What's this going to be? A blog? A diary or journal? Just something to force me to write occasionally?
And how public do I want to make this?
Last week I started this blog after finishing The Savage Detectives. I had been thinking of doing this when Ellen was still alive. She loved to write. And then she died so suddenly of an auto-immune disease three months ago. A year younger than I.
Longtime Survivor seems fitting in the title of my blog because those words describe me quite well. I've survived two different types of cancer and (just last year about this time) a broken hip. And most anyone who knows me well at all also knows that I'm a longtime survivor living with HIV. But until now I haven't yet shared this last disclosure with the public at large.
I'm a very open person about a lot of things. I've been open about being gay for almost 40 years now. Why am I more reticent about revealing my HIV status?
It's really been a defining part of my life for almost 20 years. And I think I probably sero-converted about 30 years ago
I never got tested until around the beginning of September 1993. That's when I started having night sweats, shortness of breath and unexplained weight loss. Then I started running fevers and having aches and pains from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. I finally made an appointment at Kaiser because I was finding it hard to commute to my job at Social Security and put in a full day of work. I found a wonderful doctor, Dr. Young, at Kaiser and one of the first things he did was suggest that Noel and I take the HIV test. Thankfully, Noel's test came back negative. But mine was positive and I only had about 60 T-cells.
Because of excruciating pain and constant fever, I reached the point where I could no longer go to work. I was hospitalized and on such strong pain meds that I can't remember a lot of this time. Finally a brilliant older doctor, Dr. Hollander, guessed that the pain and fevers were caused by lymphoma of the bone marrow. A bone marrow biopsy confirmed this diagnosis.
I spent a good part of that fall in the hospital. My prognosis wasn't good. Noel helped enroll me in hospice. Chemotherapy would probably only be a palliative.
My oncologist Dr. Simons was wonderful, but I had a reaction to one of the drugs in my first chemotherapy treatment and my gut shut down for a number of days. Just the night before what could have been a fatal abdominal surgery (already delayed by one day due to the surgeon having a cold) I finally started passing gas again! I was never so happy to fart in my life!
I finally got out of the hospital, sans hair and 30 pounds lighter, just before Thanksgiving. In fact, that was the day I could first eat solid food again.
At this point I have to add that Noel and my family were wonderful through all of this. Noel and I first broke the news of my illness to my sister Rita, who's a nurse practitioner. She helped break the news to the rest of the family. My parents (from Indiana) and my sister Pat (from Arizona) spent a lot of time here when I was in the hospital. And then all seven of my siblings (all from Indiana, except Pat), most of their partners and even one of my nieces were here for Thanksgiving.
As in my first blog entry, I start writing and I go off on a tangent. I also find myself writing late at night on Saturday.
With accumulated leave, I retired on a Disability Retirement in March 1994. A couple of months later I found out that my lymphoma had gone into remission and I was kicked out of hospice. But by this time, I had gotten accustomed to my retirement. My T-cell count would remain low enough for years for a diagnosis of full-blown AIDS. In fact, it still hovers in that neighborhood all these years later. Also, it would be a couple more years before reliable drug cocktails would be made available.
I had joined a support group of about a dozen men with AIDS at Kaiser. Sadly, only two of us survived to the period of the reliable drug cocktails. I truly am a fortunate longtime survivor! Noel and I lost so many friends to this disease in the 80's and the 90's.
Well, it's 2:00 a.m. I should turn in.
The other part of my blog title is Quotidien, which I usually use as my screen name. It's the French version of quotidian or daily, a pun on my last name. By putting this in my blog title, I wonder if this will cause me to write more often? We shall see.
There's always Facebook, e-mail, the weekend New York Times and now I'm simultaneously trying to read Gravity's Rainbow and Ulysses. Plus the rest of life. After 15 years in an office, I love being outdoors on nice days. And I don't have a laptop.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Very short 2nd post
I don't know how this will work out. How does a person find the time for everything? But at least I've started this.
My first blog entry! Ellen and my senior year in college. My move to San Francisco.
Well, let's see how this goes. Here I am, only 8 1/2 months from 60 and I'm finally starting my first blog!
I've been thinking of doing this for a longtime. But I've gotten quite lazy and rusty at writing. I think I may have been a fairly decent writer in school. At least SOME of my teachers thought so. I was a diligent student when I wanted to be. And an avid reader at various points in my life. Very avid the past few years.
As I approach 60..........an age I once thought I would never reach..........I've been thinking how fortunate I am to still be here and wondering just what I have to show for my life.
So one of my goals is: I want to get into the habit of writing more. I've been reading so many good books lately. But I'm so out of the habit of writing, that writing anything more than a short review seems a monumental task.
Another motivation to finally start on this has been the sudden loss, a couple of months ago, of a lifelong friend from college. Ellen loved to write. And she was a very good writer. Of fantasies.
Ellen and I became great friends in college in Bloomington. We both had work-study jobs at the Lilly (rare books) Library there on campus. That's how we met. We hit it off right away. Then we quickly became part of a tight circle of friends. Phil, Ken, Jo, Mike H., Mike B., etc. This all happened my senior year. 1975-'76. That's when Ellen had transferred from Kentucky. That fall semester, Phil, Ken, Dodie (now a well-known writer) another Mike and I shared a ranch house east of campus on Roosevelt St. We called our house Alice, in honor of Teddy's daughter Alice Roosevelt Longworth who was still alive at the time. A few years ago I was tickled to read about our time at Alice in Dodie's published memoir.
Tonight I just finished reading The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolanos. That may be affecting my scattered writing style tonight. I may be in need of an editor already!
Also, how can folks write uninterrupted when they have a cat? Rhetorical question. I'm sure Roxy will figure prominently in this blog.
