Surely I'm Not An Idiot, But Only Act Like One At Times --I Stopped Taking My Cymbalta Because I Was Getting Low On It

A few weeks ago, I noticed that I was getting low on my Cymbalta medication -used for the nerve damage in my lower legs/feet and hands.  I thought I was to receive this med through the mailing pharmacy set-up by BCAR, but apparently not.  I don't understand why not, since the other drug I take for my neuropathy is prescribed by the specialist.  The specialist will only prescribe medication that pertains to my AIDS/HIV diagnosis; however, since the peripheral neuropathy in my extremities was caused by the virus, they would prescribe the meds for it as well.  Then where is my Cymbalta?   Btw, Cymbalta is also used for major depressive disorders as well as for general anxiety.  My stupid ass has waited for a month on the Cymbalta to arrive , but now I'm pretty sure that it's still at the pharmacy.  Side note -I've gone through five or six doctor/healthcare provider during the last 3 1/2 years.  I'm dizzy!  My stupid ass put off getting a Primary Care Physician because everything was taken care of by all the previous doctors.  Btw, I have a PCP now, but my first appointment is April 16th.   Now, back to the Cymbalta.  A month ago, I stopped taking it regularly without even thinking of the medical consequences -side effects!  A few weeks after stopping I started taking it every other day to make it last until I got the med in the mail (it's not coming), but now must wait till I see my PCP to get a refill.  BUT, my doctor at BCAR should have given me refills.  Idk -but I'm going to BCAR tomorrow to explain my stupid ass & see if I can get half a months worth prescribed to me.  I would just not worry till the 16th, but last week it was noticed by my mom and a few friends that I was acting very depressed -VERY DEPRESSED- so low as well as having MANIC episode after episode.  I don't recall much of it, but I believe my mom and know that she, my friends, and sister were just looking out for me.  Cymbalta only has a half life of 12 hours, which means if you skip a day your body basically goes into shock from lack of the drug.  I was skipping a week here & there, then every other day, which is SO NOT GOOD!  A doctor must wean one off such a drug, with lower a lower dosage and then possibly another drug that is easier to quit without side effects.  So, I was manic, depressed, crying, hating everything -basically I was fucked-up & I did it to myself unintentionally.  Last Friday, I began to take what's left of my the Cymbalta & hopefully I can get BCAR to prescribe me enough to get me through till I see my PCP, OR go ahead and prescribe to me like they were supposed to do anyway, since I use the Cymbalta to treat the nerve damage in my body caused by the HIV virus.  UGH!  I can't believe I let myself decide that I could handle not taking one of my meds (just because I was getting low & waiting for it to arrive in the mail) -I didn't even think about the side effects of coming off a high dosage of Cymbalta.  I'm not an idiot, but apparently enjoy acting like one. 

Disclosure....rejection....disclosure....rejection....disclosure...blah!!!

My HIV positive disclosure and immediate rejection in the form of a sad, pathetic let down that's suppose to make me feel better???  I don't know.  I'm in west Texas, so I've already got the deck stacked against me times two.  Okay, so with each disclosure/rejection (because that's what they've all been so far) it gets easier, but not really.  Easier, in that I don't fill with anger or sadness & I probably won't cry in private about it -so, that's positive, sort of. Ugh! I wish I could say that it hasn't hurt, and that it's getting easier with each disclosure & rejection -I guess it is in a way, but fuck....it's frustrating my dear & I'm getting older. At least I'm trying -I'm not giving-up (although it really appears that way at times, most of the time, because I notice that I stay home most of my hours, days, weeks in a month, shutting myself off from everyone, becoming too comfortable with my solitude, but not really, socializing so much less than I ever had in my life). I'm not sad, but it's sad. I know it will change. I hope it changes soon.   I need a change!  xoxo


So, the above was a response to a dear friend after she had responded to a Facebook status about having had rejection once again after disclosing my HIV positive status because, frankly, I rather get it out of the way -said & done!  Communicate often and with full honesty makes life easier in the long run.   I could have waited to disclose -Yes, waited until the minutes before sex (get em all worked-up and then drop the HIV bomb) because it's pretty much law in one way or another in most states that an HIV positive person must disclose to their sexual partner -which is fucked-up in my opinion because I could give you Hep-C and/or Herpes and not have had to mention it prior to sex and not be criminalized.  However, I have that naughty gay disease of the 1980's and I have the potential to give anyone an excruciating, quick, and painful way to die (not sarcasm).  That's not the case anymore -for example, Me:  I was at death's door with Pneumocystis Carinii Pneumonia 3 and-a-half years ago at the time of my initial diagnosis, spending ten days in the hospital and months recovering afterward; but now, my immune system has rejuvenated, increasing my T-Cells to a low normal amount and I have been undetectable for 2 years.  I'm getting off track a bit....so anyway, I tend to worry & carry anxiety in buckets, so it's easier for me to get it out in the open -out of the way.  I'd hate to get arrested and sent to prison for not disclosing my fucking HIV to a partner or potential partner.  

