February 2007 Archives

I went out on a date.

I responded to an ad on Craig’s List “men seeking women.” I liked what he had to say, he made me laugh while reading his ad and most importantly, he WAS NOT HIV+. He had his picture posted, not someone I would normally date, but hey, what’s normal for me anymore?

He answered my email and we started chatting via instant message. After about 10 minutes of chatting, I typed “there’s something you need to know about me.” I typed out the following:

“I was diagnosed in February of 2006 as HIV+, I was infected by my boyfriend of 3 years, I am healthy, on no medications, but it’s something I wanted you to know up front, before we go any further”

Him: “You’re joking right?”

Me: “Ah, NO, HIV is not something I joke about, but you are my first foray into the dating world, and you are negative, so I wanted you to know up front so you can make an informed decision”

Him: “WOW!”

Me: “Yeah, it’s deep I know. Hey, let me give you a website to go to you can read about it, and get some information. You marinate on it for a while and get back to me with any questions you might have and let me know if you want to go forward with meeting ”(I gave him the Lessons link on AIDSMEDS)

I logged off and the next day he sent me an email saying that he had read the lessons, and also talked to his doctor and he really wanted to meet me and he had “marinated” on it and was “down for whatever happened.”

We made plans to meet a few days later.

We met at a little dive bar in my neighborhood. I got there first and sat at the bar, looking around to see if he was there. I ordered a drink and before I even finished it, the bartender handed me a “chip” and said the guy at the other end of the bar bought me a drink. I was like “who?” Turns out it was him.

He walked up to me, wearing a hat, which I immediately commented “how was I supposed to recognize you?” He sat down and there was IMMEDIATE chemistry. OMG! He had tattoo’s everywhere, piercings, shaved head, as my friend Shane would say “he was quite a snack!” We looked very mismatched. Here I am, the little jewish girl, dressed up all cute, and here he was a total rough neck, not my typical date.

We had some drinks and talked effortlessly. As the night progressed, he leaned in a kissed me. OMG it felt good. I LOVE KISSING and had missed it so much. But, more importantly, he was NEGATIVE and kissing ME! Woo Hoo! I’m normal again!

That one kiss turned into a very intense make out session right there at the bar. I’m pretty sure we did everything possible without having sex! Not going back there anytime soon that’s for sure! I think at one point I was straddling him, while wearing a skirt, at the bar. The visual now makes me shudder but at the time, had he said “meet me in the bathroom so I can bend you over the sink” I would have been like “Meet you? Shit, let’s go now!”

The night ended and we parted with another intense kiss and promises to see each other again VERY SOON.

The next day I dropped him an email saying that I had a great time and looked forward to seeing him again. No response. In fact, no response for the rest of the week. I was like WTF? I was devastated. We had chemistry! We made out, his tongue was down my throat…………I was confused. Two weeks passed and no email, no phone call, no nothing.

I finally saw him online one evening and sent him an instant message saying:

“I haven’t heard from since we saw each other and I can handle ANYTHING as long as it is the truth. I really thought that you and I had chemistry. Can I please just have the courtesy of you telling me what happened?”

Get ready………..here it comes………

His response:

“Hey, sorry I haven’t gotten back to you, I don’t like confrontation. After you and I had made out so intensely, I got really freaked out. I ended up going to Urgent Care the next day because I thought you might have given it to me”

My response:

“Well, thank you for your honesty. Just so you know, you can’t get it from kissing, toilet seats or hugging, but I understand your fears. I’m just glad to know it really wasn’t about me”

Thing is, I equate NORMAL as being HIV negative. Being out with him made me feel “normal” and damn it felt good. It felt normal.

I met a very handsome man in my group who is positive and he really liked me, but when he and I had coffee, all I kept thinking is “he has HIV too” and if I were with him, then I would really have to admit I have IT too and that’s not normal for me right now.

Most of my positive friends only date other positive people saying it is much easier. My comment to them has always been, “why limit yourself and assume that people won’t understand and accept you for you?” Now I know why they do it, because being HIV positive just isn’t NORMAL.

