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Positive and Past 50: Words of Wisdom to My Newly Diagnosed Self

From TheBody.com

 6/10 

Mark S. King, 51, Atlanta, Ga.; Diagnosed in 1985

Mark S. King, 51, Atlanta, Ga.; Diagnosed in 1985

I know you're afraid, Mark. OK, since it's 1985, I imagine you're terrified. I remember that terror and I remember how we wondered who would get sick next, when you would die and if your death would look as horrible as the others. You may not believe me, or you may be trying to have the strength to dare to believe me, but you're going to dodge all of this (most of it, anyway). So go see a movie. Call your mom. Try not to stifle your fear with sex, food and drugs. Oh yeah, about the drugs. Here's a real tip: You're going to live, so take better care of yourself. Sleep. Laugh. And when you're standing in line for a movie in 1991, and your date offers to let you try crystal meth, please don't, okay? There. I just saved you a decade of misery of your own design.

Mark S. King is a longtime, outspoken HIV advocate and blogger for TheBody.com. Watch his videos and read his blog, My Fabulous Disease.




This article was provided by TheBody.com.
 
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Reader Comments:

Comment by: Zendemented (Big Island, Hawaii) Sat., Jan. 5, 2013 at 3:46 pm EST
In 1996, at age 55, my doctor suggested yet another HIV test. This time I had numb feet, and thought it might have been diabetes, which I had been developing, being overweight and sedentary. It was positive. How could it be? I'd had at least 4 tests that were negative in the last dozen years. CD4s at 137-go directly to AIDS. Oh, well. Two years left. I spent down and got on welfare (the humiliation) and ready to die. Two years later a new regimen turned my health around. Got a job doing medical transcription for the next 16 years. What is bad is that though my health is okay my finances are in the sewer. I couldn't quit spending money and ran up my cards to a great extent.

The transcription job prolonged my life. I learned a lot of medicine. It didn't pay for beans--doctors are so tight. But it kept me in some sort of discipline.

Now 71 and just got over bad pneumonia that thankfully disclosed my terrible anemia and loss of red blood cells due to lymphoma or AIDS. Down from 275 to 230 and feel okay. Some arthritis, depression, fatigue.

Be careful what you ask for: "Please, God, make this ELISA come out negative." And he did, X 4 false negative.

I never did ask to live forever, and if it were my time, well, I would go. I never pray as I don't think a god out there is ready to listen. As a Buddhist of 53 years I don't believe in prayer, but meditation helps. I say I don't believe in prayer but I did ask for help when ELISA came to call. I also ask for help when the front tire on my BMW motorcycle blew out. Foxhole religion.

It has been very strange and ironic. Just go from day to day with only your nose on your path and don't worry about tomorrow. I was once middle class and now poor as can be. I'd like to get married but John and I both have properties and it would screw up the VA insurance. So, from the first, not one thing is. I only cry for money--my Prius, La Hinayana, needs a new lithium ion battery.
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