So, following this sentence, was my Facebook status that sparked the first paragraph above and all thereafter.  


"Another one bites my dust, deciding to, "Not go there" I mean [here] with me because I am HIV Positive. He texts me, "I could never bring myself to do anything sexual with someone who is pos while I'm neg." His prerogative and I accept it; however, he quickly tells me a "story" and by story, I mean made-up, and I let him get away with it. Why bother trying to say anything, but I spout off some statistics, tell him how healthy I am -undetectable- and then I stop myself, ending what could be perceived as me trying to convince him to change his mind. Fuck it, fuck him, & fuck the others that rejected me so, so nicely during the past 2 years. He tells me more about some other guy -his way of telling me that this is our last conversation. No goodbyes, only him repeating the tale of, "this could be the one!" Just rub it in, and rub it in some more. Again, fuck it! I hate this part of my HIV/AIDS diagnosis. I could have not told him, but I worry so had to get it out of the way -said and done! I should really keep quiet until the moment of penetration. Fuck me! No, really, fuck me! Please!"

In 1989, while while visiting my grandmother in Boy River, Minnesota, my father and I took a few days to drive up to Canada, returning to MN south of Thunder Bay so we could once again experience the North Shore. Even though we had done the drive before, it never seemed to get old, even to a 17 year old -my age at the time. I always enjoyed Gooseberry Falls & Split Rock Lighthouse, but this time while having lunch in Grand Marais, if memory serves me right, we noticed the framed posters, photos on the wall and one stuck out -one of The Witch Tree. I immediately become enthralled by it's twisted trunk sprouting from a massive rock along the shore. How could that be? I had to go see it in person. I'm not sure if I asked someone or read it on the poster or what, but my father and I somehow figured out where we had to go to to start looking for this mystical tree. We drove up to Grand Portage and stayed at the Naniboujou Lodge for the night. I remember waking up early and taking a walk along the lake shore at sunrise -it was a chilly July morning, I remember putting on a long sleeve henley. After breakfast, my father and I drove up to the old fort and drove down some road, almost to it's end. We saw one sign, that had no mention of The Witch Tree. I recall thinking at the time how difficult it had taken us to even get to where we were on this search for the tree -this beautiful, intriguing, captivating tree captured on film and printed on posters...one would think that there would have been more interest in seeing this tree and therefore a more clear and defined direction to it, but no. I started walking down a path near the sign on the road and after a few meters the path disappeared; the path I was walking had grown over from lack of usage I assumed. I knew the lake was in front of me so I kept walking till I reached the shore of Lake Superior. Once there, I looked to my right, then to my left, and that's when I saw the tree some meters away. It was magnificent. Soon my father caught-up and we both admired in silence The Witch Tree sprouting from the large lake shore rock. I couldn't believe we had found it. Was it luck, or determination, I don't know -both! After saying a prayer and our farewell, we trotted back through the woods toward the road we came from. We emerged from the trees at a different location, from where we had entered. There I noticed a second sign -it was further down the road and hidden by vegetation. I'm not sure exactly how the words on the sign read, but it mentioned the Native American Tribe and the sacred grounds beyond the road and that only authorized tribe members could walk beyond the sign. It was more than an "oops," to my father and I, but we both agreed that we hadn't disturbed anything and had left the area as we had come upon it. So, we said an apology to the spirits, got in our car, and drove off. Oh, I did take one photograph.

I'm not sure why I haven't blogged more -I feel more comfortable Tweeting about my daily feelings, activities etc than sitting down and writing a blog about how I'm feeling or what I'm up to...idk. Tweeting is easier.  Anyway, I think about writing more here, but I've yet to get into it. I will soon.  I'll let it be known now that I've been busy with my mom -her illness has seemed to override mine. I guess that's life.  I've also been irritable -so fucking irritable lately. My routine has been off and I'm trying to get it back to a normal setting, but it's a struggle. Yep, my life is a struggle. Blah!

RiseUpToHIV: Join the Campaign to trend #HIV #AIDS and #IAC on ...

RiseUpToHIV: Join the Campaign to trend #HIV #AIDS and #IAC on ...: April 26th, 2012 ** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ** Never before has the hashtag #HIV or #AIDS trended on Twitter, not even on World AIDS Da...