Not sure how many of you have pets, but I was always the kid who brought home the ENTIRE box of puppies from outside the grocery store. I think that puppy breath should be bottled. I LOVE IT. Animals to me, are in most cases, MUCH better then people.

I've always gotten what my family refers to as "abnormally attached" to the pets I've had, whatever. I love them, if that's abnormal then bite me. So what that I let them eat off my fork, drink out of my glass and give tongue kisses......please!

I got Moe 2 years ago and he was so tiny when I brought him home, the remote control was bigger then he was. He was different then any other animal I had ever had, I could tell from the beginning. The first day I got him, he crawled up my chest, tucked his nose behind my ear and began to suck til the drool rolled down my neck..........I LOVED IT! And you know what? He is now a 15lb kitty and still does it.........and I still love it.

Thing is, Moe is the only thing I care about. Really. At my first doctors appointment, all I wanted to know was "can I infect Moe?" He is IT for me. We have real conversations, he knows my moods, knows when I need him and provides me with unconditional love. He is unfailing in his devotion to me and I to him. This past year would have been unbearable without him. The first thing I did after my diagnosis was to make sure that if anything ever happened to me, Moe would be taken care of.

Moe is my excuse for not leaving the house. "Oh no, I can't make it, I don't want to leave Moe overnight by himself" or "I just want to stay home with the Moe-Moe".

I'm sure that this all might sound strange to a lot of you, but to me, it feels completely normal. He gives me the love and acceptance that I crave and only asks for the same in return. I think that people who live alone should own a pet of some kind. They give you a reason to wake up in the morning, a reason to keep your "shit" together and they open up your heart and give you the unconditional love we all crave.

In this time in my life, Moe is really the only "person" I want to be with. I could go days without seeing another human being and never feel lonely because I have Moe. And you know what? Moe doesn't give a flying rats ass that I have HIV and that to me is priceless.

First, I want to thank you all for the tremendous response I received to my first Blog. It really felt good to be validated.

Many of you wrote to me asking about what has happened with my brother and my boyfriend, so I thought I would bring you up to date.

Let’s start with my brother…………..His reaction to my diagnosis was shocking to say the least. Well, let’s not get it twisted, it was less then humane. I got better support from total strangers then I did or have from him.

We have always had what I call a “cursory” relationship. We hug when we see each other, can joke and laugh, and send mundane, non-substance emails. He does ask me how I am, but seems to be OBSESSED as to whether or not I have told anyone else in the family. I’m sure this is out of pure fear that if I do tell anyone, he will look like the total fuck-wad that he is. I do however have a theory………..My brother “came out” in 1981, during that time, there were very few gay men who came out of that time unscathed. My theory is that my brother is HIV+ and for him to help me or advise me would mean that he would feel as if he would have disclose, just a thought, but I’m going to go with that as it helps me sleep better at night.

NOW………..let’s get to the “boyfriend”. I call him “Icky”. Not because I don’t want to disclose his name, because, well, he just IS Icky.

Icky was in the hospital for over 3 months, most of which was spent in a medically induced coma. During that first week, I was losing my mind because I didn’t know who to call, what to do. I used the Internet to find his family who I knew was in Mississippi. Believe it or not, I managed to find all NINE of his brothers and sister AND his mother. BUT, when I called to let them know their brother was sick, I came to find out that they had not seen him in over 20 years! WHAT THE FUCK? I say this because I have personally paid for “trips back home to see my family” for Icky on more then SIX occasions! Hmmmmmmmmmm, the first of many lies I will come to find out.

During this time, I was going to the hospital EVERY day, bathing him, shaving him, clipping his nails and wiping his ass, all the while knowing my own status.

Some people from his family came to San Diego to see him after about 3 weeks. Can you imagine having not seen your baby brother in over 20 years and when you do finally see him he is lying in a coma dying of AIDS? Turns out that they were not the most educated people and REFUSED to believe that their brother had AIDS, even when the doctor told them so. They knew I was infected and up to his point, I had been their “angel of mercy” keeping them up to date with his status at all times. It was about to get Jerry Springer on my ass REAL soon.

