Weapon Detected

Russia puts out an effective (and hot) PSA advocating that a condom will get you in to a bed with an aggressive security setting. Nicely done.

AIDS Is A Plague Allowed To Happen

By Larry Kramer, Special to CNN
January 14, 2011


New York City (CNN) -- I want this article to break your heart. But it deals with a subject that has had a tough time of it in the break-everyone's-heart department. I'll bet that a number of you will be more angry at me than sympathetic by the time you finish reading it. If indeed you finish reading it.

From its very beginning, most people have not wanted to know the truths about AIDS. This is an indisputable fact that continues until this very minute. I have been on the front lines since Day 1, so I know what I'm talking about.

Here are 10 realities about AIDS, and I've learned them the hard way:

1. AIDS is a plague -- numerically, statistically and by any definition known to modern public health -- though no one in authority has the guts to call it one.

2. Too many people hate the people that AIDS most affects, gay people and people of color. I do not mean dislike, or feel uncomfortable with. I mean hate. Downright hate. Down and dirty hate.

3. Likewise, both people who don't have sex the way they do (if they have it at all) and people who take drugs in order to feel better in a world that they find wretched are considered two highly expendable populations by the powerful forces that control this world.

4. AIDS was allowed to happen. It is a plague that need not have happened. It is a plague that could have been contained from the very beginning.

5. It is a plague that is not going to go away. It is only going to get worse.

6. There is no cure and the amount of money expended toward finding one is pathetically small, miniscule, puny, and totally indicative of a system and a government and a country and a world that does not want to end this plague.

7. There is no incentive for pharmaceutical companies to find a cure since they are making billions selling, at highly inflated prices, the many anti-viral drugs that those infected must consume -- drugs that only keep us living but still infected just enough to continue to possibly still infect others.

8. Educational campaigns, indeed all attempts at prevention, have been too stupid, useless, lily-livered, and nicey-nicey to accomplish much of anything.

9. There is no one of any use really in charge of this plague, in America or anywhere else in the world -- and it is a worldwide plague by now -- and this lack of decent, responsible and humane leaders has been so since its beginning in 1981. They lie to us. I consider most of those who have been or are in charge as equal to murderers.

10. One out of every five men who have sex with men in America is now HIV-positive, and more than 50% of gay men do not know it. Doctors in Chelsea say the statistics for that New York neighborhood have jumped from one out of five to one out of four. At the rate things are going, almost all gay men in America could be HIV-positive, which a lot of people would really like to see happen.

These are appalling statistics, appalling statements, appalling facts, and yet no one responds to them when I raise them. Why should they? Too many people want too many other people dead, and it is fearful and as we continue to see over and over, often dangerous to confront them.

Governments and bureaucrats and presidents and politicians and the people who run this world lie to people. They tell us HIV is under control. They tell us case numbers are decreasing. They tell us that all is being done that can be done. They tell us HIV is too complicated to eradicate. They tell us gay people and people of color have made more progress than ever before. These are all lies.

We must not believe them. How could we when, in one place or another:
-- They also tell us we can't get legally married.
-- They also tell us that we cannot legally adopt children.
-- They also tell us religions will not recognize us.
-- They also tell us we can't serve our country yet.
-- They also tell us our real history cannot be taught in schools.
-- They also tell us that gay students cannot organize in schools.
-- They also tell us that people who murder us are not committing hate crimes.
-- They also tell us we cannot insure our partners.
-- They also tell us our partners are not legal.
-- They also tell us we cannot have equal opportunities.
-- They also tell us we can't kiss each other or hold each other's hands in public.
-- They also tell us that our Supreme Court doesn't want to know about any of this, doesn't want to make us free and equal, doesn't want to honor the Bill of Rights.
If you want to know why AIDS is a plague, I have just told you why.

I could add a thousand more "they also's." I could expound and expand and add so many facts and figures to the above they'd put you to sleep. I helped start the two major AIDS organizations in America. I have watched almost everyone I once knew die.
For some 30-plus years, I have been trying to tell the world where this plague came from and why, and I will continue to do so until I die, too.
You see, I simply can't get the memories and the ghosts of just about every friend I had out of my life. And since there is no doubt in my mind that this plague of HIV/AIDS that took them from me was and continues to be allowed to happen, I am duty bound to tell this hideous history as best and as fully as I can. It's the least I can do.

That is correct: This plague of HIV/AIDS was intentionally allowed to happen. It still is. Nothing has changed in the intentionality department. Hate has a way of hanging around forever and too often winning out in the end.

The New Phone Book Is Here!

Actually, it's just the latest issue of Patient 2 Patient. The newsletter I edit and contribute to for the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center. You can view the PDF here.

Get Tested

Today is National Gay Men's HIV/AIDS Awareness day. While I have always maintained that HIV is not a "Gay disease" and I don't believe that sex or sexuality really should have much to do with HIV awareness, the facts as they are today force me to acknowledge that HIV/AIDS is and continues to be a cause for concern among American men who have sex with men.