A Letter To My HIV

Dear HIV,

I never really knew much about you, except from what I read in a few books and saw in some movies once in a blue moon.  I may have known you indirectly, through a college mentor who knew many who were living with you and who had died because of you, but I didn’t know you directly.  I am an educated person and therefore supposedly knew better than to associate with you, well that’s how I felt.  I felt like I was better than you.  I tried to stay away from you as much as possible throughout my life in and outside the gay community.  Even when I worked for The Resale Shop of Howard Brown Health Center, The Brown Elephant, in Chicago the summers of 1998 and 1999, I still tried to keep you away from me.  Now, I got to know more about you during those two summers at The Brown Elephant and I even met you through a few of my coworkers, but I still tried to keep you away from me.  I could have cared less to know you and hoped that I would never run into you again.  I once decided to get tested for you in 1999 and my tests results came back negative, which was great, because I didn’t know you and decided never to get to know you personally.  In my mind, if I were ever to become positive, I would become a statistic, and I wasn’t about to become a fucking statistic! 

I kept you from my thoughts for many years, never wanting you to penetrate any part of my mind or body.  Little did I know that someday, you would come live with me.All the times I got sick from 2006 to 2010, I had no idea that you were already living in me.  I thought my bouts with sickness were all drug related.  You see, I am a former drug addict and my drug of choice was meth.  I had no idea that by using it, I could make you want to live with me even more, let alone screw up my mind into thinking that I could do anything without repercussion.  You see, I was always careful about practicing safe sex, except for those rare few times when I don’t know what I was thinking.  In my mind, I was still keeping you away from me; I truly believed that you would never ever live with me!

 So, why am I writing to you now –now that I know that you’re currently living within me?  Even now, a year and-a-half later after I found out I had AIDS, I still struggle with what to say about you –what to tell you.  You came into my life at a time when I was struggling to clean myself up and I hated you for making things worse for me.  This is how I found out that you were positively living inside me.  The doctor on call in the ER briskly walked into my room and sat down in a chair next to my bed.  A few seconds later he said, “That test you wanted to know about, well, it’s positive.”  He then stood up, looked at my mother, who was sitting in a chair on the other side of my bed, and walked out of the room.  It all lasted about twenty seconds; the worst twenty seconds of my life.  I’ll be honest, I ranted and raved and cried for an hour trying to explain to myself and to my mother who was sitting with me what it all meant.  I was fucking HIV positive!  I truly believed my life was over and that I may die in the same hospital my father had passed away in a few years earlier.  My thoughts ran to those first images of AIDS patients dying.  My knowledge about you was based on everything I had read about or seen in the movies decades before.  I thought HIV and AIDS was a death sentence.  I whole heartedly admit that I was very naïve about you.  I had kept you out of my thoughts for so long and veered away from anything about you that I still believed that by having you inside me, it meant I was going to die a horrible death sooner than later. 

 You, HIV, had been living with me a very long time –long enough to have almost depleted my immune system.  Later I would find out that my CD4 count was a 2 at diagnosis and my viral load was nearly at one million.  You caused an opportunistic infection to develop in my lungs and it nearly killed me; however, HIV, I somehow got the strength to not give-up.  I fought back, and I’m still fighting back to this day!  I struggle with you daily, but it’s a struggle that I take serious and am willing to fully attack.  You cause aches in my body daily and I take quite a few pills to control the pain and the spread of you within my body.  Some days are harder than others, and sometimes it’s not even evident in my appearance how difficult it is having you live with me.  However, I can tell you that it’s oh so easy for me to hate you.  I fucking hate you HIV!  I hate you more than anything else in the world!  I’m not sure if I’ll ever fully come to terms with having you live inside me, but in order for me to be able to move on and live a full and rewarding rest of my life, I must eventually accept you as a part of me and dump the shame I carry for ever letting you get inside me.  I hope in time that the shame will diminish and that I’ll move closer to an acceptance of you in my life.  I may hate you forever, but I’m in the process of learning to take the hate and turn it into something positive.  I could write on and on about you HIV and how much I wish we had never met. This letter has the possibility of never ending, but I’ll end it with a quote I once read in a magazine many years ago.  I’m not sure who wrote it, but here it goes, “Discard pain, dismiss guilt, dispose garbage and recycle dreams.”

Insincerely,

Mitchell C. Knapp           

My First Time Blogging

Today I decided to start a blog.  I'm not sure how it will be and go, but it's a start for me to share my life with AIDS.  I feel like I need to advocate more for myself as well as others and sharing my experience in a blog is a good beginning.  Hopefully, I'll get in a habit of posting regularly.  More soon.