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Vanquishing AIDS: Notes on Ending the Epidemic in America

2008-12-10T18:51:00.002-08:00

Vanquishing AIDS: Notes on Ending the Epidemic in America
by Paul Bellman, MD

Paul Curtis Bellman, MD, is a physician whose private practice in Greenwich Village, New York, has specialized in caring for HIV-positive patients since 1986. Dr. Bellman is a board certified internist and currently an associate attending in the Department of Medicine at St. Vincent’s Manhattan and a senior lecturer in the Department of Immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. He is a 1982 graduate of the New York University School of Medicine and has been involved in the clinical care of HIV-positive people since the epidemic began. Bellman actively participates in clinical research as well as the clinical practice of HIV medicine.

In his victory speech on election night, President-elect Barack Obama said, “If there is anyone who doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of democracy, tonight is your answer. It’s the answer…told by the many…who believed this time must be different because their voices could be that difference. It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled.”

As a doctor who has treated people living with HIV/AIDS since the early ’80s, it is my hope that when Barack Obama is inaugurated, he will add to the above list: “and HIV-positive and HIV-negative people.” Because the time has come for HIV/AIDS to be a nationally recognized epidemic, and it is my great hope that the new administration, led by Barack Obama, will bring a new day of reckoning to our fight against HIV/AIDS in America.

In his speech, Obama claimed that the very act of electing the first African-American president was itself an indicator of change. He said, “It’s the answer that led those who’ve been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put our hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.… It’s been a long time coming but because of tonight, because of what we did on this day, change has come to America.”

Certainly on the occasion of this 20th World AIDS Day, we need a world of change. As the number of people living with HIV globally tops 30 million and as we discovered this year that the HIV infection rate in the United States is 40 percent higher than previously estimated, it is clear that our approaches to preventing HIV are not working optimally. It is my belief that the key to stopping AIDS lies in the destigmatization of people living with HIV—and a key to that lies in illuminating the fact that people on treatment are less infectious than is generally understood.

As a physician who has worked on the front lines of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in New York City since the earliest days, I’ve got some very good news to share. There has been new progress in medical treatment for HIV-positive people. The goals shared by doctors and people living with HIV—for HIV-positive people to have a normal life span and a great quality of life—are increasingly possible.

Recently FDA-approved medications are proving to be highly effective in treating what were previously very difficult to treat drug resistant HIV-positive patients. This development is one of the most important and helpful in HIV treatment since antiretroviral (ARV) therapy was first introduced 20 years ago. It means physicians can now treat almost every HIV-positive person who needs medical care.

In 1996, we experienced the first major breakthrough in treatment: a development known as highly active antiretroviral therapy (or HAART). Using a combination of certain medications (or “cocktails”), we saw dramatic improvement in patients whose lives previously could not have been saved.

However, over the years since, a significant number of patients developed drug resistance to their initial HAART cocktails or certain combinations of medications. To address this, new ARV medications were developed. However these new meds were often reformulations within existing classes of drugs and they were too few and too ineffective against drug-resistant virus to help some patients.

As a result, we have needed either more potent drugs with different mechanisms of interference with viral replication or drugs that remain effective even when some degree of drug resistance has been developed to other drugs in that class.

Fortunately, today, both types of new drugs are available and the results are extraordinary. Even the most difficult-to-treat, multi-drug-resistant patients in my practice are responding to drug cocktails utilizing these new medications. The way some of my sickest patients are rebounding to health reminds me of the days when the lifesaving powers of HAART first became available.

In addition to our improved ability to save the lives of most people living with HIV is the impact that being able to lower people’s viral load can have on our ability to stop the spread of the disease. Attaining an undetectable viral load is an important goal of HIV therapy. This result doesn’t only mean that an HIV-positive person is more effectively treated; it also means he or she is theoretically less contagious. It appears that effective treatment that reduces the viral load of HIV positive patients to undetectable levels for more than six months (and if no other sexually transmitted infections are present) severely limits the chance that HIV might be transmitted through sex from an HIV-positive person to an HIV-negative one.

If this finding is correct, then its proper incorporation into HIV prevention strategies could have an enormous impact in reducing the incidence of new HIV infections. This finding could potentially transform the landscape of the HIV/AIDS epidemic globally in as positive a way as effective treatment has.

The discovery of the strong link between a person’s viral load and his or her level of infectiousness was made by a Swiss governmental commission comprising a team of highly regarded HIV experts led by Bernard Hirschel, MD. He led an investigation about new HIV infections and the conditions under which they occur. Dr. Hirschel found that no new infections were observed in the HIV-negative partners of HIV-positive people when the HIV-positive partner was on effective treatment as measured by an undetectable viral load. It didn’t matter whether the sero-discordant couples practiced safe sex. According to Hirschel, effective treatment of HIV-positive people—and not whether or not they practiced safe sex—was the most reliable means of stopping HIV transmission.

Hirschel advised that his finding applies only to monogamous, sero-discordant couples in which the positive partner has been on fully effective treatment for six months as defined by an undetectable viral load. Furthermore he/she must be fully adherent with his or her treatment. Hirschel urges that strict safe-sex precautions be followed in all other situations. He also acknowledges that his assertion is based exclusively on studies of heterosexual couples and that further study is required to determine whether the same outcomes would be seen in gay couples.

Hirschel’s findings have raised questions about whether effective treatment for HIV could serve as a form of prevention. Prevention strategies based on the notion of effectively treating HIV-positive people to the point that they are noninfectious (or at least minimally infectious) would, of course, have to stress compliance and monogamy. And regardless of whether a “treatment-as-prevention” approach were employed, safe-sex education would remain a cornerstone of HIV prevention efforts as the majority of HIV-positive and negative people do not find themselves in monogamous relationships with someone whose viral load has been immeasurable for six months or more and who has no other sexually transmitted diseases and who is perfectly compliant with his or her treatment regimen.

Still, while perhaps the majority of people might not meet the criteria necessary for being able to forgo safe sex in a serodiscordant heterosexual relationship, I believe it would help people understand the necessity for strict safe-sex precautions in the many situations in which the conditions for non-infectiousness or extremely low infectiousness can not be met. And I believe most people would more cheerfully and consciously be more adherent to their medications if they understood the potential for treatment to bring about a state of sexual non-infectiousness.

Implementing a comprehensive prevention strategy based on Hirschel’s findings would require improved access to testing and effective treatment. People would need to know their HIV status and be comfortable communicating it to potential sexual partners before having sex. And those who are HIV positive would need to be able to access and afford treatment for HIV.

It also requires that public health authorities further evaluate and if appropriate endorse changes in current safe-sex recommendations and then carefully educate the HIV-positive and HIV-negative public about those changes. Current guidelines regarding how to practice safe sex can be found on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website. These guidelines should be strictly followed.

For all of these things to happen—for people to be willing to get tested, get treated and disclose—HIV/AIDS needs to be destigmatized so that people are not afraid to face the disease and ask for support and care if they have it.

Many HIV-positive and negative people, subconsciously fear the transmission of HIV. The very possibility that HIV-positive people may not be infectious (sexually or otherwise) could itself be the foundation to remove the enormous burden of shame, guilt and stigma that HIV-positive people suffer daily.

Destigmatizing HIV/AIDS must be an essential piece of any prevention strategy. A comprehensive public health education campaign should be launched to destigmatize HIV-positive people—and the disease itself. Historically, HIV prevention efforts have been based on safe-sex or abstinence-only messages. This approach has led at best to a stabilization of the HIV infection rate—but it has not succeeded in reducing the number of new infections even though HIV is preventable.