The most important tool we have in the fight to diagnose, treat and prevent the spread of new infections is testing. If you'e never had an HIV test, go and get one today. If you are sexually active and you haven't been tested in the last year or two, go and get tested. You do not know your current HIV status if you are basing it on a test from two years ago. If you are a sexually active young person, the best way to protect yourself is to try and engage in "safer" sex practices. If your doctor doesn't offer you HIV testing, it doesn't mean you don't need it, it means your doctor is an idiot. Find a free HIV testing facility and schedule an appointment.

If you end up testing HIV+, there is widespread treatment available to get your viral load under control. This will insure your continued good health, and protect other people from being infected by you.

Protect yourself. Protect your partners. Get tested. Live.

Foot Soldier

I spent the last two afternoons in a conference room talking about HIV. In my volunteer role as a member of the Community Advisory Board for the local health center, we had a two day "retreat" with a rep from HRSA. He had been sent down to work with us to make sure that the CAB was organized, proactive and functioning at a level that will meet the requirements that many of the federal programs insist be in place. This is a direct offshoot of some of the great work that GMHC and ACT UP achieved in the areas of compassionate and interactive and effective treatment models for people living with HIV/AIDS as far back as the mid 1980's.

Before then, doctors and other health care professionals simply told patients what to do, where to go and, in effect, how to be sick (and die). The early pioneers in the fight against HIV/AIDS decided that they wanted a voice in what medicines they took, what doses they might take them at and when to avoid the available treatments all together, as was ultimately the case for many HIV patients when it came to AZT. In it's original form, at it's original dosage, AZT proved to be just as deadly as AIDS. I've met many HIV+ individuals that are alive today because they ultimately decided to ignore the medical community and the conventional wisdom at the time and decline treatment with AZT.

One of the results of these new treatment models was the creation of Community Advisory Boards like the one I currently serve on. Patients, and the community were encourage to form advisory groups that had a direct pipeline to both their peers (other patients) and medical providers. They acted as a voice for those who previously had none, solved problems, recommended changes in privacy standards. Early ACT UP members even won the right to "fast track" promising HIV treatments, offering their own bodies up as lab experiments, as they insisted on the right to die as bravely as they had lived.

It's why I am alive today.

My work with the CAB the last two years is my own small way of honoring the work and sacrifice of those who fought the fight before me. I should have been lying in the streets in the 80's. I could have been protesting the drug companies in the 90's. But at least I'm here now, and I try to do what I can.

Editorial

For the past couple of years, I have been a member of the Community Advisory Board at the LGBT Community Health Center in Chelsea. It's where I go for all my health care, including periodic counseling and all of my dental work. My work on the CAB, aside from being rewarding on it's own, is my way of paying back all of the wonderful care I have received over the years, before and after I was diagnosed as HIV+.

Last year during the annual elections that are held for the meeting chairman position ... I didn't win. I did however become first runner up (Miss Congeniality was not something I aspire to) and was elected to be the Vice-Chair. Coming in 2nd in a group of 8, third if you take in to account the previous chair was out of the running, only diminishes an already dubious honor slightly.

One of the projects I ended up spearheading last year was a patient newsletter. Previously, it was published in a very basic, two-page, black & white copy machine version. It had a very grassroots, low-budget look to it, and I thought we could do better. I originally started the project with another CAB member who had a lot of experience in graphic design, as my abilities are limited and self-taught. Halfway in to the first issue, my co-editor quit, leaving me to finish the first issue and take charge of the project.

Right after Gay Pride Weekend (end of June) I submitted the final draft for our 2nd (summer) issue. It was published late in August, distributed throughout the Health Center and published to their web site. In addition to supplying all the photos for this issue, I also wrote an editorial of sorts, to coincide with Gay Pride Weekend.

Lately I've been doing a lot of reading about the stigma that is still attached to HIV. Many gay men, after being diagnosed, are further traumatized when they experience being ostracized from their own community. As I say in the article, being HIV+, even in the gay "community", is the dirty little secret everyone would prefer just go away. Many HIV+ gay men feel damaged and alone.

I am attempting, through my work at the LGBT Community Health Center, and my contact with various HIV+ support groups, to address and hopefully eradicate that stigma. Here's the article reprinted:

This issue of Patient 2 Patient is

being assembled during what has

become known as Gay Pride

Month, June of 2010. Amid all the

parties and benefits, parades and

celebrations that take place in all 5

boroughs throughout this time of

year, there are many issues that

are relevant to the LGBT

community that have taken center

stage. High profile issues like gay

marriage, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and

the passage of a transgender

inclusive Employment Non-

Discrimination Act have all

received the lion’s share of the

media coverage of late.

It seems to some within the HIV+

LGBT community that amidst this

cacophony of protests, marches and

demonstrations, the voices of HIV+

Americans are no longer being heard. To

some, it seems as if we are being actively

shut out.

Consider these sobering statistics:

According to the latest findings by the

CDC 4,762 New York City residents

contracted HIV in 2006. That’s three

times the national rate and an estimated

72 new infections for every 100,000

people.

