There are no telling how many ways in my fearful imagination that the Greta Perry's of the world--although I don't think there are any others--would possibly revel in the repercussions of my various stupidities. (Just as soon as I am smart enough to figure out how to, I will text-section-link my reference here to the enjoyment she expresses in "Kiss My Gumbo" of the legal consequences for the lapses of judgment of two women who to tried to sell their illegal favors on Craigslist.)
But I can think of only one service that I would be brazen enough to advertise publicly online legalized or not--(and I did it in the sidebar of my blog +Positive House)--which is the back alley HIV prevention service of needle exchange. Needle exchange is the on-site service of anonymous exchange of used hypodermic syringes for sterile ones, which promotes or condones (in the eyes of opponents) illegal drug and un-medically-supervised hormone use by addicts and transgenders (who they don't even usually call that). (Needle exchange is currently specifically disparaged in a San Francisco Chronicle series by C.W. Nevius on Mayor Gavin Newsom's current campaign to clean parts of San Francisco of homelessness and its effects.)
In proponents' eyes--nurses, many service providers, and diverse kinds of volunteers that I know of, and researchers that I hear of and will re-learn to site if comments (I hope) warrant--counter that the service of one-to-one needle exchange, besides directly intervening in transmission of HIV and other infections between needle-users, creates an in the field (alley) venue for both direct medical interventions (such as wound care for abscesses caused by repeated use of unsterilized syringes) and also for referral into healthcare, testing, counseling, and addictions treatment services. Bringing controversially compassionate care into alleys sometimes builds bridges of trust with people who would not otherwise seek help or neccessarily trust potential solutions to their problems, resulting in life-sustaining benefits for them and for a lot of the rest of us. Dirty needles get picked up off the streets and turned in as the biohazard that they are, preventing more contaminated intentional use and possible unintended needle sticks by non-users as well.
My free public advertisement of the HIV prevention service of needle exchange is due in no small or impersonal part to the facts that women (and other people) do get infected with HIV (and other things) by boyfriends (and husbands and others) who use without their disillusioned female (and other) partners ever knowing that they (the boyfriends and others) ever used drugs (or recovered)--when they (the women and other partners) never used those kinds of drugs for real and wouldn't even know how to talk about cooking up and hitting a vein themselves. Call me stupid. I got it. And my boyfriend died.
That was a long time ago, before needle exchange was legalized, before it had mobilized at all. I don't know if my boyfriend would have taken advantage of it. There is no time for that conversation.
For this issue, life first. Illegality, carelessness, addiction, life-risking misrepresentation, anger, confusion, grief, fear, shame, resentment, regret, judgement,...in some order, after.
Essays, Stories, Photos, Comments by Someone Living With "Mental Illness," HIV, Good Care, and Homesickness (These are not the only things I write about.)
ABOUT WHO I AM:
+PHc
San Francisco
I'm 41. I've had HIV since I was 18 (1986). I live in San Francisco for the particular medical care I believe my survival depends upon. I'm far from family, never married, no children. I'm doing the best I can with more difficulty from mental health challenges (and isolation), than with physical health problems - other than from the medications for both. I work regularly for a writer in exchange for help as I need it - like car rides and cat sitting). And am working toward being involved in more volunteer work like I was in the past.
San Francisco
I'm 41. I've had HIV since I was 18 (1986). I live in San Francisco for the particular medical care I believe my survival depends upon. I'm far from family, never married, no children. I'm doing the best I can with more difficulty from mental health challenges (and isolation), than with physical health problems - other than from the medications for both. I work regularly for a writer in exchange for help as I need it - like car rides and cat sitting). And am working toward being involved in more volunteer work like I was in the past.
My Medical History
I'm working on it, but some of the events of my history - at least some of the events of my HIV history - are listed in this entry. It's impossible to say whether my diagnosed mood disorder led to the risk behaviors that made me succeptable to HIV exposure so long ago - or whether the traumas leading to being diagnosed with, and living with AIDS present themselves in the diagnostic form of a mood disorder. Both problems (if they can be differentiated) are life threatening, and longterm, and I'm relieved to discover that writing freely here helps to alleviate the suffering of both, for me.
MY REASONS FOR WRITING:
My Reasons For Writing Here
The longer I survive, the more I don't recover from the idea(s) that I am, and am not, dying from AIDS. One expression of that contradiction is that I feel driven to share my life and tell my stories to the children and grandchildren I won't be having. So I'm telling them here - more openly than would be possible otherwise - in form I hope will find some kind of connection to life in time.
I hope, regardless of reciprocation, that giving my experiences here can be healing or helpful, or company to someone else - or, at least, be distracting in a good way for whatever reasons.
I hope, regardless of reciprocation, that giving my experiences here can be healing or helpful, or company to someone else - or, at least, be distracting in a good way for whatever reasons.
Comments
Comments are invited, please. Anonymity included. I want to respond to all of them either in the comments boxes or on liked sites, but I have trouble keeping up with everything I do; sometimes it takes me a day or two - so please check back. (I also try to improve past posts and photos for when I have not been thinking or articulating clearly, or have not yet been up to saying what I want to say on a present day, so check back that way, too if you want. The whole thing of it is changing slowly.)
