{"id":337,"date":"2011-10-28T08:48:50","date_gmt":"2011-10-28T12:48:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/starthan.net\/blog\/?p=337"},"modified":"2011-10-28T08:48:50","modified_gmt":"2011-10-28T12:48:50","slug":"how-we-have-progressed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starthan.net\/wp\/2011\/10\/28\/how-we-have-progressed\/","title":{"rendered":"How We Have Progressed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This blog entry is very lengthy, but I kindly ask <em>ALL<\/em> of my Facebook friends to <strong>PLEASE READ<\/strong>.<br \/>\nMany of you may remember Pedro Zamora. Pedro was on the third season of &#8220;The Real World.&#8221; He contracted HIV which, back in the early 90&#8217;s was a death sentence. His courage was inspirational. Pedro died of AIDS in 1994 but he educated us all. Please take a few minutes to watch this video.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KBZDDqF-nvc?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>James McClarty-Lopes has been living with HIV for over 10 years. He is a chef and an athlete. I can&#8217;t embed his video, but <a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/L4vCO81SEug\" target=\"_blank\">please take a look<\/a>. His attitude and the fact that he is living a very full, <em>healthy<\/em> life is an inspiration.<\/p>\n<p>At the 2011 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.outandequal.org\" target=\"_blank\">Out &amp; Equal Workplace Summit<\/a>, I met two gentlemen who are HIV positive. One has been living with it for 27 years and the other for 25. They are healthy and living good lives.<\/p>\n<p>Today HIV is not a death sentence. It doesn&#8217;t mean you are doomed to get AIDS. It is considered a treatable, chronic disease that is no different than if you were diagnosed with diabetes. We have progressed far. This doesn&#8217;t mean we need to be complacent.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There still is no cure for HIV, those infected will have it for the rest of their life.\u00a0 Remind your friends and family of this fact.<\/li>\n<li>We must continue to raise awareness like we once did.<\/li>\n<li>Tell your friends, whether they be straight, gay or bi to always be safe.<\/li>\n<li>Cross-post this blog entry on Facebook and Twitter. Have them watch the videos.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For many years I had psoriasis and in late May 2011, I finally made an appointment with the dermatologist, but because of being short staffed, they couldn&#8217;t take me until August 10th. I will get back to this in a little bit. In early June 2011 I got what I thought was a very bad gum infection to the point where I had all the symptoms of the flu. For those who know me, I almost never get sick. My school mates might recall that I rarely was absent. On June 6, the day after I walked in the Asbury Park pride parade, I was rushed to the hospital with a 103 degree fever. I was so sick, I had to be in a wheelchair. St. Peters did a great job and got my fever down a few hours later, but I was sick for weeks. Once I recovered, I developed Bell&#8217;s Palsy. Having the right side of your face paralyzed was very frightening. It was like I had a stroke. Eating was physically exhausting for me and whatever I ate, I could not taste. I also had diarrhea and almost no energy. I often went home sick or simply too tired to keep working. The Bell&#8217;s subsided after eleven days and I made a full recovery. The diarrhea continued and I started to have a lot of pain, as if I had a hemorrhoid.<\/p>\n<p>On August 1st I was going to Las Vegas with my friends and I wasn&#8217;t going to let anything stop me from going. I can live with the diarrhea and pain, but I still didn&#8217;t have a normal energy level. A few days before my trip, I noticed that my skin was getting these little dots on it and the big patch of psoriasis on my right calf went almost around my whole leg. I was concerned about what they were, but since I was going to the dermatologist in a few days, it wasn&#8217;t a big deal. The trip was fun, despite the pain and low energy levels. I saw the dermatologist and they said that the breakout all over my body was psoriasis. The treatment for the kind of psoriasis is a drug called Enbrel. The problem with Enbrel is that it weakens your immune system, so I had a battery of tests done. My liver and kidney functions are fine nor do I don&#8217;t have hepatitis, herpes or syphilis. What they didn&#8217;t like was my western blot test. It came back with an inconclusive result. For those that do not know, the western blot checks for HIV. Having a &#8220;balanced&#8221; result as the doctor put it, doesn&#8217;t mean that I have HIV, just that there is some kind of antibody in my immune system. Thinking that I just had a gum infection, this makes sense. My body still had the antibodies from fighting that off. As a precaution, my dermatologist recommended that I see an infectious disease doctor to get a more comprehensive set of tests to check my immune system.<\/p>\n<p>I was an emotional basket case, as my friends and co-workers can attest. For those that are my friends on Facebook, you may recall that I posted some rather cryptic Facebook status messages about tests.\u00a0 I was very scared, thinking that I could die.<\/p>\n<p>I went to the infectious disease doctor and he explained to me that goodness forbid that I am positive, that I <em>won&#8217;t<\/em> die and that it is a treatable disease, no worse than someone having diabetes.