Nearly two-thirds of the city’s new

infections occurred in people 30 to 50

years old. Minority groups were

hardest hit among young people. For

example, of new HIV infections

among men under age 30 who have

sex with men, 77 percent were in

Black or Hispanic men.

In another study conducted by the

CDC, over 50% of young Black gay or

bi Southern men that were diagnosed

HIV+ had engaged in high risk

sexual behavior, but still had not

thought they would ever become

infected with the virus.

HIV+ men feel that we have become

the dirty little secret in the LGBT

community. The equivalent of the

crazy relative with a room in the attic

that only gets trotted out during big

celebrations. If we don’t sit quietly in

the corner and enjoy the plate of

sponge cake already provided, eyes

get rolled then its back in the attic we

go.

Gay men who seemingly lack

education or compassion think

nothing of unleashing bigotry, stigma

and shame upon newly infected HIV+

men who have sex with men. After

all, HIV is “preventable” and those

engaging in risky behavior should

simply “know better.” Nowhere is this

more glaringly evident than in the

halls of our own LGBT Community

Center. Where you won’t find a single

sign, poster or notification welcoming

HIV+ gay men and women nor will

you see any large scale permanent

signage advocating or directing

anyone to HIV testing and treatment.

Worldwide there are approximately 33

million people living with HIV and over

25 million people have died.

Why then has HIV become a seemingly

back-burner issue? That’s if it’s talked

about at all. Certainly this country’s

legendary short attention span and a

certain amount of “grief fatigue”

explain some of it. As does the

supposition that HIV is thought of as

more of a chronic disease, survivable

and treatable, and not the frightening

and alarming death sentence it once

was. Happily that’s true, assuming you

get a diagnosis and treatment in time.

Not everyone does. And not everyone

responds well to the available

medications.

The fact remains that unlike other

chronic and treatable diseases, like

diabetes or depression, HIV still carries

a stigma that sets its patients apart.

Often resulting in HIV+ men feeling

shunned or ignored by their uninfected

(or undiagnosed) gay brothers. Many

So as Gay Pride week is about to begin

and Gay Pride Month draws to a close,

as the celebrations wind down and the

streets are swept clean, the next time

you write a check or turnout en masse

for the latest cause celebre, consider

this:

HIV doesn’t know or care who you are.

It doesn’t worry about how much money

you have in the bank or how much

education you enjoyed. HIV doesn’t

know who you’re sleeping with, and

doesn’t care if it’s one person or a

hundred. HIV doesn’t know if you’re gay

or straight. HIV can’t tell if you are a

homeless teen or a dancer in the New

York City Ballet. HIV doesn’t think of

itself as a punishment. HIV doesn’t

worry about causing you

embarrassment or shame. In short, HIV

doesn’t judge or discriminate.

So why should you?

You can check out the entire (PDF) newsletter by following this link.

Annie Lennox Explains It All

Annie has been spotted and photographed many times sporting her "HIV POSITIVE" T-Shirt. At the opening day of the 2010 AIDS conference in Vienna, Ms. Lennox gives the straight poop on why and what the shirt actually means. I was cleaning out my closet the other day, and watching this video made me run out to the hallway and rifle through the bag of clothes I was preparing to throw away. In it was a baseball jersey I had purchased a few years ago. It had a parody of the old Intel logo on the front, only my shirt was "HIV Inside". I was thinking that since I frequently sport my own "POSITIVE" T-Shirt, that perhaps the baseball jersey was overkill. And a bit dated. But I decided that until the stigma attached to being HIV+ in this country is talked about openly and dealt with, I should probably get a few more miles out of that jersey. It's what Annie would do.

Check Up

Weight: 163

Liver, blood sugar, blood pressure: check

Cholesterol: 167

Viral Load: Undetectable

T-Cell count: 999

This unit is functioning within acceptable parameters.

Trouble On W. 24th

Gay Men's Health Crisis co-founder Larry Kramer posts a lengthy and scathing letter regarding the impending relocation of GMHC from it's long-time home on W24th to a new location. Reportedly without some vital services many of their clients need and most certainly want. I've linked to the entire page as it also contains a companion reaction from Famous Lesbian Urvashi Vaid, as well as a call to protest and an open letter from the GMHC Community Advisory Board (CAB).

Somehow a building was eventually located that GMHC's leadership felt they could afford. It is in the Associated Press building on 33rd Street and Tenth Avenue. For people with AIDS it will be an awful and unsatisfactory home. It is an indication of the board's desperation that it has been willing to accept terms and restrictions that are out of another era.

Here are only some of them:

No kitchen or cooking facilities will be allowed. GMHC is famous for its daily hot meals, which, for many clients, is the only food they get. I repeat: for many of their clients this is the only food that they get.

Clients will be forced to enter through a specal entrance and use a special elevator,lest the regular tenants see them. Staff will be allowed to use the regular entrance and elevator. This represents an institutionalized apartheid that past leaders of GMHC would have denounced and refused to countenance.

