But now… …
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!: Honours from ACT
It was both an honour and a pleasure this past Monday to receive an award for 25 years of service at the AIDS Committee of Toronto’s Annual General Meeting. I must confess to feeling like I have drawn on more services than I have provided but the 25 years is
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: ‘Times Have Changed’ at 40 Wellesley St.E. #HIVnow
The latest ambitious awareness campaign by the AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT), #HIVnow, “asks big questions, puts forward honest answers and issues clear calls to action”. The “Times have changed” theme comes to mind as I watch the slow demolition of 40 Wellesley Street East, a medical offices building where
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!: I’m Thinking, “This is Going to Hurt!”: On ‘How Not to Deal with Grief’
From my friend Betty Ann on her Facebook page: “This article deeply moved me…as I suspect it will for any of you who have been impacted by the kind of grief associated with multiple loss, deaths due to overdose and or HIV/AIDS. Rather than just clicking on “like”, can you
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