After our meeting with the doctor, they accused me of poisoning their brother by injecting him with some “unknown” virus and proceeded to call the police to have me arrested for attempted murder. They were yelling in the middle of CCU “MURDERER! MURDERER! and pointing at me all the while. One of them even had the nerve to “fake faint” from the drama of it all. Give me a fucking break! They refused to believe he had AIDS because in their pitiful little minds if he had AIDS, he must be gay. God forbid.

Since I was listed on the Advanced Directive to make medical decisions, the doctors pulled me aside and said they had done everything they could for Icky and it appeared to them as if “he wanted to die”. Well, he and I had never discussed anything like this, but just looking at him lying in that bed, tubes everywhere, a mere skeleton of his former self, I told the doctor to make him as comfortable as possible, but let him go. Jesus, Joseph and Mary now I really was a murderer! More yelling, fainting and police calling ensued. The poor staff in CCU were like “is this for real?” and I kept looking at them like “I’m looking for the cameras too!” I ended up giving up my “power” to make health decisions on his behalf and turned if over to his 20 year old daughter………….the one I had JUST found out he had! I was then banned from coming to see him by the family. Some fucking “angel of mercy” huh? Gratitude abounded……..NOT! Hell, you wouldn’t even know he was sick if it weren’t for me!

During this time, I had also discovered that he had been “cheating” on me with FIVE other women. I found extremely suggestive text messages from them and it turns out, they were giving him money too. The consolation?? I was the “main bitch” which means that I got all the major holidays, birthdays, weekends AND HIV! Woo Hoo! I called all five women and told them they needed to go and get tested. Of course, because they all thought that they were the “main bitches” too, they didn’t believe me and thought I was a woman scorned. Look bitch, just go and get tested alright? Shit! I mean if someone called me and told me that, I would be like “Hmmmmm, even if I don’t believe her, I’m going to go” PLUS, I thought that was pretty big of me considering all I just found out!

I hadn’t been to the hospital in about 2 weeks and when I got home from work, I noticed on my callerid that the hospital had called. I had been checking in everyday with the CCU nurses to see how he was doing, even though they were told explicitly “not to let Lisa know anything!” So I called over there and was told that they had brought Icky out of his coma, and although he couldn’t talk (he had a tracheotomy) and couldn’t lift his head or hands 3” off of the bed, he wanted to talk to ME and had them call me. How he communicated that to the nurse, I will never know!

I went to the hospital and was there when the doctor told him he had AIDS. He cried, and was frustrated because he could not communicate. I eased his fears by telling him about the medications available, yadda, yadda, yadda. I also told him I was infected too. No reaction. The doctor told him he had to have been infected for about 8-10 years. He had 9 t-cells and his viral load was in the millions. The next day, he developed another infection, and was put back into a coma. I was put back on the list of acceptable visitors and began my bedside vigil once again.

I’ll end this now because it could really go on forever. He lived. He is a sociopath. Nothing that he has ever told me was true. He lived and continues to live his life with no conscience, no remorse and no regrets. He is advertising on the internet for sex claiming he is HIV- and there is NO law that says he can’t. He has to show “intent”. He has taken to the medications in a way that has even amazed his doctors. He is back at his fighting weight of 190lbs, he left the hospital at 120lbs. He wants to be with me because “we both have IT” and thinks I am some sort of consolation prize. I wish he had died. Not because I have HIV, that was my fault, but because he took my love and made a mockery of it. He made me believe that he loved me and was so good at the “game” I bought it all hook, line and sinker. Shame on me. He has forever changed me, in ways I can’t even verbalize. He lived and I still wish he would die, because if he died, I wouldn’t have to keep looking over my shoulder, I could go to MY grocery store without fear of seeing him, I could let go of all of the anger, sadness and remorse I feel if he was dead……….but only the good die young. Now I know what everyone is going to say “him dying is not the answer to easing your pain” but trust me, this Blog could have been another 3 pages and THEN you would have written me and said “Hey, I have some friends who can “take care of that for you”

Woo Hoo! I'm a BLOGGER! I am very excited to have the opportunity to do this. Being a "newly diagnosed" HIV+ heterosexual woman has been a challenge BIG TIME! Here is my story about my virus LOLA................that's what I've named her.

