June 2008 Update

I had my appointment today – CD 4 is 598 and viral load still undetectable. Last time my CD 4 was 627 and VL undetectable. My doctor was happy that the viral load has remained undetectable so long – almost 7 years. My T-cells are at a good level and she is no way concerned because the VL is so good.

My Mini-van is running well. I just had it in for a full service and an inspection so all is good. I did take a trip to Honesdale, PA – about an hour and 10 minutes ride north of the Pocono Mountains. What a nice town!! Small, but busy it seemed with all the downtown shops open and I saw very little ‘For Rent’ signs either. Very clean and picturesque too. I visited friends and we spent a great afternoon in the central city park – fountain and all. It is an amazingly pretty town – definitely a hidden PA gem!

I had a very funny episode with my dad – he’s 82 mind you. Well, about 3 weeks ago we were going out to dinner and I was driving of course. I have On Star on the overhead console which also has a hands-free cell phone – I rarely use driving – eeek! My sister needed to find out where we were going and called the van. This amazed my dad too! I would just talk to my sister in a normal voice, maybe tilting my head up a bit. My father wanted to tease my sister too, but out of the corner of my eye, I could see my dad bent forward, yelling into the door stereo speaker! I thought I was going to lose it to laughter and making it even funnier was my sister asking, ‘what’s he saying?’ Between chuckles I tried to explain to Dad that the speaker for the phone is on the center roof console and not the door. We still laugh – well, my sisters and friends.

Dad was in the hospital about 1 ½ weeks ago for his heart which was acting up, but nothing serious but the night he came home (he was in for 3 days), he asked me if I wanted pizza and wings for dinner with him which made me shake my head and chuckle but then he totally floored me with – did I think he can have a beer? We all had to laugh because he wasn’t even home 24 hours! I told him that I think he should wait.

I have been trying to do more things at home with the price of gas being so high. I keep myself amused by weeding and planting around the yard. I have been kicking around some ideas and if I think it is easy then I’ll bring it up to my sister here.

I did get a hanging basket of tomatoes to try my hand at gardening. Good, so far but I do have a funny story about the female dog here – Shiloh. She thinks any ball is her toy to preface this story. One of the tomato plants got bent from being bumped, so I pinched it off to save part of that plant (there’s 5 in my pot). Unfortunately it had a green tomato maybe as big as a ping pong ball, so I picked it off and threw it into the weeds and Shiloh went looking for it. It was round, right? Hers, then! She played with it for maybe 10 minutes before biting down on it. The look of total disgust was priceless! She kept licking like EWWWW! Even funnier, she would snort and sneeze as if that would help her get rid of the taste!

I am seriously considering a veggie garden next year, but how to do it and where???

I have been trying to spend a couple hours every day, writing. I have been going over my book once again flip-flopping some parts and just going over it. I did send it to numerous agents in hopes of finding a publisher a year ago. I thought before I send it out in another attempt – I am going to revamp it some. So, that should help keep me busy.

My exercises have pretty much remained the same other than the doctor advising to stick with the more low-impact which is probably 90% of my routine anyway.

I had to change AIDS groups because of consolidation. I went to another council so we’ll see if it’s any better – they made a good case and really want me to participate in their support group. I said I would try it but honestly told here that I do not want to hear only whining and negativity. To me it is very different when someone says – this is my problem, what do you all suggest I do?? THAT is having a positive, can-do attitude. I will see how it goes.

I did get a new Jazzy (power chair) from the Scooter Store. It is nice to have the newer model which has a lot of improvements and more amenities like zip!!

My next Update will be in October of this year, so hopefully I will have even more to write about then!!

Ron