No medical facilities or activities will be allowed. This could literally be a real killer. Most clients come to GMHC for regular testing, counseling, clinical trials, to see their doctors, and to receive related services, all under one roof. The medical and testing facilities are located on the ground floor of their current West 24th building. These services, which provide grant funding for GMHC, are financed by generous contributions by the David Geffen Foundation and the Michael Palm Foundation, and are administered by New York Hospital/Weill Medical Center. Without these facilities located in the same place as their daily hot meals, (which they will now also not be getting) what reason would clients have to come to GMHC at all?"

Madonna On "Milk"

"But you know, what the movie triggered for me was all my early days in New York and the scene that I came up in-you know, with Andy Warhol and Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat and Kenny Scharf. It was just so alive with art and politics and this wonderful spirit. So many of those people are dead now. I think that's one of the reasons I cried. In fact, the character that Richard E. Grant plays in the film I directed, Filth and Wisdom [2008], is this blind professor who was based on my ballet teacher, Christopher Flynn. Growing up in Michigan, I didn't really know what a gay man was. He was the first man-the first human being-who made me feel good about myself and special. He was the first person who told me that I was beautiful or that I had something to offer the world, and he encouraged me to believe in my dreams, to go to New York. He was such an important person in my life. He died of AIDS, but he went blind toward the end of his life. He was such a lover of art, classical music, literature, opera. You know, I grew up in the Midwest, and it was really because of him that I was exposed to so many of those things. He brought me to my first gay club-it was this club in Detroit. I always felt like I was a freak when I was growing up and that there was something wrong with me because I couldn't fit in anywhere. But when he took me to that club, he brought me to a place where I finally felt at home. So that character in Filth and Wisdom was dedicated to him and inspired by him. I don't know why I'm bringing all this up, but I guess it's just coming from that world in Michigan and the trajectory of my life: after going to New York and being a dancer when the whole AIDS epidemic started and nobody knew what it was. And then suddenly, all these beautiful men around me, people who I loved so dearly, were dying-just one after the next. It was just such a crazy time. And watching the world freak out-the gay community was so ostracized. But it was also when I was beginning my career. . . . I don't know. Your movie really struck a chord for me and made me remember all that. It's a time I don't think many people have captured on film. It's a time that people don't talk about much. And even though there was so much death, for me, New York was so alive." -via Interview magazine

End Of An Era

The obituary for St. Vincent’s, when it is finally written, will recall that the hospital’s greatest moment—and its darkest—came in the eighties, as it found itself quite awkwardly in the thick of the global AIDS plague. The flood of patients was extreme, spilling into every available bed, then throughout the surrounding corridors, where masking tape marked off virtual rooms.

For anyone familiar with those rooms and those days, news of St. Vincent’s demise has been hard to accept. There is no true standing memorial to HIV victims, even though there were more from New York by 1995 than U.S. deaths in the Vietnam War. So the bland sarcophagus along Seventh Avenue holds that place in the geography of our plague memory; it is a museum, almost, a place haunted by Whitman’s “carols of Death.” We see the ghosts as we pass there even now, we hear their voices, their last words, we remember their weight in our arms, the way they vanished from those rooms.

read more

Why All This Blogging?

Queerty.com ran a little squib about being HIV+ and open about your status on the 'Net. It was actually pretty much just a link to a larger article that ran in HIVPlusMag.com that was about HIV+ bloggers and vloggers and the various ways we are using social networks and digital communication.

But I found myself compelled to respond in the comments at Queerty about my own reasons for blogging, and why I ultimately decided to be open about my identity:

"I started blogging right after my HIV diagnosis 7 years ago. It was a way for me to document what I was going through and most certainly it was cathartic. At the time, I felt that I had no one else to talk to and poured my heart out in the blog. As time went on it became much more therapeutic in general and I was able to recognize that I needed to make some major changes in my life. 3 years ago I finally got sober.

I wasn't always completely open about my identity, until another "blogger" and horrible soul decided to post my HIV status and name without my consent. It was then I decided to go ahead and start being completely open about being Positive, and I have since encountered many instances where there is still quite a bit of stigma, even from other gay men. That just makes me more determined to live out loud and in the open. My goal is to see the time when HIV+ people are treated just as you would anyone else with a chronic and survivable illness. No different."

It's always a crapshoot what kind of a response you will get when you post in these open forums. But I actually only got one response:

I wish I didn't have to ask this, but I hope that when you write about your experiences as a HIV+ person, you also take the time to remind your readers to do everything in their power to avoid ending up in your place.

Now on the surface, I suppose it was an innocuous enough comment. But something about it- the tone of it- I found instantly a little irritating:

"I'm not sure how I feel about your characterization that I have "ended up" anywhere. While I certainly don't advocate becoming HIV+ or engaging in reckless behavior, my life has become richer and more fulfilling in the last few years than it has been for decades. Far from ending, I feel my horizons have expanded and my options are limited only by my desire and ambition to continue to grow.
And like it or not, as Dennis said above, while I try not to limit my writing to HIV or HIV+ issues only, my first concern is to try and help myself and others to navigate a difficult, but by no means tragic, road. If negative men get a prevention message out of that, that's fine too."