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CONTENT OF THIS BLOG:
Cast of Characters
- KD - lives in New York; traveling uncategorizable musician and friend; boyfriend of five years six years ago at a very different point in my life; almost daily phone support; power of attorney
- Unidentified, infrequent, longterm, Belgian "FRIEND"; He works as a relief coordinator for the International Red Cross; has a new flat in Antwerp but travels as much as not at times, sometimes to areas of natural disaster (Pakistan earthquake), mostly to high conflict zones (Sudan, Nepal, Isreal, Chad/Darfur, Kabul...). I see him for an intense week or two, every year or two. Most of the photos in Return From the Desert are his, as well as the San Francisco skyline I used for the header of this blog.
- SOPHIA ("So" to KD) - my fifteen-year-old cat with kdney disease; requires a lot of medical care; extremely strong bond
- My "CAT-SITTER" - lives in Santa Rosa, California; also uncategorizable very-long-time-ago-ex-romantic friend, and most-local emotional support; ex-journalist, writer, horticulturalist, Berkeley Extension Instructor, blogger; offers me some work for bartar
- (Other characters explained in text, or by context: FAMILY members - all faraway, FRIEND in DC, PSYCHIATRIST and THERAPIST at AIDS Health Project, DOCTOR at Ward 86 San Francisco General Hospital, NEIGHBORS, and LANDLORD)
- Ghost of DALI (unexplained)
Archive
Past Posts I Hope You Read
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SOME PRESENT LIFE, PSYCH AND PHYSICAL SITUATIONS:
Goals and Wishes (listed here just to incite myself. You can skip this part.)
- To finish my Bachelor's degree in anything - Update: disrupted again, for now - maybe a class
- To be a summer counselor at Camp Sunburst for kids who have, or have lost an HIV+ family member, or who are HIV+ themselves
- To find, or start a support group for longterm (20 year+) survivors of HIV - open to any kind, color, gender... of person who qualifies on the one basis of longterm survival - (Would love help or suggestions about that)
- Tp participate in AIDS Health Project's open writing group next time it's open - (am on waiting list)
- To access a copy of Takako Lloyd's 1996 TV Asahi documentary covering my friends and me living with AIDS then - Takako was living in Sydney, and working out of Tokyo. - (Would love surprise help with that; I'm afraid of asking)
HIV+ (2/08):
- 22 years
Blood Counts
- (1/08) T-cells: 460; viral load:undetectable
- (9/07) T-cells: 449; viral load: unknown
- (6/07) T-cells: 364; viral load: undetectable
- (7/97) T-cells: 0 (- which technically means: low enough that there is none in sample vial to detect - not none in your body. You can not live without T-cells.); viral load: through the roof, but undetectable only because technology did not yet exist to measure it.
My Current HIV and Psych Meds (in case the list makes anyone else feel better)
- Norvir (antiretroviral)
- Reyataz (antiretroviral)
- Truvada (combo antiretroviral for Viread and Emtriva)
- Gabapentin (anticonvulsant, also used for mood stabalization, and for neuropathy)
- Geodon (antipsychotic, also used for mood stabilization)
- Methylin (for concentration difficulties)
- Wellbutrin (antidepressant)
- Valium (as needed for panic or debilitating anxiety)
- Ambien (sleep)
- Sonata (in addition to Ambien, when Ambien is not enough to sleep)
- Very good coffee and cheap wine in moderation - Update: no more wine allowed
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BLOGROLLS, FORUMS, AND SITES:
HIV/AIDS Blogs
Inclusive HIV Community Site
HIV & Mental Health Forums
Mental Health Blogs
Other Health Challenge and Wellbeing Blogs
Writing & Photography Blogs
Blogs from New Orleans
Friend Blogger and Blogger Friends
Random Blog & Site Mix
QUOTES AND POEMS THAT MATTER TO ME:
"To look life in the face...always to look life in the face. To know it for what it is. To love it for what it is. And, then, to put it away."
- Virginia Woolf in The Hours
- Virginia Woolf in The Hours
"It's not that the DNA in a virus wants to get itself copied. It is just that, of all ways in which DNA could be arranged, only the arrangements that spell out the instructions 'Spread me,' spread. The world becomes full of such programs....they're here because there here because there here."
- Richard Dawkins
- Richard Dawkins
Untitled Here
It's a strange courage
you give me ancient star:
Shine alone in the sunrise
toward which you lend no part.
- William Carlos Williams
you give me ancient star:
Shine alone in the sunrise
toward which you lend no part.
- William Carlos Williams
I(A
I(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
l
one
liness
- ee cummings
le
af
fa
ll
s)
l
one
liness
- ee cummings
FAVORITE EPITAPH (from a cemetery in England when I was 14):
ENOUGH
ENOUGH
May you live with ease of heart. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be peaceful. May you not be lonely.
4 comments:
There was an article in today's San Francisco Chronicle about a neighborhood banding together to keep a needle exchange from locating in a nearby church. They are trying to put their lives first. It's too bad they can't put life first at the same time they are putting their lives first. But maybe to do both would require a wake up call.....
Thank you for your comment. I looked up the article in SFGate. Because needle exchange matters so much and is so controversial and "dirty," it matters that it is run and managed well, and that sites are located where the problems already exist. I'm sure there are people in "those" problem neighborhoods that don't want homeless people, addicts, and dirty needles around either, but they might be a little more aware of the problems and their repurcussions and welcoming of the help needle exchange can bring. The program that I am familiar with and respect is HPP (HIV Prevention Project run by the SanFrancisco AIDS Foundation). Bringing a needle exchange site to a church is not an effective way to raise awareness where it doesn't exist. That said I was hurt by the spirit of the article and its responses.
Good work, explaining the importance of volunteers in that complicated ministry. M.
Thank you, M.
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