I look foward to keeping you all entertained with the trails and tribulations of my life........because there are so damn many!

So here it goes...........

On February 14th , 2006, I took my boyfriend of 3 years to the hospital. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t catch his breath. Two weeks prior, he was diagnosed with walking pneumonia but antibiotics didn’t clear it up so off to the hospital we went.

As soon as we got there, they put him in an isolation room as they thought he had TB. Masks and gowns were adorned by all and a bevy of tests were done and 14 hours later, still no answers. They admitted him into the hospital into the CCU and he was on 100% oxygen. As I sat by his bedside, doing the whole bedside vigil thing, I questioned every nurse, doctor and cleaning person that walked into the room as to what they thought was wrong. No one was giving up any info.

After 3 days of “nothing”, I took a break and went home to sleep. At 1:00am on Friday morning, the hospital called to say that he had to be sedated and intubated as his body was not getting enough oxygen. OMG! This man has not been sick one day in the 3 years I have been with him! Just 1 month prior to this, we were on the golf course having a grand ol’ time! What the F!@X? I went back to the hospital on Friday morning and could not find a doctor to talk to until later that evening. Once I found one, I confronted him and I asked if they had done a rapid HIV test in the ER (now what made me ask this, not sure). The doctor said they had, and it had come back “inconclusive” so they took blood but the results were not back yet. WHAT? INCONCLUSIVE? I went totally numb.

I immediately asked them to do a rapid test on me - right then and there - and was told they couldn’t. Okay, so now it is Friday night, the weekend is ahead of me and Monday is President’s day. I’m screwed, totally. I drove home in a haze and immediately got on the internet………..GOD I love the internet! Research, I researched every symptom known to the HIV Gods. Then it hit me. In January, I got what I had thought was the flu, terrible sore throat, fever, and couldn’t get out of bed for 10 days. Because I am an insulin dependent Diabetic, I am used to getting sicker than the average Joe, but I remember thinking, “wow, I haven’t been this sick in a long time!” I had gone to the doctor and they did a throat culture, but the doctor said he was pretty sure it was strep throat and prescribed antibiotics. I took them all and about two weeks after I was done with them, I got hives on my legs and body. I couldn’t figure out why I had them, no food changes, laundry, soap, etc…all was the same. Took some Benadryl and they went away, never thought about it again……….Until that Friday night when I was doing my manic internet search and BAM! There they were ALL my symptoms in black and white. I was freaking out! I mean who do I call? What do I do? I called every hotline, clinic and hospital I could find, but every one of them said I would need to take an HIV test. No shit, but it was Friday and a “government holiday” on Monday. HELP ME!!! For the next 3 days I literally did not sleep. I was on the internet the entire time, trying to find something else wrong with me, ANYTHING else but HIV.

On Monday night I called my neighbor Camille. Why Camille? Because Camille is gay and for some reason, I was like “calling all lesbians! I need your help!” Makes no sense I know, but at the time it made total sense to me! Camille came to my house on Tuesday morning and we were the first people at the clinic to get my HIV rapid test. I was a zombie walking in there and went through the screening questions with the counselor, “why do you think you are infected?” “Uh…………my boyfriend is in the hospital dying and from my research I think he has PCP (Pnuemocystis Pneumonia) and I had all of the symptoms…………..yadda, yadda, yadda” Just do the test damn it! So, she pricked my finger and went into the other room for 10 minutes while I sat there alone in the testing room…….pamphlets surrounding me……..”Are you Infected” or “Just found out”…….OMG, I had better grab some of these I said to myself and I stuffed them into my purse feening for a cigarette, why can’t we smoke in here? I mean come on, this is a stressful situation, I need a damn cigarette! Just then, in walked the counselor…..JUST TELL ME THE RESULTS I wanted to yell, but she had to do her job, tell me her standard speech, and then…………….YES, you tested POSITIVE for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus and the test is 99.6% accurate. Now, I would go to Vegas with those odds I thought to myself….then my mind went blank and my body took over. I started to shake uncontrollably and asked her to go and get Camille, NOW!

