I never have really spent much time in a hospital until all this started. I mean I've been HIV poz since 1992 without much hoopla, no related illness, pretty healthy overall. Well healthy is a relative term I guess, I used my body like a type of amusement park ride, and I had a free pass to ride on it over, and over, and over. Being a bartender, a really good one, every night was a party, drinking, drugs, sex, usually in that exact order. Yea, I was a living cliche' and I had my free pass, there was no stopping, why would I want to. I went on doing my thing through my 20's then my 30's, then slowly, probably a much slower rate than other's might have traveled, I began to get less and less satisfaction from the ride, so I pushed and squeezed. drank more drugged more, fucked more. predictably it had to come to an end, I was 36 and sick and tired of the life. Your familiar with the saying, "burning the candle at both ends" well, I had a blow torch working my ends for 17 yrs and the scorch marks were really starting to show.
Lymphoma- large B cell. First time around was November 29th of 06 only 4 treatments in a Chicago hospital..... not to bad really a therapy that goes by the acronym C.H.O.P. Easy really, again that relative thing comes up .The chemo drugs (C.H.O.P.) get pumped into your veins over the course of 2 days, can't really tell anythings going on, you feel pretty normal as it drips in. Of course all of your hair just falls right out, and I do mean all of it. The hair in your nose, the hair on your toes, the hair in your cracks, and if applicable the hair on your back. So from November till late March it went, every three weeks, and as I've said it wasn't so bad for me. I tolerated it really well, no nausea, not a lot of pain, the larger irritation came from the inconvenience, and disruption in my life. I was in the middle of things, I had just moved out of my apartment and stored everything I owned in preparation of an eventual move to Alabama to build my own house. I just took a new job with a long haul trucking company, I mean I was in the thick of busy. All stop, everything, screeching halt, nothing else. I look back now on that introduction to the all stop health crisis and think, humph, that was nothing the real hell was still a whole year off.
