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…
AIDS and HIV
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.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
This.
http://projects.sfchronicle.com/2016/aids-survivors/portraits/
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
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.…
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…
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…
‘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”…
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…
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…
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…