Michelle's POZ Blog

I thought I would give my blog a rest for a few days. Not that I minded the comments I get, I love those even from the people who disagree with me. Believe it or not, their opinions even help, it gives me another opinion and a chance to sharpen my mind with a good debate.

But this entry is dedicated to the ladies of the AidsMed forum. A great bunch of women who have been through their own personal hell not just due to this virus but other obstacles life has thrown at them and still managed to overcome those obstacles. And living every day one step ahead as well as one day at a time. You are all Queens in my book.

I have my own reasons for loving them the way I do. In getting to know these ladies, I feel like we have bonded for whatever reason even if it was this virus and AidsMed that brought us together. We have our own Ya-Ya Sisterhood going on in the Women's Forum. I will mention some of them because I asked their permission to mention them here. Those who I don't mention, it isn't because I love you any less, it's either because there are so many of you or I didn't get your permission. Just know you are not forgotten or left out. Might I add this list is not in any particular order just as they come to me.

Bettytacy--- You are an inspiration to me in so many ways. You have over come all the obstacles life seemed to have thrown at you. Yet you still go on to improve yourself. Life may have made you a bitch(and I mean that in an endearing way) but you are one bitch I would want to have my back any day of the week.

Goderator Ann- Though I have never heard your voice with my ears, I hear it loud in clear through your blog and what you post in the forums. You have given me the courage to disclose the few times that I have, to be able to talk about hiv, and share the knowledge that I have. It may not be on a large scale as what you do but you have given me my voice. I thank you for that. When I think of you on "The Rock", I see a woman who screams out, "I am woman, hear me roar!!!" I hope to be able to roar one day but for now I just "meow". And it is a welcome change from sitting in silence.

CJC- I have always admired your strength and perserverance. You tend to be a bit quiet but you do what you have to for yourself and your little one.

There are so many more ladies I wish I could mention but for the sake of privacy or not having their permission, I can't give them the props they deserve. There's 2 of you who went out their way to help me when I needed it most. I will never forget what you did to help me and if I can return the favor, all you have to do is ask. Being that I am in the closet the way I am and not any support groups here (that I know of), the ladies of the Forum has been my pillars of strength, wells of knowledge, and most of all the sisters I never had. I love you all and you're all more valuable to me than you know.....Now say it all together girls...."Yaaaaaaaaa Yaaaaaaaaaa".

I guess you could call this entry the conclusion to my other entry, "I miss my friend". If you read that entry then you know about my gay bff(best friend forever). I won't go into his story again, you can reread it. But as of today, I have moved my gay bff in with me and my roomie. I guess now we have a Three's Company thing going on.

He has decided that he needed help getting away from his bf and to stop using crack. For some reason he didn't turn to me for help but a mutual friend of ours. And things kind of fell into place the other day from me just making a phone call to our mutual friend not about my gay bff but just shooting the shit on the phone. The mutual friend pretty much gave me the rundown of how things were going with my bff and before I knew it, I suggested he come stay with me after discussing it with my current roomie. I have been where my bff has been when it comes to the crack and back when I was addicted I didn't have anyone I could turn to for help. Also we have been room mates before so it's not like I don't know what I am getting myself into. More than anything I am just happy to have my friend back.

So now there are three of us, 5 cats and one little dog. None of us related, two of us being poz but we are a family and all we have are each other. What can be more fun than two women and a gay man living together. I swear we should have our own reality show though I am not sure what we would call it. Stay tuned that's for sure!!!!

Since taking in my gay bff, I knew it was coming--- the games by his ex, trying to use any means to mind fuck my friend. I had to even go off on our mutual friend for taking my bff to the hospital to see his ex. I went off on my bff as well. Don't get me wrong, I am a compassionate person and I even feel sorry for the ex but I know the games he plays. When my bff left him one time before and went to stay somewhere else, the ex used me to find out if my bff was at this place. At the time, my bff was but he was so scared to know the ex was with me that I lied and told the ex he wasn't there to protect my friend. That's why when all this started, I was surprised to know that my bff had even gone back to him.

Fast forward to over the weekend. The ex had been in the hospital. He literally got up and left without the hospital knowing at first. The story is he left to go to his trailer because the landlord had let the dogs run out of the yard. It has been said that the trailer was full of feces from the dogs being kept inside and neglected while my bff and his ex were getting high. I don't believe that the ex went to the trailer to get the dogs as he claims. He has sisters with cars, they could've done that for him, I believe he went there to get high. And when he was done, he went back to the hospital which amazed me because I thought when a patient leaves a hospital, it is considered to be A.M.A ( Against Medical Advice) and I figured the hospital wouldn't take him back for insurance reasons. They took him back.

Sunday, we had to endure the ex blowing up the house phone. He was calling just about every thirty minutes. I have caller id so we just let the phone ring. I called my mutual friend who in turn called the ex to told him to stop calling and he had but I knew it wasn't going to be over just like that. And I was right, this morning he called my other room mate's phone, waking her up asking her to put my bff on the phone. She told him no, that we have a rule in the house, which we do, if someone is sleeping, we do not disturb them, we let them sleep. His excuse for wanting to talk to my bff this time was because he wanted the keys to the trailer. Yeah, right. He was just at the trailer for one, so why did he need keys? And if my bff had a set, the ex's sister had them when she came and got the dogs. Remember that was his reason for leaving the hospital in the first place. I recognized the game for what it was. Now I am just waiting to see what his next move is going to be.