As Camille walked in and she saw my face, she knew. She walked over to me to give me a hug and my first instinct was to withdraw from her. Don’t touch me, I kept thinking. I do not want to be touched. I just kept shaking; I could not stop shaking.

The counselor drew blood to do a second verification………..Uh HELLO! 99.6% accurate! I wanted to leave, get me the hell out of here. As we walked back to the car, with me frantically trying to light a cigarette I finally uttered my first words…”What am I going to tell my mother?” “This will kill her.” Camille made her best attempt to console me but the look I gave her let her know this was not an option right now. I wanted to go the hospital and talk to the doctors handling my boyfriend’s case. Camille drove and I smoked.

I walked into his hospital room and one week from the day I had brought him in I really looked at him, I mean really looked. There he lay, tubes in every possible orifice of his body, a machine breathing for him………and it hit me. HE HAS AIDS. Yes! I see it now, the weight loss, the diarrhea, the loss of appetite. AIDS - how had I missed that?

I demanded to see a doctor RIGHT NOW I told them. Magically, after 7 days of begging to talk to a doctor, one appeared before my eyes. I was a woman on a mission. I told her I wanted to talk to her privately so Camille, myself and the doctor went into a little room. Oh by the way, I am still shaking and now, the shaking has become so violent, I look like I am convulsing, real pretty visual. I confronted the doctor and told her that I had just tested positive and that I believe that my boyfriend had PCP, an opportunistic infection related to having AIDS. She said that is what they “think” he has but the test results have not come back yet. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? It took me all of 20 minutes to find out and he has been here for SEVEN DAYS? And even MORE DISTURBING, you know I am his partner and you didn’t tell me? Now I am not a violent person, but I wanted to bitch slap her!

I think that I did more in the first 24 hours of being told I was HIV+ then most people do in a year. After leaving the hospital, we went straight to the GLBT Center where I talked to a counselor. I think she wanted me to cry, or was at least waiting for me to cry. No crying for me, I meant business. I am an action girl, sounds like a superhero name, I think I like that! Okay, so Action Girl (formerly me) called my primary care physician and immediately went to see her.

Oh, by the way, did I tell you that I was telling EVERYONE that I was HIV+? Oh yes! “Hey I am going to get some cigarettes, did you know I was HIV+?” I called my boss, “Just wanted to let you know that I am taking off for the next few days, I’m HIV+.” It was kind of like I was talking about someone else, I was someone else, I was HIV+.

At the doctors office, when you are initially called in, you are seen by the nurse who takes your vitals. She asked me the reason for my visit….here it goes I thought to myself, I’m ready for the reaction…”I was just told that I am HIV+.” As Camille stood right by, mostly because I wouldn’t let her leave my side and her fear that I would fall down from shaking, this wonderful nurse took action. I mean I HAVE NEVER seen anyone at my doctor’s office react so quickly. She got paperwork, she lowered her voice, she took my vitals, but most importantly, she wasn’t afraid of me. What was that about I thought? Did she not hear me, I AM HIV+ I wanted to yell at her, but she already knew that.

Once in the doctors office with Camille right there with me, the doctor came in and I gave her my Reader’s Digest condensed version of my story. I immediately expected her to put on gloves, but she didn’t, what’s that about I thought once again, I AM HIV+. Isn’t she scared? After checking my glands, my throat, etc. she looked in my chart and said that when I was there back in January for what they thought was strep throat was actually not, the test came back positive for Thrush. Yep, check off another symptom of HIV, check. She ordered lab work, and we are talking like 12 different vials of blood here, but none were HIV related. I WANT TO KNOW MY TCELL AND VIRAL LOAD and I want to know it NOW! She couldn’t order those tests they needed to be ordered by the Infectious Disease Doctor, oh now that is a pleasant name for a doctor……and now I am “infectious” wonderful, just freaking wonderful!