And actually, I am sure how I felt about that characterization. That is exactly the kind of attitude many HIV+ people encounter, both from straight people who don't know any better and gay people who should. As if the HIV diagnosis is the end. The end of the story, the end of planning for a future, the end of your sex life, the end of your dreams.

Almost as if I no longer have a right, or an expectation, to any of it.

Which would only be true -if I let it be.

Have Some Numbers, Make It Last

Tuesday morning doctor's appointment was a follow up to my labs. I find myself faced with a dilemma. And I don't think I will be posting or talking about my lab results any more. Unless something happens worth talking about. You see I'm about as healthy as a person can get, and I have been for some time.

Everything in my blood work came back normal. Liver function, kidney function, red blood cells, white blood cells - normal normal check and check. The iron supplements are keeping my hereditary anemia in check. My cholesterol HDL/LDL is wonderful, my blood pressure is textbook. I'm not at risk for diabetes.

I've lost 6 pounds (intentionally) and while I'm shooting for 15lbs. total I will be happy when I get to 10.

My viral load is undetectable, and has been for almost four years. My T-Cell count is now 1053. Which is pretty fuckin' high.

And what I'm feeling lately when it comes to HIV, while not complacency, is a sense that I've fought the good fight. And won for now. I'm not proposing that I discontinue my quarterly labs, nor make any changes to my current drug regimen. I will continue to keep my appointments.

I just feel like I don't want to talk about it any more.

It's almost as if my identity, my sense of self, has been wrapped up in my being HIV+. But the fact is, or facts are, if you want to base it on my blood work, that I am absolutely fine, and I have been for quite some time. I dare say I know more about my health, the current state of how my body is functioning, than a lot of the people now reading this.

I don't walk around thinking that the lump behind my earlobe is a tumor. I don't worry that the lower back pain I get is some sort of Lifetime Television for Women spinal cancer. When I catch a cold I think it's just a cold and I know I will get better. I get a flu shot every winter because I don't want the flu. I'm not afraid I'll end up with PCP. I don't believe that writing this post will somehow rain death and illness upon my house.

Because I'm not sick. I'm not.

But I spent the first few years after my diagnosis thinking of myself as sick, and I guess I was. Unfortunately it sort of stuck, or I did. But now I'm better. And now I find myself thinking of the future, of where I want to go, what I want to do next. And I don't want to think of it, or accomplish it, or conquer it or even begin the next chapter as someone who is ill.

I'm just me. A middle aged HIV+ gay guy who is just fine. Maybe better than fine.

Thank you.

Here's Something Important

PEP411.com is a web-site with information about PEP treatment or Post Exposure Prophylaxis. It is for people that find they have had unprotected sex (including the unfortunate breaking of the condom) with someone they know to be HIV+, or who's sero-status is unknown (read: drunken bareback hookup). It's a 28 day regimen of the same antiretrovirals that HIV+ individuals already take. The difference of course is that, provided you begin treatment within 2 hours to up to 36 hours of possible exposure, and you complete the 28 day regimen, you will likely (80% at least) not become HIV+ and you get to walk away, hopefully wiser and better informed. There's also a terrific YouTube video with a link to the web-site. PEP is not free, it has side effects, but if you think you've been exposed to HIV and you can access PEP medications, it's a pretty good line of defense.

It's Not The Virus, It's The Maintenance

I've been finding myself in a very contemplative mood of late, partly because I have a bunch of anniversaries approaching. On Sunday, I will have 3 years sober, and a few weeks from now, another birthday. In early March, it will be 7 years since I was diagnosed with HIV. I have also been very aware of time and the inevitable progression of it as I think about this blogging project for the college course.

The project has just started and most of the students I am working with have only just begun to post personal blogs as well as "Did You Know" pieces. But much of the "Did You Know" focus seems to be on other countries, and people that are far away. Almost as if the concept of HIV/AIDS can be kept at arms' length. Maybe that makes the idea of HIV less threatening. So I thought I would try to post a Did You Know piece of my own, that may personalize HIV a little for the students.

Did you know on Friday, I have an appointment for labs? I do "my labs" four times a year. They measure the viral load in my system (currently undetectable) and the number of T-Cells (CD4) I have (currently 970). If my viral load begins to rise, or my T-Cells begin to fall off dramatically, that would probably be a sign that my current medication regimen is failing. I am fortunate in that I responded well and quickly to the first set of meds I was given. Should my regimen begin to fail, I have many many combinations of drugs available for me to switch to. I also have many standard blood test results that are looked at, including liver function, kidneys, blood sugar levels and cholesterol numbers. Any of these functions could be affected adversely by certain medications. I get and keep a copy of all my lab reports, which is basically two pages of numbers. I have learned what each of the abbreviations stand for and can actually read my labs without any professional help, but we still go over all the results during a follow-up appointment. Regular labs will hopefully provide an early warning should something start to go wrong. I have only missed one lab appointment in 7 years.

