Pt. 2 Falling Down

After my diagnosis the shock had set in and I was lost as to what to do at that stage. I went back to get my final results on December 8th. Miles went through the results and suggested to go to the local intake clinic. I also had second therapy appointment after my intake and they had diagnosed me mildly manic depressive. My soul had taken a dive for the best.

The next day I got a call from Mary Jo with the One 2 One clinic. Mary Jo was one of those people you just don't forget at all. "Hey Michael, this is Mary Jo with One to One. How are you doing? Are you doing ok mentally? Can we see you tomorrow" I reluctantly agreed and figured I may as well get the ball rolling.

I remember sitting in the lobby thinking "Is this what I have to look forward to? Office chairs, the sterile clinic smell, awkward patients in the lobby, horrible magazine (except People, of course)."

"Dr. Wood will see you now Michael"

I didn’t know at the time but Dr, Wood was very renowned for his knowledge and work in the HIV world. The first blood draw was done, and he asked how I was doing and how my health felt. "Shitty, I have these fevers, chills, I feel like my whole body hurts and I hate my blood and can't even jack -off, I feel dirty" Dr. Wood chuckled a bit and said "Michael you know you can't give it to yourself" I started laughing and couldn’t stop. That was my first laughter in over week and it felt good.

Dr. Wood had actually been HIV+ for over 22 years and he was very knowledgeable from a personal and professional experience. He did a physical and touched my body and kept doing that "HMMMM” that makes a patient wonder what is going on. He started asking where exactly it hurt on my body, as he felt all the areas he explained that I had a condition called ARC (AIDS Related Complex) Hearing the words AIDS freaked me out. Dr. Wood assured me it wasn't bad, stating that all the patients who got ARC in the early days are still alive and a lot who didn’t have it passed on. Seeing that it wasn’t a condition most people got we were not sure what that meant for me.

We did preliminary blood work and then he referred me to the HIV office and a an official Dr. devoted to my care. At this stage I had lost 50 pounds, still working 60-70 hour work weeks and pretending my health was just fine. I vented very cryptically in my blogs... to this day those are the hardest things for me to read that I have ever written.

The following month I reverted deep into myself and tried to figure out what to do and how to proceed. I make a major decision to live my life the way I always did and be open about everything... I put myself out there simply because I didn't have any friends who were poz and I severely needed support.

The one lesson I learned sadly though was a lot of people wanted to support me but didn’t know how to and slowly fell away from me as I tried to immerse myself into a world I didn’t know at all. In January my Best Friend Dawn came to visit me. Walking around and trying to be like it was before she had moved to Florida a year earlier she asked me why I didn’t seem the same... That set off a firestorm of emotions and I lost it... "I'm not the same Dawn, I will never be the same and everyone wants me to be the way I was before and it is not possible to be that person again"

That was the first time that someone said ... "OMG I get it , this changed you" ... The next day Dawn walked me to the local HIV support place DUNSHEE HOUSE ... the next week I started in a group that was primarily newly diagnosed guys ... how what a relief that was for me.

The following month my next set of blood work came back ... my CD4 count was 219 and my VL was 207,000. At this stage I had stopped working FT the massive hours were killing me, I was working PT at a local Starbucks and my day consisted of work and then sleeping ... I was still having the fevers and night sweats and the extreme lymphitis. I hadn’t started meds for fear of being on meds the rest of my life.

At this stage it was time to make some major decisions...

To Be Continued....