For the time being, I am not worried about him showing up on our doorstep because his health is not good at the moment and his car is not working. But even if everything was ok in that regard, I just don't think he would be stupid enough to show up here trying to show his ass. Then in the back of my mind, I am thinking never say never and I have thought out things should that scenario become a reality. Should it become a reality, he will only be given one chance to walk away. I just hope he makes the right decision for his sake not ours.

You can call it a wrap, I am done with my gay bff. I have caught him sneaking to go be with his ex and a few other lies. I told him that he can no longer live with me. I usually can tolerate quite a bit but with his lying I don't feel like I can trust him. What is surprising to me is that I am not pissed about it but more along the lines of being hurt. I actually thought our friendship meant more than his ex or his addiction. Silly me, what was I thinking? More than that, I thought getting his life back in order meant more but he has shown me it doesn't.

When I confronted him a few hours ago, he actually tried to justify it. How do you justify lying? I am just glad that things came to light as soon as they did and not after investing in anything. What I mean by this is that there had been plans on moving into a house. Despite my feelings being hurt by his deceitfulness, I'll just cut him out of my life as I have done countless others who I have tried to help. This too shall pass and my life will go on, lesson learned. As much as I wanted to help my friend, you can't help those who don't want to help themselves.

As they say, "The hits just keep coming." The latest being the severe stomach cramps I have been having for the past three days or how about I was hugging the toilet while everyone else was enjoying having a nice Easter dinner. I usually don't get sick to this extreme, the most that happens to me is the annoyance of my allergies.

As I mentioned, I was sick as a dog on Easter. I am sure I had a temperature but for the life of me I couldn't find the damn thermometer. Besides the temperature, I had real bad headaches which even 800 mg of Ibuprofen couldn't seem to knock out. All I wanted to do and did was sleep. Between the catnaps, I was paying homage to the porcelain goddess, around Tuesday I seem to feel better or so I thought. It was one of those nice days so I actually got up and got out the house. I went to visit a friend and ate dinner there.

By Wednesday the stomach cramps kicked in. I didn't think anything of it at first. I figured maybe it was some gas. But then my stomach kept tightening up and it seem like I felt lumps on the sides of my stomach. That's when I started to get worried and started trying to diagnose myself. I even had the absurd thought that I might be pregnant but then I had to think back and actually wanted to smack myself. It couldn't be possible because the last person I was intimate with was Rico (my loyal fans prolly remember him) and I made sure we had condoms. None broke that I knew of so I ruled out that idea plus I had a depo shot since then. Whew. Ok, so what in the hell could it be?

While on the phone with my gay friend, yeah, we're on speaking terms, he thought that I might have gotten food poisoning from somewhere. I guess that could be possible but before getting stressed I decided to do a search on the symptoms that I was having. Everything from food poisoning to IBS(irritable bowel syndrome) showed up. Oh great, and then I started freaking out. I decided I was just going to try to rough it out. Instead of dwelling on it, I decided to go to the forums.What do I see on the POZ page? The article about salmonella poisoning, well, that started my mind racing so I decided to read the article. Once again, I am freaking out and in a major way. The article was informative though it made me more concerned.It would be just my luck with the latest events going on in my life at the moment that I would likely have food poisoning to add to my list. If so, what did I do to deserve this?

I had a "Spock" moment and decided to think things through logically. I can only deal with the moment and the moment called for me to roll a blunt to calm myself down. And before anyone comments, the good green was given to me earlier in the day for my upset tummy. So, it's use was purely medicinal and not recreational. I didn't spend one little cent.*sticks out tongue at "you know who"*

While being in "Spock" mode and quite blunted, I decided that I am going to give the ER a call when I get up. If the nurse tells me that I need to come then I will. I hate the wait when going to the ER but this pain is not something I can deal with for much longer. One thing I know for sure is that this is definitely not some type of stomach virus. Something is going on and after reading the Poz article, not something I better take lightly. Stay tuned for update.

I never did make it to the ER but I did call a nurse and discussed my symptoms with her. According to her, it sounded as though I did indeed have a touch of food poisoning. Well, if that was a touch, I definitely never want to have full blown food poisoning. When I spoke to her on Saturday, the cramps that I had(which I can only compare the pain to those of labor pains) had subsided. I told her this and she said I had pretty much weathered through the worst of it and that things should get better. I also explained about the lumps I feel on the sides of my stomach which she really didn't have an answer for.

But she was right, on Sunday I was feeling much better than I had on Friday. I actually got out of the bed after being in the fetal position most of the week and cleaned the house. She told me I should try to eat light. After not eating for about 3 days, I scarfed down a steak, fries and some sauerkraut. The only thing I gave birth to was some killer gas. The lumps I only seem to notice when I am full but this still concerns me. I have an appointment with my primary on the seventh of April so I will inform him of what had happened and the lumps to see what he has to say.

I can only hope he doesn't want to schedule me for a bunch of tests. Until then I will try to drink some water and take some colace. Maybe that will make me move something and be the answer to what ails me. I can only pray it will be that simple. But what do I know? I'm not a doctor, I just play one on the internet and I only diagnose myself.