Interestingly, the rate of new HIV infection is climbing most dramatically in communities in which stigma, prejudice and marginalization are particularly intense. It is well known that fear and loathing around HIV in America are barriers that interfere with HIV testing and appropriate medical care and, as a result, drive new infections. Stigma also increases the likelihood that proper HIV care will be delayed until serious medical complications force people into care—sometimes tragically too late.

Imagine the impact on HIV prevention efforts if almost every single HIV-positive person were treated properly for HIV and, as a result, became noninfectious? Imagine if more people at risk for HIV were comfortable getting tested and had access to testing centers and follow-up care? The majority of new cases of HIV are the result of the virus being transmitted from one person to another with neither partner knowing that one partner is HIV positive. Imagine how encouraging it would be for the countless number of people too frightened to be tested or treated to learn how effective HIV treatment has become—and, most important, that the treatment not only saves lives but also dramatically reduces the risk of HIV transmission.

Imagine for a moment the way the HIV community could be healed if it were widely known by everyone—positive or negative—that having the virus does not intrinsically mean that one can sexually transmit HIV.

To date, the CDC has taken a cautionary view of Hirschel’s assertion. The CDC issued a statement that said, “There are no scientific data that the risk of transmission is zero. The CDC underscores its recommendations that all sexually active people with HIV use condoms consistently and correctly with all sex partners.” While this is reasonable, I hope the CDC recognizes the potential significance of rendering the HIV community non-infectious and makes a commitment to further research whether Hirschel is correct and, if so, then quickly integrate his findings into prevention approaches.

Renowned HIV public health experts such as Ronald Stahl, PhD, MPH, and Julio Montaner, MD, FRCPC, FCCP, are talking about prevention strategies based on reducing the community viral load by identifying and treating effectively the greatest portion of HIV-positive people possible (keeping in mind that HIV treatment is not necessarily indicated for every HIV-positive person).

They believe that the more HIV-positive people who are effectively treated within a community, the less likely it is for new HIV transmissions to occur. This is a viable and important approach that does not depend on Hirschel’s assertion being 100 percent true in every instance. There is ample evidence that HIV-positive people with low or undetectable viral loads are at the least much less infectious, if not entirely so, therefore reducing the odds that they will spread the virus, even if they don’t disclose or practice safe sex.

The concept of reducing a community’s viral load in order to reduce transmission is an intriguing concept that already has some scientific support from a study of HIV-positive and negative people in British Columbia. Its more generalized success in other communities and other countries depends upon effectively treating the greatest proportion of HIV-positive people possible.

The World Health Organization (WHO) just published an analysis that suggests that in countries such as South Africa, where the virus is rampant, widespread HIV screening—coupled with immediate treatment for those who test positive—could “rapidly reduce transmission to the point where elimination might be feasible.” A paper recently published in the British Medical Journal The Lancet reported that most HIV-positive South Africans are unaware of their status and that fewer than half of those who should be getting treatment under current guidelines are receiving it. The report claims: “If annual, voluntary HIV testing for everyone 15 [years of age] and older were started immediately and drug treatment initiated for those who tested positive, transmission [rate] would plummet to less than one new case per 1,000 people in less than a decade. Currently, 15 people per 1,000 are newly infected with HIV every year in South Africa.” Implicit in this WHO analysis is the assumption that effectively treated HIV positive people are at least minimally sexually infectious or sexually noninfectious.

There is an important caveat to the approach of “treatment as prevention.” Currently, it is not medically advised that every single HIV-positive person be placed on treatment. Many patients with high CD4 cell counts remain healthy for years—sometimes even for decades—without treatment. It needs to be shown that the communal benefit of earlier treatment in many patients who wouldn’t currently be advised to start treatment under current treatment guidelines outweighs the toxicity of the medications in individual patients.

I believe as we continue to learn more about drug toxicity and how to prevent it and manage it when it occurs, our insight will allow us to explore earlier treatment for more HIV-positive people. That will have the secondary benefit of reducing the community’s viral load and the incidence of people who newly acquire HIV. Some of the new drugs that are helping overcome the problem of drug resistance appear in clinical practice to be less toxic and better tolerated than older drugs.

Drug toxicity is not the only factor that can reduce the number of people on treatment. Poverty, discrimination, lack of resources and inefficient use of health care resources can and do limit our ability to best treat our patients. In addition, as I mentioned before, so does an atmosphere of blame, shame and fear.

I strongly believe that we will see a change in the way people view those living with HIV once the general public understands that HIV-positive people are not intrinsically infectious and that almost every HIV-positive person can be treated effectively and thus be noninfectious or at least minimally infectious. The notion of HIV-positive people being “clean and safe”—in other words, “noninfectious”—can be used as a powerful tool to destigmatize the disease and HIV-positive people once and for all.

Historically, HIV-positive men and women have been marginalized, stigmatized and even actively discriminated against in society. This impedes the ability of HIV-positive women and men to achieve the “dream of our founding fathers” as President-elect Barack Obama so eloquently put it. People living with HIV have experienced misery, social isolation, fear, blame and shame. Although progress has been made in educating the public about HIV/AIDS, ignorant and hurtful ideas persist. I believe that by reviewing and understanding how such outdated and wrong ideas arose historically we can help put them where they belong—in the past.

The first term used to describe HIV/AIDS when it first was recognized in 1980–81 was GRID for Gay-Related Immune Deficiency. At that time it was not yet known how GRID was transmitted, but it was indelibly imprinted in the minds of the American public that it was “gay related.”

Although it seemed early on to be most clearly linked to gay sex, some people were afraid that even coming into casual contact with a gay person might put them at risk. In addition, the link to gay sex itself would prove to be highly prejudicial coming at a time when the American public, due to gay liberation in the late ’60s through the late ’70s, was just awakening to the awareness of our diversity including our many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered members.

Unfortunately, the appearance of GRID in the early ’80s would reinforce negative stereotypes about gay men and gay sex, including but not limited to the idea that sex between men was some how immoral or even that it intrinsically caused GRID.

It was just a short step from that view to the idea that gay men were to blame for the disease itself. In addition, even when the specific cause of GRID was identified and the modes of transmission better understood, the fears of the American public were constantly stoked, leading many to worry that homosexual men would ignite an epidemic of heterosexual AIDS.

Around that time it was realized that GRID did not only occur in gay men. In fact, it was next given a new name or at least a new acronym in the medical profession. It was called “the 4 Hs” or derisively “the 4 H club.” Each of the four Hs stood for a risk group: homosexuals, heroin addicts, Haitians and hemophiliacs. The scarlet letter was an H.

The general public was afraid of people who could be identified as belonging to one of these H groups who were marginalized and discriminated against even before the AIDS epidemic. Simply put “regular” people were terrified they could themselves contract AIDS by associating with these people in the at-risk groups.

In 1984 the HIV virus was identified and the means of transmission was more clearly defined as being sexually transmitted or transmitted by blood contact by a transfusion or a shared needle. A blood test known as an HIV antibody test could tell who had been exposed to the HIV virus. It was widely assumed that exposure to HIV meant that AIDS, if not already present, would soon develop. Regular people were relieved somewhat but were still terrified of associating with HIV-positive people or even people who could be identified as a member of one of the at risk H groups.

Today in America an increasing number of new HIV infections are occurring in another at risk group: women, particularly minority women who lack access to health care and for whom an HIV-positive status is highly stigmatizing. In fact a recent Harris survey (sponsored by the Foundation for AIDS Research, amfAR) of the attitudes of Americans toward HIV-positive women shows a shocking level of ignorance including the idea that HIV-positive women somehow did bad things to become HIV positive. Indeed the ignorant attitudes regarding HIV-positive women today are quite similar to the attitudes towards gay men in the early ’80s.