Dodie and the other Mike moved out of Alice. Phil, Ken and I could no longer afford the rent. We found a great apartment house a half block from campus. Ken's ex, John, and another friend Paul (who was moving to San Francisco) were moving out. Mike H., Ken and Phil and I moved in. Ellen and Jo still lived in a dorm.
I had a boyfriend Bill that senior year. He also moved to San Francisco that winter and then broke up with me by phone.
In the spring I would graduate with a liberal arts BA.......... in French. Don't ask if I can speak French! But my rudimentary college French (in high school I'd only taken Latin and a little German) did come in handy when Noel (my life partner) and I finally visited Paris 20 years after my graduation.
I could have had a double major in history. But I was too lazy (and too busy "coming out") to take the required pro-seminar course that last spring semester. Come to think about it, that would have required WRITING a thesis.
Bloomington was so incestuous. Everyone knew everyone. You wouldn't believe the parties! No wonder I didn't have time for my history pro-seminar!
Anyway, when I got my BA, I had no specific plans and very little money. Phil and Ken also made the 1976 great migration to San Francisco. So I moved into the studio apartment next door, previously occupied by Ken. Ellen and Jo moved into the apartment Phil and I vacated. Mike H. was still downstairs. That late spring, early summer was magical. The stairway leading to our second floor apartments was actually nothing more than a fire escape. Ellen and Jo would bake bread and the 3 of us would hang out on the fire escape and read and talk. Ellen would write fantasies with strong female main characters. And I would read what she was writing.
Ellen was still in school, so she was able to take a special summer job at the Lilly. Jo and Mike H. were taking summer classes. But I could not find a job in that college town! So that bicentennial July, after a brief stop in Valpo my hometown, I was off to San Francisco with 2 suitcases and my remaining savings of $200 in cash. Ah, to be young and brave and 23 again!
That summer was exciting and scary at the same time. My song for that summer was Young Hearts Run Free by Candi Staton. I half expected to reconcile with Bill. But that wasn't to be.
It's midnight. Til next.
I've been thinking of doing this for a longtime. But I've gotten quite lazy and rusty at writing. I think I may have been a fairly decent writer in school. At least SOME of my teachers thought so. I was a diligent student when I wanted to be. And an avid reader at various points in my life. Very avid the past few years.
As I approach 60..........an age I once thought I would never reach..........I've been thinking how fortunate I am to still be here and wondering just what I have to show for my life.
So one of my goals is: I want to get into the habit of writing more. I've been reading so many good books lately. But I'm so out of the habit of writing, that writing anything more than a short review seems a monumental task.
Another motivation to finally start on this has been the sudden loss, a couple of months ago, of a lifelong friend from college. Ellen loved to write. And she was a very good writer. Of fantasies.
Ellen and I became great friends in college in Bloomington. We both had work-study jobs at the Lilly (rare books) Library there on campus. That's how we met. We hit it off right away. Then we quickly became part of a tight circle of friends. Phil, Ken, Jo, Mike H., Mike B., etc. This all happened my senior year. 1975-'76. That's when Ellen had transferred from Kentucky. That fall semester, Phil, Ken, Dodie (now a well-known writer) another Mike and I shared a ranch house east of campus on Roosevelt St. We called our house Alice, in honor of Teddy's daughter Alice Roosevelt Longworth who was still alive at the time. A few years ago I was tickled to read about our time at Alice in Dodie's published memoir.
Tonight I just finished reading The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolanos. That may be affecting my scattered writing style tonight. I may be in need of an editor already!
Also, how can folks write uninterrupted when they have a cat? Rhetorical question. I'm sure Roxy will figure prominently in this blog.
Dodie and the other Mike moved out of Alice. Phil, Ken and I could no longer afford the rent. We found a great apartment house a half block from campus. Ken's ex, John, and another friend Paul (who was moving to San Francisco) were moving out. Mike H., Ken and Phil and I moved in. Ellen and Jo still lived in a dorm.
I had a boyfriend Bill that senior year. He also moved to San Francisco that winter and then broke up with me by phone.
In the spring I would graduate with a liberal arts BA.......... in French. Don't ask if I can speak French! But my rudimentary college French (in high school I'd only taken Latin and a little German) did come in handy when Noel (my life partner) and I finally visited Paris 20 years after my graduation.
I could have had a double major in history. But I was too lazy (and too busy "coming out") to take the required pro-seminar course that last spring semester. Come to think about it, that would have required WRITING a thesis.
Bloomington was so incestuous. Everyone knew everyone. You wouldn't believe the parties! No wonder I didn't have time for my history pro-seminar!
Anyway, when I got my BA, I had no specific plans and very little money. Phil and Ken also made the 1976 great migration to San Francisco. So I moved into the studio apartment next door, previously occupied by Ken. Ellen and Jo moved into the apartment Phil and I vacated. Mike H. was still downstairs. That late spring, early summer was magical. The stairway leading to our second floor apartments was actually nothing more than a fire escape. Ellen and Jo would bake bread and the 3 of us would hang out on the fire escape and read and talk. Ellen would write fantasies with strong female main characters. And I would read what she was writing.
Ellen was still in school, so she was able to take a special summer job at the Lilly. Jo and Mike H. were taking summer classes. But I could not find a job in that college town! So that bicentennial July, after a brief stop in Valpo my hometown, I was off to San Francisco with 2 suitcases and my remaining savings of $200 in cash. Ah, to be young and brave and 23 again!
That summer was exciting and scary at the same time. My song for that summer was Young Hearts Run Free by Candi Staton. I half expected to reconcile with Bill. But that wasn't to be.
It's midnight. Til next.
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