In my haze to make sense of it all, I went home, with my referral in hand to the ID doctor, who by the way I could not call for 48 hours………..48 HOURS? ARE YOU SERIOUS? And started to make some calls, the first, to my brother, who is gay and an HIV/AIDS counselor. He would not take my calls, he would not answer my emails, he just plain would not respond. Let me preface this by saying he knew on Friday that I needed to go for a test and said to call him with the results. I was a woman on a mission, I HAD TO TALK TO MY BROTHER! Who else would know what I needed to do next. After hours of trying to reach him and countless messages, I finally received an email from him………”I am unable to be your support system and can not be there for you emotionally. I suggest you contact a counselor to help you through this.” WHAT THE F@!$R? Okay, now I lost it, BIG TIME. I could not believe that he would say that to me. I was more stunned by his reaction then I was to being told I was HIV+. I had to move on though.

I called my closest friends, not even thinking for a moment that telling them over the phone was not the best idea, but I was handling it so it didn’t seem like a big deal to me. WRONG! Tears and more tears from them put me in a position to now become an educator about HIV. I knew just enough to put them at ease but not enough to convince them I wasn’t going to die. They wanted to see me. They wanted to verify that I was still Lisa and that I looked the same.

By Friday of that same week, I started to not be able to breathe. I mean I could not catch a full breath. I was light headed, dizzy and wasn’t eating. But mostly, I just couldn’t breathe…………..Yep, I thought I had PCP. I mean I had all the same symptoms as my boyfriend. I must have it. I know I have it. So, I called the infectious disease doctor and said if they didn’t see me right now, I was going to camp out in their waiting room. The most WONDERFUL nurse took my call and told me to come right over. Once I arrived she took me right in - no co-payment, no forms, no nothing. She sat me down in a chair in the hall and called the doctor over. He asked me what was going on and I told him I had PCP, I knew it, I was going to die, I couldn’t breathe. He checked my heart rate and it registered at 138, he then took his and it registered at 92. I was dying, that was proof. He sent me down for a chest x-ray and told me to bring it back to him. I got the x-ray and brought it back upstairs where the doctor looked at it and showed me that no, I did not have PCP. My lungs were fine. I was, however, having the mother of all panic attacks. Since I had never had one before, I was like “what?” Yes, he explained that the stress that I was under caused me to have a panic attack, hence not being able to catch my breath, dizzy, etc. He prescribed Xanax. We LOVE Xanax.

That was 11 months ago and the panic attacks are gone. I can’t believe that I’m coming up on a year already. I still have not cried. I truly believe that your mind will not let you experience what it knows you can’t handle at the time. I’m no different now then I was before. I look the same. I mostly act the same. I still have drama in my life. No one is left out. In fact, I’m so convincing that my friends often forget I even have HIV. That can be a curse and blessing all in one. Sometimes I want pity, I want you to feel sorry for me…………then I snap out of it and get on with life. I have only disclosed to my friends and my niece and brother. My other siblings do not know and I will outlive my mother so no use in worrying her. I learned that there has to be a benefit of disclosing so I am much more discerning now that I have some time under my belt.

So far, my health is great. Good numbers, no meds and the doctor says it will be a while before I will have to take them. I have yet to “date”. I miss the intimacy of being with someone, tremendously. I carry around a huge secret and not just everyone is going to understand and accept it.

Today, I go about my everyday life and there are days when I am still shocked to realize I have this virus. But I do. I realize also that there are not a lot of resources out there for HIV positive, heterosexual women. I want to change that; I will change that.

I want to evoke change. I want to change the perception of this virus. I want women to take responsibility for their own sexual well-being. It is my fault that I am infected and no one else’s. It doesn’t matter if my man cheated, was on the down-low, or whatever. It’s my body, my responsibility. I am 42 and have been sexually active since I was 18 and I can count on ONE hand the times I used a condom. All I cared about was not getting pregnant. Amazing that I have never had one STD and now I got the big kahuna.

So here is the deal. My name is Lisa and I am HIV positive. It does not define who I am or what I will become. I’m not a prostitute or an IV drug user. I am professional and well educated. My only crime was to have unprotected sex with the man I love.