\u00a0 It&#8217;s just simply a chronic illness.\u00a0 While this made me feel better, the specter of having HIV still scared me.\u00a0 I thought, what if I did have it?\u00a0 With the layoffs at work, I&#8217;ll never find another job again.\u00a0 No one in my right mind would insure me (I recently found out this is illegal).\u00a0 How would my friends, family and co-workers react?\u00a0 Would I get an &#8220;I told you so&#8221; lecture, will my parents cry?\u00a0 Will my co-workers be afraid to sit near me or have a munchkin or bagel after I did?\u00a0 With the way I was feeling physically, I thought, &#8220;do I not have HIV, but AIDS?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I went for the blood test and for over a week I thought about these things.\u00a0 Thanks to my wonderful best friend and others (but how Neil put up with me will forever be a mystery) , my mind was continuously put at ease.\u00a0 My physical symptoms were not getting much better.\u00a0 I was constantly getting up several times at night to go to the bathroom and the psoriasis continued to spread.\u00a0 Finally it was the day of my appointment.\u00a0 I was mentally prepared to be told that beyond a reasonable doubt that I was HIV positive.<\/p>\n<p>I was right.<\/p>\n<p>The doctor, like pulling off a bandage, told me that I indeed am HIV positive.\u00a0 He then showed me the ten or so tests in which a vast majority said &#8220;positive.&#8221;\u00a0 My heart sank.\u00a0 He then proceeded to explain that it was caught early.\u00a0 He went on to state that my liver and kidneys are all functioning normally.\u00a0 I do not have toxoplasmosis.\u00a0 I do not have any form of hepatitis, syphilis or tuberculosis.\u00a0 He then stated that my viral load is quite low and my CD 4 count is high (that&#8217;s a good thing).\u00a0 He said he sees no reason why my HIV cannot be <em>completely<\/em> suppressed.\u00a0 He put me on a medication called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.atripla.com\" target=\"_blank\">Atripla<\/a>, which are three medicines combined into one.\u00a0 While I may work for Merck, I am thankful to the folks at Bristol-Meyers Squibb and Gilead for making this medication.\u00a0 The worst side effect are a rash and scary dreams, which is why they say to take it at night.<\/p>\n<p>How did my friends, co-workers and family react?\u00a0 One member of the Merck Rainbow Alliance jumped back and looked at me like I was a leper before catching their self (and I wasn&#8217;t surprised by this one person&#8217;s reaction). \u00a0Other than that, my friends, co-workers and family reacted with caring and support.\u00a0 No &#8220;I told you so&#8221; and my co-workers have treated me no differently than they have before.\u00a0 I am also very thankful to have a very supportive boss who has allowed me the great flexibility of time to go see my various doctors.\u00a0 I truly have the best boss in the world with Mike Landsman.<\/p>\n<p>I have been lucky, no scary dreams, just vivid ones that makes sleeping fun.\u00a0 After 2\u00bd weeks taking Atripla, my diarrhea has gone away and thanks to a combination of another drug and lightbox treatments, my psoriasis is slowly fading and the chicken pox-like itching has become only a distant memory.\u00a0 A recent follow-up visit to the doctor reaffirmed my very, very good prognosis with my illness.\u00a0 He thinks that at the rate I am going, my viral load may drop to undetectable levels and that I may even be able to take the immune-whacking Enbrel.\u00a0 There is no reason why I can&#8217;t live to be a very old man.<\/p>\n<p>There you have it, as promised, &#8220;my big announcement.&#8221;\u00a0 If you did read this almost 1,500 word blog posting, I thank you.\u00a0 I want to use my experience with HIV as a lesson.\u00a0 I am very open about it and please, feel free to ask me questions, whether it be on my web site or in the comments section of the Facebook cross-posting and re-post!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This blog entry is very lengthy, but I kindly ask ALL of my Facebook friends to PLEASE READ. Many of you may remember Pedro Zamora. Pedro was on the third season of &#8220;The Real World.&#8221; He contracted HIV which, back in the early 90&#8217;s was a death sentence. His courage was inspirational. Pedro died of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/starthan.net\/wp\/2011\/10\/28\/how-we-have-progressed\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;How We Have Progressed&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,4],"tags":[24,44,59,65,69,71,83,141,149],"class_list":["post-337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-personal","tag-aids","tag-death","tag-family","tag-glbt","tag-health","tag-hiv","tag-life-2","tag-travel","tag-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starthan.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starthan.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starthan.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starthan.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starthan.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starthan.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starthan.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starthan.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starthan.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}