It is time to correct broadly held misconceptions. For example, the Harris survey also revealed that the majority (86 percent) of the American public believes that HIV-positive women should not have children. More Americans believed that women with schizophrenia or the congenital condition Down’s syndrome were more fit to be mothers than HIV-positive women. In fact HIV-positive women who receive medical care are quite capable of giving birth to healthy children, and they can expect to be capable and healthy mothers who can expect to live to be grandmothers.

It’s time to leave behind these stigmas, prejudices and taboos associated with HIV and replace them with a clear understanding of what it means to be an HIV-positive person in 2008.

With proper medical therapy, HIV-positive people can almost always be prevented from developing AIDS. It is crucial that the public understand that when someone is “HIV-positive” it does not mean he or she has AIDS. AIDS signifies a severe level of immune deficiency that usually only develops today in HIV-positive people who do not get timely and/or proper medical care. The public must understand that AIDS itself can often be effectively treated and that AIDS patients with treatment can usually become healthier HIV-positive people who no longer have AIDS. The public must also understand, however, that some HIV-positive people do have AIDS and that they require ongoing public support and services.

The significant advances we are seeing for people living with HIV should and must continue to translate into better understanding about what it means to be HIV-positive and into better lives for HIV-positive people. Progress in treatment for HIV should inform the way we approach prevention and change the general public’s view about people living with the virus for the better. Progress should also enable HIV-positive men and women to more participate as fully empowered and respected participants in society—in the workplace, in their families and in their love lives. Progress for HIV-positive people is good news for HIV-negative people in our society as well.

Using the term “HIV infected” to describe an HIV-positive person has become be embedded in our language in a way that fosters prejudice and shapes how people think and feel. “Infected” as in “HIV infected” conjures the word “infectious” and that associates to a threat to others and for others a danger to them. Some people in society are still afraid of HIV-positive people, and it is no wonder that when HIV-positive people sense that fear they suffer devastating emotional and life consequences.

Humans are very sensitive to how we are perceived by others and sometimes shut down all together when we sense moral judgment, criticism and fear. We are also sensitive to other’s feelings and often need to protect others from our own truths. As an example, I have observed that some of my HIV-positive patients are afraid to tell family members about their HIV status to protect their loved ones from what they fear will be emotional suffering as a consequence of that disclosure. The result of this sensitivity when it blocks communication is that it, ironically, can increase everyone’s suffering.

People have both a conscious and an unconscious mind. At times, we may seem to be consciously managing to be okay, but inside we may be hurting. It requires a lot of loving support at an individual as well as on community and cultural levels to heal this kind of hurt.

From my vantage point as a physician who is privileged to care for and get to know many HIV-positive men and women, I have observed that a diagnosis of HIV is, for almost every one of my patients, a trauma to their individual psyches and a shock to their souls. It is a shock than can have after shocks, and the trauma caused by hearing you are HIV-positive can compound challenges and traumas that pre-date an HIV diagnosis. Obviously the impact of this trauma differs from person to person.

I have found that the time at which a person was first diagnosed as HIV positive is connected to the impact of that news. HIV-positive people diagnosed before 1996 when HAART first became available are likely to be more impacted by the fear of illness and death than a person diagnosed more recently. Greater knowledge about current advances in HIV treatment also helps considerably. But even well-informed, newly diagnosed HIV-positive people with a prognosis for excellent health can be greatly impacted by the fear of getting sick—perhaps to a greater degree than they might be consciously aware of.

Before HAART, an HIV diagnosis was traumatizing because of its very real and potential devastating consequences of illness and death. When a lack of treatment options meant than a diagnosis of HIV often led to a premature death, even belonging to a high risk group for HIV—even in the absence of a test result—was equally terrifying and traumatizing.

Reducing the trauma of an HIV diagnosis is another key component in our being able to successfully stop AIDS.

Trauma is when it’s so bad that one can’t be present in the experience of it. Coping mechanism such as shutting down emotionally, chronic anxiety and alcohol and drug abuse arise in an attempt to escape its impact. It is highly traumatizing to believe as a consequence of being HIV positive one is at some level a threat to others and for others a danger to them. It’s why social support, individual help and education at an individual and societal level about HIV are so important to heal that wound.

In fact HIV-positive people only place negative people at risk for HIV as a result of specific unsafe sexual practices or a sharing of drug paraphernalia. This most often occurs today as it did 20 years ago due to psychological distress and poor choices made in an atmosphere of fear, stigma and marginalization that inhibits the discussion and disclosure necessary for risk reduction.

I believe what is most of all necessary to prevent new HIV infections is an atmosphere of concern, respect and inclusion that facilitates discussion, disclosure and importantly HIV testing that includes real education and fully informed consent. Many HIV-positive who transmit HIV do not even know that they are HIV positive and/or do not seek the appropriate medical treatment.

Recently a well-known writer on HIV and gay-related issues told me that one of my colleagues, a well-regarded and excellent HIV doctor, told him that when he sees new HIV positive gay patients today he chastises them for not being more careful. If so, I disagree with his approach to the clinical counseling of a newly diagnosed HIV-positive person. My approach would be to be supportive and understanding. Ironically, I have observed that recently infected HIV-positive patients already feel somehow to blame for their HIV diagnosis. My goal is to help them move past the self-blame and shame that can often lead to depression and/or chronic anxiety in newly diagnosed people. But the experience of my patients resonates with the general sentiment in our society as reported by the Harris survey cited earlier.

Our current public health authorities can do more to identify and address stigma as a driving factor in the incidence of new infections and in reducing the quality of life of HIV-positive people. The stigmatization of HIV-positive people comes from the combination of all these wrong ideas—that HIV-positive people did bad things to get infected, are somehow to blame for being HIV positive and threaten to infect other currently HIV negative people.

In this mix of ignorance and fear are misconceptions and prejudices about gay sexuality and sexuality in general. They are part of the American cultural landscape and thus part of the psychological reality conscious and unconscious of HIV-positive and HIV-negative people.

Public health authorities can advantageously use the news that significant progress has been made in HIV treatment and that HIV-positive people on effective treatment may be sexually noninfectious or at the least much less infectious. This could serve as an unprecedented opportunity to educate and re-educate the general public in America and globally about the reality of HIV.

Of note is the fact that 27 years into the global HIV epidemic and 12 years after effective treatment was first available for many HIV positive people neither the CDC nor NIH has completed a study to see whether it is true that HIV-positive people on effective treatment are sexually non infectious.

The NIH has just begun a study designed to determine how immediate treatment for HIV patients with HIV-negative partners affects both the risk of transmission and the health of the HIV-positive partner. The study is scheduled to run through 2014. According to the doctor leading the study, it may provide the clearest answer to the question at the center of debate: Can we treat our way out of the epidemic?

I am glad the NIH is finally conducting this well designed study—something it should have done long ago. But five years seems a long time to answer a question that I believe we should have learned a long time ago. It seems likely that the answer to the question of whether or not we can treat our way out of the epidemic is almost certainly yes. The better and more difficult to answer questions are: Will we treat our way out of the epidemic. And if not, why not? I hope another five years are not wasted until the studies results are available to more aggressively implement a more comprehensive strategy.

Recent research has suggested that some HIV-positive men who consistently have undetectable viral loads in their blood may have detectable virus in their semen. Detectable virus in the semen may indicate that these men are potentially sexually infectious. This would mean that some men who might be considered sexually noninfectious on a blood test may indeed be sexually infectious.