The lab appointment itself is largely uneventful, once you get used to getting stuck with a needle. They take two or three vials of blood and you are out the door. The whole process from arrival to departure can be 20 minutes. I didn't have a lot of experience with doctors growing up, regular check-ups weren't part of how I was raised. Discounting my childhood inoculations, I could probably count the number of shots I was given on my ten fingers. I have never donated blood. So in the span of the first month or two of my original diagnosis, it seemed as if I was getting stuck every time I walked in to the clinic. Blood tests and flu shots and pneumonia prophylaxis and TB scratch tests. Needles, needles, needles. But the upshot to all that is I can take a shot in the arm, in the ass, even Novocain in the gum like a champion. I actually now tell the dentist to stick me again if I feel even a twinge of pain during an appointment. Needles don't bother me at all.

I take (at current count) about 16 pills a day. But only five of them are necessary to keep me alive. Those I take all at once every morning. And they make me nauseous for about 1/2 hour. I've probably missed two doses of my medication in the last 3 years.

The rest of the pills are "extra credit" as it were. I take vitamin supplements as well as extra iron and a single aspirin. I take extra zinc on top of that and Fish Oil supplements. I also take Lipitor, because something other than my diet is raising my cholesterol. It's probably the meds. And I take prescription Immodium twice a day, because the HIV meds (specifically Kaletra) give me diarrhea. Every day. I've had it pretty much daily for about 8 or 9 years (I drank a lot). The last year, I've found great relief with a combination of Immodium and Metamucil. But if I don't take either one every day, it's not pretty.

Between my meds and the supplements and the extra extras I take to make it all work, it seems that I spend a lot of time traipsing back and forth to the pharmacy and the clinic. Sometimes I get lucky and a bunch of things run out together, but for the most part I am forever filling and re-filling prescriptions. And whenever I get whiny about that fact I remember that I am blessed to have them, and doubly blessed that New York State pays for them. I am uninsured, and pretty much always have been. If I had to pay for my own medications all this time I probably would have recently died.

And it does take a bit of planning to make sure that I don't run out of the pills that keep me alive. I'm lucky that my pharmacy will call the clinic and have the prescription re-issued if I need it, and I can call the pharmacy myself for refills by phone. It's a juggle, but I always wonder about people that are less capable of keeping those balls in the air. Do they simply run out of meds and not take them until they get around to getting a new prescription? How does that affect their resistance to the meds?

There are dental appointments twice a year (although I had 14 dental visits in one year) and therapy once a week. I also attend a weekly HIV+ support group every Thursday and tie the whole thing up with a nice Alcoholics Anonymous bow with about 4 meetings a week.

Somewhere in there I need to find time for a job (currently part time), three dog walks a day, a little extra work with the Community Advisory Board, laundry, gym, blogging and porn and it's no wonder I frequently can't figure out where the day has gone.

Welcome Students!

I unabashedly and without a second thought stole an idea that I found on Brian's site (acidrefluxweb.com). I am now a blogging "case study" (I prefer mentor) to four students taking a course (some are on line, some are live) in HIV/AIDS called HIV Disease: A Human Concern. The students have created blogs especially for the class. Every week they receive an assignment, I assume a topic to blog about, which they must post by Wednesday. By Friday, they must comment on their group member's blogs as well as this one. I'm pretty sure that's how it works anyway. If I've misunderstood I'll find out soon enough.

My role in this is to post content to this blog about HIV/AIDS and my experiences, opinions, social and medical issues that revolve around HIV. If you are thinking that that's pretty much what I do already, you are starting to understand why I was so attracted to the idea. If nothing else, I'll increase my tens of readership by four. Five if you count the teacher.

Besides, I would like nothing more than to have a forum and a resource to discuss HIV and the impact (or lack thereof) it has on the lives of young people in this country. What do they think today about HIV? What do they know? Where do they get their information and what do they believe about HIV+ people? Questions questions I have lots of them.

So I thought by way of introduction I would start back at the beginning. I began writing From The Ashes in 2003, about a month after I was diagnosed with HIV. I was 41 years old. At the time, I thought it would be a good outlet for some of the confusion and uncertainty I was feeling around becoming positive, as well as a place to be honest about what had gone on in my life up until then. While I thought at the time I was being completely honest, as it turns out, I was lying to myself about one or two important things. But that's another story.

I have reprinted below a (slightly edited) blog entry from April, 2003 that I think has a great deal of significance. It details the chaos and confusion that many many people that are diagnosed with HIV suddenly are thrust in to. It's a world of blood tests and doctor's appointments and T-Cell counts that most people are unprepared for. The maelstrom eventually abates, but it's an area I have been urging case managers here at my clinic to try to understand better. I'm not sure if I'm being heard.

March 7, 2003

That was the title I was originally going to call this blog. At the time, I thought that it was the most significant date in my life. Now I'm not so sure. I'm a 41 year old gay man living in NYC. On March 7, 2003 I learned I was HIV positive. That was quite possibly the hardest sentence I've ever typed. Not because of the HIV admission, but now everyone will know I'm 41! I had to do it. I made a promise to myself that I was going to really commit to this blog and use it to help me get through my new challenges. I've spent a large portion of my life obscuring, ignoring and avoiding the truth or some truths. I'd like to say I'm done doing that but I'd be lying again. I'm going to try as hard as I can to be brutally honest in this chronicle. Not just with you but with myself. I'm hoping that I can see once and for all where I came from and why. The future we'll discover together. I want to take you with me on this journey.

