Lisa's POZ Blog

.....as Paul Harvey would say,.....and now the rest of the story.
I began this saga at the twenty year ago mark, as it was when Ifirst learned that I had been exposed to HIV.

I felt a pang of whoopsie, when I read the latest edition of the AM newsletter, and the lead-in that Peter/Tim gave about my first learning that I was HIV positive. While not entirely untrue, it wasn't the real whole truth.

After processing the news dumped on me by dear Barney, I did the tuck-and-tackle maneuver for a significant period of time.
Actually, it was ten more years.
Let me explain.
I did a whole string of justifying, ignoring,denying, and purpose driven forgetting. This was 1986. I had just lost one job because of attendance problems. I was a single working mother with three five year olds. Unending problems with finding suitable babysitting services, and fallen from grace with my parents, because of their disapproval of my relationship choice.

I'll finish the earlier story with expediency.
After Barney was released from the hospital, I allowed him to come back home, while I digested the new information, and re-evaluated what this relationship had cost me.
When I tried to re-negotiate some ground rules, he became an all-out asswipe. Began taking my kids with him to meet his fuckbuddies, while I was at work. Drinking uncontrollably, and had my children along for the ride. When I found out what he was doing, I laid down THE LAW.
If he ever even thought about putting my kids in the car to go to a "friends" house to "socialize" again, his shit would hit the fan in short order.

He did. And it did.
I made an unexpected trip home for my lunch break, and found the house empty. I called work, told them I had an emergency and wouldn't be able to come back. Called my girlfriend Michelle to come over with her two adorable but protective, Dobermans. Called my father to come over with two new locksets, and tools. Called the police to come join the party. While dad was almost finished with the first lock, Barney came rolling up. The police hadn't arrived yet, but Michelle had. My father had a private word with him on the front lawn before he entered the house. The puppies watched him quietly put all of his belongings in garbage bags, while my father finished the other lock. The nice police arrived in time to reinforce the fact that he was no longer welcome at this property.

Two weeks later, I lost my job. I had never been so humiliated in my whole life. Being fired was just something that I found horribly embarrassing.
Fortunately, it is true that for every door that closes, another opens.

Within a week, I found the job that carried me for the next 18~ years.
I had issues that required my full attention, and HIV wasn't even on my radar screen. It was always there in some capacity. Again with the niggling.......
Having always been a pragmatist, I subscribe to the divide and conquer manner of attack. Or more simply put, compartmentalizing.

I renewed my relationship with my parents, who were instrumental in making phone calls, and helping me get the kids situated with starting school, and after school care through the local YMCA.
I launched myself into my new job with great relish. I had found my professional niche. I started working at the School of Medicine, in the Dept. of Gastroenterology. I had been specifically hired to perform the day-to-day clinical studies in the newly emerging world of H2 blockers.(The precursors to Proton pump inhibitors ie;Prilosec etc.) Zantac,Axid,Pepcid,and pro-motility agents, as well as several hot new concepts, that have now become recognized the world over. I was in hog heaven working for docs that were global leaders in their field. I became a GI specialty nurse, and even managed to get published.
About ten years in, I became hot property to my last boss, who is still a world player. So my last ten~ years were spent as an Otolaryngology specialist.

I am still unable to delineate whether I was truly in denial, or just too busy to address the possiblity of HIV. I never went to be tested. I knew that HIV was out there. I knew that it was still an evolving entity, and the research I had done led me to believe that it was more difficult to pass via hetero relations, so I rationalized that I had a probable 50/50 chance of not having contracted it. .........and besides, I felt just fine. I worked my ass off.
Toward the end, I was working fifty, to seventy hours a week. For the entire period of my employ in Otolaryngology, I was on-call Monday through Thursday, without ever having any relief. I was sending frightened patients from all over the world out overnight with a small testing catheter in their nose, and recording equipment that nobody else wanted to touch, or learn how to operate.(because they didn't want to be on call)

Sometime in '97', I began feeling kinda run down. Well who wouldn't. I then had three 15/16 year olds, who kept me in constant contact with the pulse of the principal's office, as well as most of our fine county sheriffs deputies, an incredibly demanding job, the loss of my mother the year before, after a tortuous battle with cancer, whom my father and I cared for at home until her death. Lisa was tired. Lisa also chalked it all up to stress.
I have no earthly idea how I kept it up, but I just kept plugging away.

In that same year, I fell behind in my mortgage, and car payments, from losing work due to illnesses, and kid related absenteeism. My car was repoed first. The nice man came to the front desk at work, and requested me by name. I thought it was a patient's family member, or a rep who wanted to shower me with freebies etc. We walked out to the parking deck, and he kindly allowed me to remove my personal belongings from the car before he carted it away, despite my pleas, and tears.