One study reported that 5 percent of men who had undetectable viral loads had detectable virus in their semen at least on one of several occasions measured. Another fascinating study reported that some HIV drugs poorly cross the blood testis barrier and some drugs cross it well. So it may be necessary to be on certain HIV drugs or drug cocktails to eliminate HIV from the semen. It seems to me in any case that while the bar may have to be raised to include an undetectable virus in the semen to declare someone sexually noninfectious the concept remains sound. Similar studies of course need to be performed in women to assess sexual infectiousness.

In my own clinical practice in Greenwich Village, I have seen in the past several years a number of gay men as new patients who had recently tested positive despite attempting to adhere consistently to current safe-sex recommendations. In fact, the only risk factor for a number these individuals, some of whom had never engaged in protected or unprotected anal sex, was unprotected oral sex. Oral sex is categorized as safer sex. It is advised that condoms be used for oral sex, but in practice that safe-sex recommendation is rarely adhered to.

What I found interesting and potentially relevant to the task of preventing new HIV infections is that these individuals who recently tested HIV positive engaging in oral sex rarely if ever inquired about their prospective partner’s HIV status or, if positive, their therapy status. Although it has not been conclusively demonstrated, it is likely that oral sex between an HIV-positive man on fully suppressive ARV therapy indeed carries with it a negligible risk of HIV transmission. It is likely that an HIV-negative man faces a much greater risk with an HIV-positive man either not on treatment at all or not on a fully effective treatment. An HIV-negative man also faces a much greater risk with a man who may self report as HIV negative but who may not have been tested recently enough to know conclusively that he is HIV negative.

There seems to be a “don’t ask, don’t tell” ethos among men who have sex with men (MSM) in New York in which each person is responsible to fend for himself according to his situation and comfort level—which is essentially what current safe-sex recommendations instruct. I believe some of the difficulty that MSM experience in having more frank talk about their health situations and concerns stems from the fears and stigmas that date from the epidemic’s beginning and persist today. A number of my patients have told me this indeed is their own experience.

I believe that if today’s atmosphere encouraged a more frank “do ask, do tell” discussion of HIV in terms of testing and treatment, it would prevent new infections. If for example my patient learned that a prospective partner was HIV positive and not on treatment or not on fully effective treatment or if not tested recently enough to be sure of his or her status then the patient might have avoided unprotected oral sex with that partner and consequently not become HIV positive.

Many public health authorities have suggested that people will misunderstand the idea that HIV people on effective treatment are sexually noninfectious and will relax safe-sex precautions, leading to new infections. I strongly disagree with this approach. It cynically maintains the current atmosphere of misinformation and mistrust even at a scientific public health level in order to “protect” the public from the consequences of the truth. Why not give people real prevention tools that depend on real knowledge of how HIV is transmitted rather than take those tools away from them?

In summary, destigmatizing HIV-positive people is crucial to the tasks of reducing the number of new people becoming HIV positive as well as properly diagnosing and more effectively treating HIV-positive people. Meeting this challenge will help both HIV-positive people and HIV-negative people get better access to treatment and prevention.

Imagine a public health leadership that undertook to truly educate the public about HIV-positive people, including the HIV-positive members of the public. Imagine the benefit for HIV-positive people and the public at large if HIV were destigmatized. Imagine the consequences for the developing world if we could export a true public health understanding about HIV to developing countries along with lifesaving medications!

Let’s develop a public health campaign involving a joint effort of the medical profession, public health officials, government, industry, media, foundations, clergy and, most of all, the community of HIV-positive people to destigmatize HIV in our society and empower HIV-positive people once and for all.

Why No Recent Post?

2007-08-11T17:08:00.000-07:00

Why no recent post you ask? Okay, maybe you didn't ask... but I'll tell you anyway. Guess you could call it... life happened.

Between work, running LifeLine and now shutting down LifeLine, things have just been plain busy. When you spend 8 hours a day on a computer at work (mortgage, truck payment, and food are somewhat critical for one's survival), stop by the thrift store after work to handle client service requests, then come home to do non-profit work on the computer, manage several community websites as a volunteer, and spend some necessary time on my one paid website, the rest of your "free time" is most certainly NOT spent on the computer.

I am currently on a sabbatical from the GLBT community... being rather disappointed in the lack of assistance from the remaining board members of LifeLine. Everyone just walked away and left it up to me to deal with. I've learned some valuable lessons during this time, and am going to work very hard not to repeat them. I hope there are folks who have started work on World AIDS Day 2007 for Salem, but unfortunately I haven't heard about any plans.

Healthwise, had a scare a couple of months back after a lovely outpatient procedure. Some precancerous polyps were removed, and as a result I get to experience a lovely outpatient procedure once a year for the next several years, if not longer. Had a rough time with kidney stones last year, who returned for a reunion 2 weeks ago. As a result of the CT scan, docs found 3 cysts that also had to be dealt with. Every experienced a shot of cortisone? How about 3 shots? Try 6 needles... one to drain, and one for cortisone. You get the picture. Let me tell you... it hurt like a son of a bitch.

Quarterly lab work still is a wonderful thing... zero viral load and CD4s in the 900s. An obvious improvement from 162 back in 1996. Lipoatrophy is holding steady, although I miss my chubby cheeks... both sets! One major concern is how I will handle work, or more accurately, coworkers, if the lipo gets much worse. I will cross that bridge when, or if, needed. Researchers now know that Zerit (d4T) and Retrovir (AZT) cause lipoatrophy due to damage of the mitochondria at the cellular level. I was on Zerit for many years, while before and after Zerit, I was on Retrovir for shorter periods of time. Haven't been on Retrovir for over a year since I asked my doc to switch from Trizivir (Retrovir, Epivir, Abacavir) to Epzicom (Epivir, Abacavir). The trade off was starting Viread (Tenofovir). Current combo is Reyataz (Atazanavir), Viread, and Epzicom, for a total of a four med combo. 3 pills once a day, compared to the 18+ back in the late 90s. I do have one question though... who in the hell makes up med names? Some linguistic freak? Or possibly an English major with a twisted sense of humor?

Hoping to be able to finish some gardenyard projects before the rainy season starts in late October or November. Once it starts, it will rain until January or February. Welcome to the Pacific Northwest...

So there's an update, although it may be considered TMI for some. Take care and peace out!

Two Cows

2006-10-12T20:10:00.000-07:00

DEMOCRATIC
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful.
Barbara Streisand sings for you.

REPUBLICAN
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So?

SOCIALIST
You have two cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

COMMUNIST
You have two cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one, milk the other, and then pours the milk down the drain.

AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one.
You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when one cow drops dead. You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses.
Your stock goes up.

FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
You go to lunch and drink wine.
Life is good.

JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains.
Most are at the top of their class at cow school.

GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour.
Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.

ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows but you don't know where they are.
While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman.
You break for lunch.
Life is good.

RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have some vodka.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You have some more vodka.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.

TALIBAN CORPORATION
You have all the cows in Afghanistan , which are two.
You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts.
You get a $40 million grant from the US government to find alternatives to milk production but use the money to buy weapons.

IRAQI CORPORATION
You have two cows.
They go into hiding.
They send radio tapes of their mooing.

POLISH CORPORATION
You have two bulls.
Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.

BELGIAN CORPORATION
You have one cow.
The cow is schizophrenic.
Sometimes the cow thinks he's French, other times he's Flemish.
The Flemish cow won't share with the French cow.
The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow's milk.
The cow asks permission to be cut in half.
The cow dies happy.

FLORIDA CORPORATION
You have a black cow and a brown cow.
Everyone votes for the best looking one.
Some of the people who actually like the brown one best accidentally vote for the black one.
Some people vote for both.
Some people vote for neither.
Some people can't figure out how to vote at all.
Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which one you think is the best-looking cow.