I'll start with the whole HIV thing since it was the catalyst for me to begin the blog and I'm sure it will come up again and again on here. It's been just over a month since I was diagnosed. I'm sure some people will tell you about how stunned they were and how they cried for a week after the diagnosis but that never happened to me. When I decided to finally be tested after all these (15!) years in New York City I was fully aware of the possibility that I could get a positive diagnosis. Of course, I was hoping I wouldn't, but still... It's like this...in all the years of sex and sex parties and boothstores and escorts and masseurs and escort/masseurs (do I sense a theme?) was I just having unprotected sex with everyone who came along? Of course not. But I've never been at all what you would call cum-phobic either. Hey, people are, for lack of a better word "juicy" (No, that is the better word) And sex is sticky and juicy (if you do it right) Throw in a healthy dose of low self -esteem, sprinkle on a liberal dusting of depression and there you have me waking up first thing in the morning having really loud sex with a guy whose name escapes me and the words "condom" or "safe" don't come out of either of our mouths. It happened. Move on.

The surprising part so far for me has been how long it takes to know what's up with yourself after you've been diagnosed. I thought that you go in, give blood, wait a week, you're positive or negative, they give you a sucker and send you on your way. Not so fast though kitten. The diagnosis is just the beginning. Once you find out you're positive then some real fun begins. Apparently, now you have to find out how positive you are. So it's back to the lab but this time they take vials and vials of your blood. I think it was at least six I'm not sure. That day, there was a guy ahead of me who apparently turned white while he was being vamped which sent me into a mild panic as well. So I didn't count all the vials and I looked away and sang something in my head to distract me. And another 14 days go by so you can get your viral load and T-cell count. And that's it? Oh you silly silly soul! Not even close! In my case it was sort of a good news/bad news event. The good news was two-fold. First, according to my blood test, except for the death in my veins I'm healthy as a horse. (Besides that, how did you enjoy the play Mrs. Lincoln?) Second, not having a clue exactly how long I've been infected at this point my test results say I still have enough T-cells and a low enough viral load that I'm "healthy". So as it stands today my "medication" consists of multiple vitamins and trying to stay healthy. So now we know where I stand, right? You so stoopid! No! I had to wait a month and go back to see the blood- suckers and make another donation. Why you may ask? Because they have to get a few sets of tests over a few months to see if I'm deteriorating or maintaining in my condition. In other words I may stay like this for months or six months or years before treatment has to start. Or not. If my system goes wonky progressively I'll have to go on the anti-virals and oh, won't chronic diarrhea be a happy, happy time?

So there you have it. Our jumping off point. I'll tell you about my Dr. visits. I'll tell you secrets about my job. I may write poetry. Sometmes I'll just post an article I like. If I ever have one again I'll be happy to dish on my own love life. That's not an HIV thing it's a I'm a dysfunctional freak thing. Good news is I'm probably going to have to leave the house more, just to keep things interesting. Periodically, I'll post my e-mail address.(tommyrico@gmail.com) If you like what you read so far let me know, I'd love to hear from you. If you want to say something negative shut your hole, I'm not a well woman!




I hope the students get some use out of that, and I would encourage them to post whatever they wish in the comments, about anything I write or post, including questions. If you prefer, feel free to email me anything you would like as well. I will probably always respond here, unless you ask for a private response. There's not much I do that I keep private anymore. Yet another reason I'm perfect for this program.

Ciao,
Tom

HIV News From Haiti

The earthquake in Haiti devastated the country, leaving countless dead and with limited resources to help the survivors.

You can help! Your unused ANTIBIOTIC, ANTIRETROVIRAL, AND PROPHYLAXIS medications can save lives in Haiti.

What can I send?
Unexpired Antibiotics, Antiretrovirals, and Prophylaxis medications.

What will you do with it?
AID FOR AIDS International will send these live-saving medications to the earthquake survivors in Haiti, helping to ease the strain on hospitals and saving the lives of people in need of medicine.

What do I do?
- Send your unused, unexpired medications to
AID FOR AIDS International
120 Wall st, 26th Floor
New York, NY 10005.

If you are in NYC, go here for a list of drop off centers.

There is also this news via POZ.com:

In the aftermath of the January 12 earthquake in Haiti, GHESKIO, an AIDS organization based in Port-au-Prince, continues to provide lifesaving antiretroviral (ARV) therapy to those in need, Agence France-Presse reports.

GHESKIO (Haitian Group for Studies in Karposi’s Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections) is one of the first AIDS clinics in the world. The clinic survived the earthquake and has become a refuge site for injured Haitians.

With medication provided by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Merieux Institute, GHESKIO’s 28 centers have never been forced to interrupt treatment for its approximately 12,000 clients, half of which live in Port-au-Prince. (According to the article, in 2009, fewer than 150,000 Haitians were living with HIV/AIDS, a significant drop from the 1990s.)

