Sorry, "Jawsh," but HAART does not "eradicate" HIV. Undetectable ≠ Destroyed. And that's just that. #journalism #writing
I’m HIV-Positive, and I Have No Interest in News About HIV Cures | News | Philadelphia Magazine.
Archive for Health
New skool ignorance [Updated]
I don't even know where to begin.
First of all, this guy (with a Grindr profile photo of some shrubbery!) is 20 years-old! I've been HIV+ since before he was born! I'm not about to be schooled in “proper” HIV+ sex practices by him. Please.
Secondly, Grindr really isn’t the place for this sort of discussion unless we were planning to hook up which we weren’t. His initial message to me arrived out of nowhere. I don’t initiate contact with youngsters, especially anonymous ones.
Finally, my sex life is no one’s business except mine and those I choose to share it with, even though this blog might indicate otherwise. The same goes for my T-Cell count and Viral Load, so STFU, Mary, unless you were invited which you weren’t.
It would be nice if this kind of “sex shaming” would end in the age of PrEP and HAART. I guess there will always be ignorant young people.
FYI: The risk is essentially eliminated, not “huge.”
I guess my problem with this whole episode is not that he’s ignorant of the facts. Most people are, really. It’s that he is so loud about his ignorance and he’s decided to spread it around. I had hoped that, in the five years when I was off the market, things had changed. I guess not.
UPDATE: I sent a link to this blog post to Mr. Shrubbery. He blocked me, of course.
My demise
I used to think that I'd die from Aspiration Pneumonia, since I routinely inhale food. I’m now certain that I'll trip over Ida Nelson and crack my head open on the way down. Then she and Taffy Davenport will eat me when their feeder is empty.
Reverse Peristalsis
Sorry I've been kind of quiet lately. A tiny piece of General Tsao’s Chicken took a liking to my esophagus the other night and refused to leave. It rendered me completely unable to eat or drink even a sip of liquid for about 18 hours. Needless to say, I was a bit cranky and not in the mood to write!
This has happened before but never for longer than a few minutes. I went to the local emergency room after a couple of hours. The attending physician, Dr. Camero, was really great. He was informative, answered all my questions thoroughly and asked if I had more, let me make my own decisions, did not talk down to me and was extremely cute. Unfortunately, he couldn’t really help and I had to wait until the next morning to contact my PC who found a GI specialist to treat me.
They had to do an endoscopy to remove it. They numbed me out (very nice!!) and gave me Merced, a drug which is supposed to make the patient forget the procedure even happened. I’ve been intrigued by that stuff for a long time and was kind of excited about taking it. Unfortunately, it didn’t work on me and I remember every hellish second. Luckily, the procedure itself worked and I can eat again. My fantasies about a future of eating strained peas through a feeding tube are fortunately going to remain unfulfilled for the time being.
Moral: Chew your food thoroughly.