CALIFORNIA CORPORATION
You have millions of cows.
They make real California cheese.
Only five speak English.
Most are illegals.
Arnold likes the ones with the big udders.

The Four Agreements

2006-06-30T08:59:00.000-07:00

The Four Agreements
don Miguel Ruiz, M.D.

Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, the Four Agreements offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives and our work into a new experience of effectiveness, balance and self supporting behavior. Everything we do is based on agreements we have made. In these
agreements we tell ourselves who we are, what everyone else is, how to act, what is possible and what is impossible. What we have agreed to believe creates what we experience. When these agreements come from fear obstacles develop keeping us from realizing our greatest potential.

BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD
Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

DON'T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.

DON'T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.

Under the Milky Way

2006-06-28T11:41:00.000-07:00

"Under the Milky Way"

The Church

Sometimes when this place gets kind of empty
Sound of their breath fades with the light
I think about the loveless fascination

Under the Milky Way tonight
Lower the curtain down on Memphis
Lower the curtain down all right
I got no time for private consultation
Under the Milky Way tonight

CHORUS:
Wish I knew what you were looking for
Might have known what you would find
Wish I knew what you were looking for
Might have known what you would find

And it's something quite peculiar
Something shimmering and white
Leads you here despite your destination
Under the Milky Way tonight

CHORUS:
Under the Milky way tonight..
Under the Milky Way tonight...

PBS Special - Frontline - The Age of AIDS

2006-05-24T18:59:00.000-07:00

The Age of AIDS

Part 1, Tuesday, May 30, 2006. In Oregon on OPB, Channel 10, 9pm.
Part 2, Wednesday, May 31, 2006. In Oregon on OPB, Channel 10, 9pm.

On the 25th anniversary of the first diagnosed cases of AIDS, FRONTLINE examines one of the worst pandemics the world has ever known in The Age of AIDS, airing Tuesday and Wednesday, May 30 and 31, from 9 to 11 pm ET on PBS (check local listings). After a quarter-century of political denial and social stigma, of stunning scientific breakthroughs, bitter policy battles and inadequate prevention campaigns, HIV/AIDS continues to spread rapidly throughout much of the world. Through interviews with AIDS researchers, world leaders, activists, and patients, FRONTLINE investigates the science, politics, and human cost of this fateful disease and asks: What are the lessons of the past, and what can be done to stop AIDS?

How AIDS Changed America - Newsweek, May 15, 2006 Issue

2006-05-10T18:59:00.000-07:00

How AIDS Changed America
The plague years: It brought out the worst in us at first, but ultimately it brought out the best, and transformed the nation. The story of a disease that left an indelible mark on our history, our culture and our souls.

By David Jefferson
Newsweek

May 15, 2006 issue - Jeanne White-Ginder sits at home, assembling a scrapbook about her son, Ryan. She pastes in newspaper stories about his fight to return to the Indiana middle school that barred him in 1985 for having AIDS. She sorts through photos of Ryan with Elton John, Greg Louganis and others who championed his cause. She organizes mementos from his PBS special, "I Have AIDS: A Teenager's Story." "I just got done with his funeral. Eight pages. That was very hard," says White-Ginder, who buried her 18-year-old son in 1990, five-and-a-half years after he was diagnosed with the disease, which he contracted through a blood product used to treat hemophiliacs. The scrapbook, along with Ryan's bedroom, the way his mother left it when he died, will be part of an exhibit at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis on three children who changed history: Anne Frank. Ruby Bridges. And Ryan White. "He put a face to the epidemic, so people could care about people with AIDS," his mother says.

At a time when the mere threat of avian flu or SARS can set off a coast-to-coast panic-and prompt the federal government to draw up contingency plans and stockpile medicines-it's hard to imagine that the national response to the emergence of AIDS ranged from indifference to
hostility. But that's exactly what happened when gay men in 1981 began dying of a strange array of opportunistic infections. President Ronald Reagan didn't discuss AIDS in a public forum until a press conference four years into the epidemic, by which time more than 12,000 Americans had already died. (He didn't publicly utter the term "AIDS" until 1987.) People with the disease were routinely evicted from their homes, fired from jobs and denied health insurance. Gays were demonized by the extreme right wing: Reagan adviser Pat Buchanan editorialized in 1983, "The poor homosexuals - they have declared war against nature, and now nature is exacting an awful retribution." In much of the rest of the culture, AIDS was simply treated as the punch line to a tasteless joke: "I just heard the Statue of Liberty has AIDS," Bob Hope quipped during the rededication ceremony of the statue in 1986. "Nobody knows if she got it from the mouth of the Hudson or the Staten Island Fairy." Across the river in Manhattan, a generation of young adults was attending more funerals than weddings.

As AIDS made its death march across the nation, killing more Americans than every conflict from World War II through Iraq, it left an indelible mark on our history and culture. It changed so many things in so many ways, from how the media portray homosexuality to how cancer patients deal with their disease. At the same time, AIDS itself changed, from a disease that killed gay men and drug addicts to a global scourge that has decimated the African continent, cut a large swath through black America and infected almost as many women as men worldwide. The death toll to date: 25 million and counting. Through the crucible of AIDS, America was forced to face its fears and prejudices-fears that denied Ryan White a seat in school for a year and a half, prejudices that had customers boycotting restaurants with gay chefs. "At first, a ton of people said that whoever gets AIDS deserves to have AIDS, deserves to literally suffer all the physical pain that the virus carries with it," says Tom Hanks, who won an Oscar for playing a gay lawyer dying of the disease in 1993's "Philadelphia." "But that didn't hold." Watching a generation of gay men wither and die, the nation came to acknowledge the humanity of a community it had mostly ignored and reviled. "AIDS was the great unifier," says Craig Thompson, executive director of AIDS Project Los Angeles and HIV-positive for 25 years.

Without AIDS, and the activism and consciousness-raising that accompanied it, would gay marriage even be up for debate today? Would we be welcoming "Will & Grace" into our living rooms or weeping over "Brokeback Mountain"? Without red ribbons, first worn in 1991 to promote AIDS awareness, would we be donning rubber yellow bracelets to show our support for cancer research? And without the experience of battling AIDS, would scientists have the strategies and technologies to develop the antiviral drugs we'll need to battle microbial killers yet to emerge?

AIDS, of course, did happen. "Don't you dare tell me there's any good news in this," says Larry Kramer, who has been raging against the disease-and those who let it spread unchecked-since it was first identified in 1981. "We should be having a national day of mourning!" True. But as we try to comprehend the carnage, it's impossible not to acknowledge the displays of strength, compassion and, yes, love, that were a direct result of all that pain and loss. Without AIDS, we wouldn't have the degree of patient activism we see today among people with breast cancer, lymphoma, ALS and other life-threatening diseases. It was Kramer, after all, who organized 10,000 frustrated AIDS patients into ACT UP, a street army chanting "Silence equals death" that marched on the White House and shut down Wall Street, demanding more government funding for research and quicker access to drugs that might save lives. "The only thing that makes people fight is fear. That's what we discovered about AIDS activism," Kramer says.

Fear can mobilize, but it can also paralyze-which is what AIDS did when it first appeared. And no one-not the government, not the media, not the gay community itself-reacted fast enough to head off disaster. In the fiscally and socially conservative climate of Reagan's America, politicians were loath to fund research into a new pathogen that was killing mostly gay men and intravenous drug users. "In the first years of AIDS, I imagine we felt like the folks on the rooftops during Katrina, waiting for help," says Dr. Michael Gottlieb, the Los Angeles immunologist credited as the first doctor to recognize the looming epidemic. When epidemiologist Donald Francis of the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta tried to get $30 million in funding for an AIDS-prevention campaign, "it went up to Washington and they said f--- off," says Francis, who quit the CDC soon after, defeated.