Following the quake, GHESKIO used radio broadcasts to remind clients that their treatments were waiting for them, as well as organizing car pools to transport patients to clinics.

Shut. The Fuck. Up!

I wish I could describe how much I love this video.-via Dlisted




Oh, and I'm sorry you'll be hearing "AIDS is on the Rise" all day in your head.

You're Not Sick Enough

What is the world coming to? I ended up having to come to the "defense" of my arch-nemesis Jack Mackenroth last week. I say "defense" as he wasn't attacked per se, but in a roundabout way the promo video he made for the web site HealthyWithHIV.com was.

MOC blog, a site that I LOVE LOVE LOVE (for obvious reasons, and also for the fact that he frequently has a fresh take or an unexplored perspective on a variety of subjects) posted the video along with this paragraph:

"This promotional piece for HealthyWithHIV.com (paid for by the drug company MERCK) features competitive swimmer Jack Mackenroth who is clearly in terrific shape. And I'm genuinely happy for the guy. But are we doing a disservice to young people by featuring men in prime physical condition instead of those less fortunate, physically attenuated souls who haven't been quite that lucky? Many young people (what I'll none-too-lightly call the "Post-AIDS" generation, for not having participated in the carnage) fail to grasp that being HIV-positive is neither desirous nor chic. And they need that constant reminder. Where and how is that message getting out?"

My response is re-printed below:

I can't help but feel after reading this that there's a none too subtle desire on your part to see and portray HIV+ men as sick and frail and therefore "other". It is this kind of hidden stigma that keeps gay men that are already frightened of HIV from getting tested and, if need be, treated. This ignorance and fear is what perpetuates the spread of HIV more than anything else. The facts are that most men that are diagnosed and treated in a timely fashion will remain healthy for decades and those receiving more advanced treatment today may not ever outwardly "carry a sign" of being HIV+. Nobody is advocating that young gay men today seek out HIV, but your expressed desire to have it portrayed as a debilitating sickness is kind of offensive. Sorry if we're not suffering enough for you to feel better about yourself.

I was a little annoyed at MOC's writer and a little bit sad. While the sentiment was genuine, and I have no doubt as to the truthfulness of wanting to make sure that a message like "Having HIV Can Suck" gets out to young people unaware or uninformed of what the consequences are, I think it's unfortunate that there's some obvious stigma and prejudice buried amongst the good intentions.

Of course, left untreated, HIV will still ravage and kill you. And there are the unlucky people who do not respond well to standard treatments, as well as those who are "treatment experienced" that are now suffering some difiicult side effects from more experimental drugs.

But by and large, if you do find that you become HIV+, and you are tested early and get treated when it becomes required, chances are that you will have to deal with managing your health the foreseeable future, taking better care of yourself, taking medication every day- every. day, and the very real possibility of some long-term side effects of unknown consequence. You will also more than likely experience a disastrously negative impact on your sex life, and you will be faced with the ongoing pressure of whether or not to disclose this information to your friends, your family and your co-workers. You will face a certain amount of discrimination.

But you can also lead a relatively peaceful and normal life, hold down a job, pay your bills and still hope that someday, somewhere you meet a nice guy.

And that is what needs to be reflected in the ads.

In New York City At Night

There's a pretty heartbreaking piece about LGBT homeless youth that ran in The Indypendent several weeks ago. A social worker from Sylvia's Place, one of the few shelters available to LBGT homeless youth in NYC, took extreme exception to the bleak portrait painted of the organization and some client profiles. You can read the comments below the article to get his valid perspective. Still, there's no getting around the fact that conservative estimates are that there are close to 20,000 homeless queer youth in this country, and less than 250 beds nationwide to house them and help keep them safe. You can read the full story here.

"Across the room Damien Corallo slouched in a chair, looking grim. Somebody had stolen his iPod. “Things are always getting stolen here,” he said. I sat down next to him and, just as Collazo had said, once I got him talking, he did not want to stop. When he was a kid, his father was sent to jail and his mother sent him and his two siblings from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to New York City to live with his aunt. His brother was gay and Damien, who is transgender, had been dressing like a boy as long as he could remember.

“One day our aunt told us she didn’t want any faggots in the house. And we figured out that she had given our rights over to the state. So we left,” Corallo said. “I’ve lived in 32 group homes or foster homes. I’ve lived in shelters, halfway houses, safety houses. I’ve been into lock-up, stuck in residentials. I have been in every kind of home. I went to juvie for drugs. I used to inject drugs and snort coke. I was in for about a year. It was not friendly. It was a Missouri state jail and then I went to rehab.”

Corallo said he stayed in a group home on Long Island. Three years ago he moved to Sylvia’s, where he’s been ever since. On three occasions, he’s been beaten in what he described as “gay bashings.” He’s been called a faggot and a freak more times than he would like to remember. Somewhere along the line he contracted HIV, which has since turned into AIDS. He has attempted suicide more than once, and he relapsed, too — he’s got track marks up and down his arms and a chronic twitch. He is using crystal methamphetamines and heroin again. He said he wants to break the habit, but “I could never stay clean in this situation.” Corallo is 18 years old."