I spent another year or two floundering around trying to keep my head above water, but kept getting sick. .......over, and over again.
(How long does it take a polak to realize that something is wrong here?) My mind is a bit fuzzy about this period, but I eventually lost my house too. I believe it was latter '98', or early '99'. My house was foreclosed upon, and I wound up moving into the basement of my father's house.
Again, a door closed, and another opened. He was diabetic(typeII), and on an air concentrator(oxygen) because of Emphysema, and not doing a very good job of caring for himself. We looked out for each other.

Sometime in '99', I got really sick. I was inredibly fatigued, found out I had "walking pneumonia" from my then Family Practitioner, Amanda(whose husband had been one of my Fellowes when I was in GI). Beyond the pneumonia, I was unable to rebound. My lungs cleared, but I noticed a serious lack of energy. I was going home, and falling onto the couch in my uniform, and lab coat, only to awaken the next morning, to shower, change, and do it all over again. I kept making trips to Amanda, and we were unable to come up with concrete answers.
She finally asked me if I were willing to consider being tested for HIV. Damned if the little lightbulb came on over my head, and I had a moment of eureka! Of course, how silly that I never put it together. Duh!!!

We drew tons of blood, and made an appointment for a week. I had no fears of having a positive test. I'm not sure why. I returned the following week, and she revealed that the first round of testing looked positive, and we should now go another step further, and have labs sent off for the Western Blot. Needless to say, that the appointment three weeks later gave clear confirmation of my positive diagnosis. She then gave me the referral to see Kevin(my original ID doc).

Kevin,(mind you, I have walked the halls with, and worked with all of these people, so the first name stuff is not disrespect, as they were all colleagues) thankfully was the guy who was the community spokesperson/laison for the AIDS movement, and was doing really neat clinical work surrounding this disease. His Physician Assistant-C(for Certified) was, and is Rachel.(whom I see now, because I no longer have private health insurance) You only get to see the Faculty/Attending physicians when you have private health insurance.
He was kind, understanding, informative, and well spoken. I have always had a really good working relationship with my docs. It completely behooves me, when I hear the stories some of our fellow forum members tell of rude, disinterested, uninvolved doctors. They listen to me, and I listen to them, and we address all of my health issues in a cogent manner.They being far more cogent than I, as of late.

What has left me in the barely bearable circumstances I am currently in, was the fact that all of these people tippy toed around coming out and openly documenting how serious my health staus was, in an effort to protect me, as I was an employee of the same medical center, and this was way before HIPPA was in effect. Meaning, that any nibby nosed, or curious staff member could freely access my tests, labs, visit notes, etc.........
As a matter of fact, one did. That will be another story, for another time. Upon my first visit with Kevin, I learned that my viral load was quantified by the term millions, and my helper cells were nearly non-existent. These things meant little to me at the time, because despite the reading etc. I had done, I still didn't know enough to understand that I was in the throes of real honest-to-goodness AIDS. They were just numbers on a paper, and I felt really shitty.

It was a few months later, that I found this site, and got the best education regarding this disease I had found NO WHERE ELSE. Another Eureka moment came when I realized what those numbers on the page really meant, and that I needed to pay a little closer attention to what each lab draw revealed. Then I could make choices that would affect my health, and well being to promote the best outcomes I could.

I have tried to look upon my HIV/AIDS as just another part of my walk through this life. I have never allowed it to consume my thoughts, nor influence my actions. I did a fair amount of reading, and research when I was first diagnosed, in order to be as informed, and up to date on my information so that I could answer my kids questions factually, without stirring any fear.
Thankfully, I have always been very matter of fact in talking with my kids about sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. They have always been free to ask me anything without fear of reproach, even before my diagnosis.

My son Brian, recently announced that he, and Alexis were pregnant. They had both been in relationships before that prompted them to go together and be tested. He just came to me a couple of months ago, and said they both had tested negative on STD, and HIV testing. That is probably the only thing I can say I'm proud of him for at this point in time.
My daughter Michelle, just went through a really bad period upon learning that her boyfriend,(box-of-hair) and father of their son Elijjah, has apparently fathered a child in the western portion of the state where he has family, and had frequented in the weeks just before, and after Elijjah was born. After she was through with her mental breakdown, I urged her on several occasions to go and be tested, because we already knew that he had passed HPV to her when they first began dating.
To my knowledge, she has not been tested. I would really hate to see her repeat the same mistake I made.