"Gay Cancer," as it was referred to at the time, wasn't a story the press wanted to cover-especially since it required a discussion of gay sex. While the media had a field day with Legionnaire's disease, toxic shock syndrome and the Tylenol scare, few outlets paid much attention to the new syndrome, even after scores of people had died. The New York Times ran fewer than a dozen stories about the new killer in 1981 and 1982, almost all of them buried inside the paper. (NEWSWEEK, for that matter, didn't run its first cover story on what "may be the public-health threat of the century" until April 1983.) The Wall Street Journal first reported on the disease only after it had spread to heterosexuals: NEW, OFTEN-FATAL ILLNESS IN HOMOSEXUALS TURNS UP IN WOMEN, HETEROSEXUAL MALES, read the February 1982 headline. Even the gay press missed the story at first: afraid of alarming the community and inflaming antigay forces, editors at the New York Native slapped the headline DISEASE RUMORS LARGELY UNFOUNDED atop the very first press report about the syndrome, which ran May 18, 1981. There were a few notable exceptions, particularly the work of the late Randy Shilts, an openly gay journalist who convinced his editors at the San Francisco Chronicle to let him cover AIDS as a full-time beat: that reporting led to the landmark 1987 book "And the Band Played On," a detailed account of how the nation's failure to take AIDS seriously allowed the disease to spread exponentially in the early '80s.

Many gay men were slow to recognize the time bomb in their midst, even as people around them were being hospitalized with strange, purplish skin cancers and life-threatening pneumonia. Kramer and his friends tried to raise money for research during the 1981 Labor Day weekend in The Pines, a popular gay vacation spot on New York's Fire Island. "When we opened the collection boxes, we could not believe how truly awful the results were," says Kramer. The total? $769.55. "People thought we were a bunch of creeps with our GIVE TO GAY CANCER signs, raining on the parade of Pines' holiday festivities." The denial in some corners of the gay community would continue for years. Many were reluctant to give up the sexual liberation they believed they'd earned: as late as 1984, the community was bitterly debating whether to close San Francisco's gay bathhouses, where men were having unprotected sex with any number of partners in a single night.

With death a constant companion, the gay community sobered up from the party that was the '70s and rose to meet the unprecedented challenge of AIDS. There was no other choice, really: they had been abandoned by the nation, left to fend for themselves. "It's important to remember that there was a time when people did not want to use the same bathroom as a person with AIDS, when cabdrivers didn't want to pick up patients who had the disease, when hospitals put signs on patients' doors that said WARNING. DO NOT ENTER," recalls Marjorie Hill, executive director of Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York. Organizations like GMHC sprang up around the country to provide HIV patients with everything from medical care to counseling to food and housing. "Out of whole cloth, and without experience, we built a healthcare system that was affordable, effective and humane," says Darrel Cummings, chief of staff of the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center. "I can't believe our community did what it did while so many people were dying." Patients took a hands-on approach to managing their disease, learning the intricacies of T-cell counts and grilling their doctors about treatment options. And they shared what they learned with one another. "There's something that a person with a disease can only get from another person with that disease. It's support and information and inspiration," says Sean Strub, who founded the magazine Poz for HIV-positive readers.

It took a movie star to get the rest of the nation's attention. In the summer of 1985, the world learned that Rock Hudson-the romantic leading man who'd been a symbol of American virility-was not only gay, but had full-blown AIDS. "It was a bombshell event," says Gottlieb, who remembers standing on the helipad at UCLA Medical Center, waiting for his celebrity patient to arrive, as news helicopters circled overhead. "For many Americans, it was their first awareness at all of AIDS. This prominent man had been diagnosed, and the image of him looking as sick as he did really stuck." Six years later, basketball legend Magic Johnson announced he was HIV-positive, and the shock waves were even bigger. A straight, healthy-looking superstar athlete had contracted the "gay" disease. "It can happen to anybody, even me, Magic Johnson," the 32-year-old announced to a stunned nation, as he urged Americans to practice safe sex.

Given the tremendous stigma, most well-known public figures with AIDS tried to keep their condition a secret. Actor Brad Davis, the star of "Midnight Express," kept his diagnosis hidden for six years, until he died in 1991. "He assumed, and I think rightly so, that he wouldn't be able to find work," says his widow, Susan Bluestein, a Hollywood casting director. After Davis died, rumors flew that he must have been secretly gay. "That part of the gossip mill was the most hurtful to me and my daughter," says Bluestein, who acknowledges in her book "After Midnight" that her husband was a drug addict and unfaithful-but not gay.

With the disease afflicting so many of their own, celebrities were quick to lend support and raise money. Elizabeth Taylor was among the first, taking her friend Rock Hudson's hand in public, before the TV cameras and the world, to dispel the notion that AIDS was something you could catch through casual contact. Her gesture seems quaint today, but in 1985-when the tabloids were awash with speculation that Hudson could have infected actress Linda Evans by simply kissing her during a love scene in "Dynasty"-Taylor's gesture was revolutionary. She became the celebrity face of the American Foundation for AIDS Research. "I've lost so many friends," Taylor says. "I have so many friends who are HIV-positive and you just wonder how long it's going to be. And it breaks your heart."

Behind the scenes, Hollywood wasn't nearly as progressive as it likes to appear. John Erman recalls the uphill battle getting the 1985 AIDS drama, "An Early Frost," on TV. "The meetings we had with NBC's Standards and Practices [the network's censors] were absolutely medieval," says Erman. One of the censors' demands: that the boyfriend of the main character be portrayed as "a bad guy" for infecting him: "They did not want to show a positive gay relationship," Erman recalls. Ultimately, with the support of the late NBC Entertainment president Brandon Tartikoff, Erman got to make the picture he wanted-though major advertisers refused to buy commercial time during the broadcast. Within a decade, AIDS had changed the face of television. In 1991, "thirtysomething" featured a gay character who'd contracted the disease. And in 1994, on MTV's "The Real World," 23-year-old Pedro Zamora, who died later that same year, taught a generation of young people what it meant to be HIV-positive.

If TV was slow to deal with AIDS, cinema was downright glacial. "Longtime Companion," the first feature film about the disease, didn't make it to the screen until 1990, nine years into the epidemic. "There was a lot of talk before the movie came out about how this was going to hurt my career, the same way there was talk about Heath Ledger in 'Brokeback Mountain'," says Bruce Davison, who received an Oscar nomination for his role. As for "Philadelphia," Hanks is the first to admit "it was late to the game."

Broadway was the major exception when it came to taking on AIDS as subject matter-in part because so many early casualties came from the world of theater. "I remember in 1982 sitting in a restaurant with seven friends of mine. All were gay men either working or looking to work in the theater, and we were talking about AIDS," recalls Tom Viola, executive director of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. "Of those eight guys, four are dead, and two, including myself, are HIV-positive." By the time Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Angels in America" made its Broadway debut in 1993, some 60 plays about the disease had opened in New York. Producer Jeffrey Seller remembers how he was told he "could never do a show on Broadway that's about, quote unquote, AIDS, homosexuality and drug addiction." He's talking about "Rent," which a decade later still draws capacity crowds.

The world of "Rent" is something of an artifact now. Just before it hit Broadway in 1996, scientists introduced the antiretroviral drug cocktails that have gone on to extend the lives of millions of patients with HIV. Since then, the urgency that once surrounded the AIDS fight in the United States has ebbed, as HIV has come to be seen as a chronic, rather than fatal, condition. But the drugs aren't a panacea-despite the fact that many people too young to remember the funerals of the '80s think the new medications have made it safe to be unsafe. "Everywhere I go, I'm meeting young people who've just found out they've been infected, many with drug-resistant strains of the virus," says Cleve Jones, who two decades ago decided to start stitching a quilt to honor a friend who had died of AIDS. That quilt grew to become an iconic patchwork of more than 40,000 panels, each one the size of a grave, handmade by loved ones to honor their dead. Ever-expanding, it was displayed several times in Washington, transforming the National Mall into what Jones had always intended: a colorful cemetery that would force the country to acknowledge the toll of AIDS. "If I'd have known 20 years ago that in 2006 I'd be watching a whole new generation facing this tragedy, I don't think I would have had the strength to continue," says Jones, whose own HIV infection has grown resistant to treatment.

Inner strength is what has allowed people living with HIV to persevere. "They think I'm gonna die. You know what, they better not hold their breath," Ryan White once told his mother. Though given six months to live when he was diagnosed with HIV, Ryan lived five and a half years, long enough to prod a nation into joining the fight against AIDS. When he died in 1990 at the age of 18, Congress named a new comprehensive AIDS funding act after him. But the real tribute to Ryan has been the ongoing efforts of his mother. "I think the hostility around the epidemic is still there. And because of religious and moral issues, it's been really hard to educate people about this disease and be explicit," says White-Ginder, who continues to give speeches about watching her son live and die of AIDS. "We should not still be facing this disease." Sadly, we are.

The Carpenter and his Glasses

2006-03-27T13:54:00.000-08:00

My Mother's father worked as a carpenter. On this particular day, he was
building some crates for the clothes his church was sending to
orphanages in China.

On his way home, he reached into his shirt pocket to find his glasses,
but they were gone. When he mentally replayed his earlier actions, he
realized what had happened; the glasses had slipped out of his pocket
unnoticed and fallen into one of the crates, which he had nailed shut.

His brand new glasses were heading for China!

The Great Depression was at its height and Grandpa had six children. He
had spent $20 for those glasses that very morning He was upset by the
thought of having to buy another pair. "It's not fair," he told God as
he drove home in frustration. "I've been very faithful in giving of my
time and money to your work, and now this."

Months later, the director of the orphanage was on furlough in the
United States He wanted to visit all the churches that supported him in
China, so he came to speak one Sunday at my grandfather's small church
in Chicago.

The missionary began by thanking the people for their faithfulness in
supporting the orphanage.

"But most of all," he said, "I must thank you for the glasses you sent
last year. You see, the Communists had just swept through the orphanage,
destroying everything, including my glasses. I was desperate. Even if I
had the money, there was simply no way of replacing those glasses. Along
with not being able to see well, I experienced headaches every day, so
my coworkers and I were much in prayer about this.

"Then your crates arrived. When my staff removed the covers, they found
a pair of glasses lying on top." The missionary paused long enough to
let his words sink in. Then, still gripped with the wonder of it all, he
continued: "Folks, when I tried on the glasses, it was as though they
had been custom made just for me! I want to thank you for being a part
of that."

The people listened, happy for the miraculous glasses. But the
missionary surely must have confused the church with another, they
thought. There were no glasses on their list of items to be sent
overseas. But sitting quietly in the back, with tears streaming down his
face, an ordinary carpenter realized the Master Carpenter had used him
in an extraordinary way. There are times we want to blame God instead of
thanking him!

I have to remember this in times of trial...

Sharp Kick to the Groin

2006-02-16T13:08:00.000-08:00

Talk about a sharp kick to the groin, or a salted knife in the back... someone whom I thought was a good friend used the term "faggot ass fucker" in describing a relative on a smoke break. Granted the offensive relative sounds like a real piece of work, but it hurt none the less. Thinking back, I don't remember the last time I heard derogatory words used that hit so close to home. In a perfect world, I would have called her on the spot, and gotten an apology. Instead, I let it slide... either due to the fact that I think (thought) of her as a close friend, and there were several folks at our smoke shack. Could also be that I feel like shit from the new meds, and didn't feel like enduring much drama today.

Letter to Dear Abby

2006-02-11T00:09:00.000-08:00

Dear Abby:

I am a crack dealer in New Jersey who has recently been charged with selling to children at a nearby elementary school.

My parents live in a suburb of Philadelphia and one of my sisters, who lives in Bensenville, is married to a porn dealer.

My father and mother have recently been arrested for growing and selling marijuana and are currently dependent on my other two sisters who are prostitutes in Jersey City.

I have two brothers. One is currently serving a non-parole life sentence in Attica for murdering a teenage boy in 1994. The other brother is currently being held in the Wellington Remand Center on charges of neglecting his three children.

I have recently become engaged to marry a former Thai prostitute who lives in the Bronx and, indeed, is still a part-time "working girl" in a brothel. Her time there is limited, however, as we hope to open our own brothel with her as the working manager. I am hoping my two sisters would be interested in joining our team. Although I would prefer them not to prostitute themselves, it would get them off the street, and, hopefully, the heroin.

My problem is this: I love my fiance and look forward to bringing her into the family, and of course, I want to be totally honest with her.

Should I tell her about my cousin who voted for Bush?

Signed,

Worried About My Reputation

I understand...

2005-09-05T19:10:00.000-07:00

All of use have had our hearts picked up and smashed against a wall. All of us have lost family, friends, and loved ones dear to us. All of us have faced unfair, cruel circumstances. And as we go through them feeling and thinking no one has ever endured such pain... no one has ever lived through such hell and sadness, it's very true. No one ever has. No one can enter your head, step into your shoes, and live the tragedy you're living through, not even a person who may have had a similar experience. Too many variables like past experiences, someone's strength of character, someone's backbone (or lack of backbone), and in some cases just plain stubbornness can help one through the deep, dark times.

I think that's why it gets on my nerves and pisses me off so much when people say to me.... "I understand." How in the world can they understand? They aren't me. Many don't have a clue what makes me tick. Hell, some days I don't even know.

What they can understand is that long, twisting, winding road of grieving, mourning, the crawling back to life, and sometimes rough steps forward to continue on. Because that they have been through, in one form or another.

The statement of one day at a time can work some days, while other days it's hour by hour. I think a better term to say is "I sympathize."

Well, it's official

2005-09-01T22:41:00.000-07:00

Work has been crazy and I haven't taken the time to write down some thoughts... I'm now registered at Chemeketa Community College for the Fall 2005 term. Starting off with a "Credit for Prior Learning" course, with the hope of receiving college credits for some of the basics. Winter term I'll start the Financial Accounting series. Considering I have roughly 23 years in accounting, payroll and computers, I should have had my ass back in school long ago. May 2005 marked 27 years since high school graduation. Damn, where did the time go?

In an effort to bring in some extra income, I've been running my own little store at http://www.cafepress.com/domadesign with some fun stuff. And today I signed up to become an independent business owner through Quixtar. Hard to believe all the stuff available through this site. Decent prices too. The address is www.quixtar.com and you'll need my IBO number 4399979 to register as a client for free. I found the XS Energy drinks to be really good. The best part is zero carbs, no sugar and only 8 calories per can. The boost is from the B vitamins and I was rather surprised how well they worked.

It would be nice to be able to pay the truck off early with some extra income. My 2% COLA at work put me in to a higher tax bracket, plus with my deferred comp deduction at a percentage, I actually brought home less. Go figure...

If I Knew

2005-08-28T16:45:00.000-07:00

If I knew it would be the last time that I'd see you fall asleep, I would tuck you in more tightly and pray the Lord your soul to keep.

If I knew it would be the last time that I see you walk out the door, I would give you a hug and kiss and call you back for one more.

If I knew it would be the last time I'd hear your voice lifted up in praise, I would video tape each action and word, so I could play them back day after day.

If I knew it would be the last time, I could spare an extra minute to stop and say "I love you," instead of assuming you would KNOW I do.

If I knew it would be the last time I would be there to share your day, well, I'm sure you'll have so many more, so I can let just this one slip away.

For surely there's always tomorrow to make up for an oversight, and we always get a second chance to make everything just right.

There will always be another day to say "I love you," and certainly there's another chance to say our "Anything I can do?"

But just in case I might be wrong, and today is all I get, I'd like to say how much I love you and I hope we never forget.

Tomorrow is not promised to anyone, young or old alike, and today may be the last chance you get to hold your loved one tight.

So if you're waiting for tomorrow, why not do it today? For if tomorrow never comes, you'll surely regret the day,

That you didn't take that extra time for a smile, a hug, or a kiss that you were too busy to grant someone, what turned out to be their one last wish.

So hold your loved ones close today, and whisper in their ear. Tell them how much you love them and that you'll always hold them dear

Take time to say "I'm sorry," "Please forgive me," "Thank you," or "It's okay." And if tomorrow never comes, you'll have no regrets about today.

Day by day...

2005-08-18T17:38:00.000-07:00

For those of us who live with the reality of HIV, we all live in very different worlds. We can be found in rural villages, conservative small towns, and liberal big cities. Name a suburb anywhere in the world and we will be there. From slums to penthouses, street corners to prisons, we are everywhere.

It's not surprising that it can be hard to truly see eye to eye on things when we are looking, living and speaking from our own perspective. When it comes to the reality of living with this virus, we are the experts of our own experiences and past history. We catch glimpses of how other people live but we can never fully understand anyone else's reality. Even so, there are some basic things that we all have in common and uncertainty is one of them.

One difficult issue of this disease is the way its course reveals itself to us moment by moment, day by day, season to season, and ultimately... blood test to blood test. Some of us are living well with HIV, while others are not so lucky - but none of us can ever be quite sure of where we stand. A manageable infection can turn nasty overnight. We can be at death's door in springtime and doing well by fall. We can pay for our lives one year living happily and enjoying good health, and be without income and destitute the following month.

We exist at the mercy and on the whims of a virus, of doctors and nurses, of politicians and corporations. We never know how someone will react to our unwanted companion. We live with uncertainty every day. While there is no certainty for anyone in this world, those of us with this virus have that uncertainty in sharp focus. It follows us like a shadow, lurking in the corners, always there in the back of our mind.

Whether or not we publicly acknowledge it's existence, it is there. Even the most active, positive-thinking person among us would confess to feeling the cold tendrils of HIV and the uncertain future that is our life. It is the strangle hold of these tendrils that our positive, uplifting thinking helps to keep at bay. Some days, it can be exhausting work just keeping the light on directly overhead so that no shadows may fall, knowing that just beyond the light the tendrils are waiting.

We struggle to find words to adequately describe this life. Manageable. Chronic. Terminal. My personal term is "a severe chronic illness with terminal tendencies". We don't know into which terminology we will fall until it's too late and we are falling, or until we have taken that particular pill, battled an illness or infection, lost that job, or fought through a deep and dark depression. We hope and pray the term manageable applies to us to us personally and have a sense of failure if it does not. We feel failed by the drug companies who promised us mountains, but instead gave us buffalo humps, skinny arms and legs. We feel failed by our own bodies and by each other. We feel failed by the uncertainty of it all.

It is because of this all pervasive uncertainty that I doubt we will ever collectively agree on the terminology to describe our lives with this illness. For myself, I try to balance hope with pragmatism. A pessimistic optimist, if you will.

So, for today anyway, I choose to say that having HIV infection is having a living death sentence. I'm living to the best of my abilities while an uncertain future coils expectantly in the shadows. I hope I can keep the light overhead for a long time to come, but living with the uncertainty is a daily challenge. Yet in some weird way, I feel blessed by it all, for I have learned to live the day, discovered what is truly important, and while on this journey, met folks who have become wonderful friends. God certainly works in mysterious ways... Peace to you.

Nail in the Fence

2005-07-21T21:30:00.000-07:00

There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. His Father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence.

The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence.

Finally the day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper. The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone.

The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said, "You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won't matter how many times you say I'm sorry, the wound is still there. " A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one.

Long time, no type.

2005-07-16T19:58:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a rather busy month. Work has been just plum crazy. Oregon's state government operates on a two year budget cycle, called a biennium. July 1 odd numbered years through June 30 odd numbered years. So July 1, 2005 was the beginning of the "05-07" budget cycle. That also means that June 30 ended the "03-05" biennium. In addition to biennium closing and trying to get all the bills paid properly and all the work associated with that, I was given the task late June to clean up and catch up our 24 different United Parcel Service (UPS) accounts, some of which were 12 weeks behind, and definitely past due. And to continue to handle all my current work. I'm happy to say that when I left work yesterday, I had finished coding the cost centers for all the weekly invoices, scanned them in, and emailed them out for approvals. I am amazed that co-workers allow things to get so far behind. Makes me crazy...

To add to the frustration, our state legislature - the Senate and the House of Representatives - which only meet for roughly 6 months at the end of a closing biennium to pass laws and approve state agency budgets for the next biennium, hasn't even passed a single state budget. Oregon has a Democrat governor, a Democrat-controlled Senate, and a Republican-controlled House of Representatives. The House has taken a second "break", paid of course, and can't even come to the table to try to work things out. The only thing they could agree on was the state fossil, and to pass continuing resolutions so state government could continue to operate. The big problem is that Oregon doesn't have a sales tax, so the only revenue is personal and corporate income taxes, along with user fees like hunting licenses and the like. With the economy as bad as it's been, income tax revenue is down. The major sticking point is school funding, as the state pays for a majority of K-12 funding (kindergarten through 12th grade). Not to mention funding for community colleges and universities. Until they can agree on school funding, they can't pass other budgets because they don't know what's left to spend.

If I thought I'd have a chance, and if I thought it wouldn't make me nuts, I'd actually consider running for office in the House as a Democrat. The reality is that the "good old boy" syndrome in politics and I would not work out. I'd simply call it like I see it, and piss people off. At least I am registered and I do vote. So I can bitch... LOL

My sister Donna has signed the papers for her first place of her own, a nice 2-bedroom condo in a nice complex. I know several folks who live there, and I know she will be happy there. And I'm very proud of her for taking this step. Meeting her there tomorrow morning to walk through and see what needs what.

Very good story...

2005-06-22T19:27:00.000-07:00

This is too funny... there's a lesson in here somewhere...

She spent the first day packing her belongings into boxes, crates and suitcases. On the second day, she had the movers come and collect her things. On the third day, she sat down for the last time at their beautiful dining room table by candlelight, put on some soft background music and feasted on a pound of shrimp, a jar of caviar and a bottle of Chardonnay.

When she had finished, she went into each and every room and deposited a few half-eaten shrimp dipped in caviar, into the hollow of the curtain rods. She then cleaned up the kitchen and left.

When the husband returned with his new girlfriend, all was bliss for the first few days.

Then slowly, the house began to smell. They tried everything - cleaning, mopping and airing the place out.

Vents were checked for dead rodents and carpets were steam cleaned. Air fresheners were hung everywhere. Exterminators were brought in to set off gas canisters, during which time they had to move out for a few days, and in the end they even paid to replace the expensive wool carpeting.

Nothing worked. People stopped coming over to visit. Repairmen refused to work in the house. The maid quit. Finally, they could not take the stench any longer and decided to move.

A month later, even though they had cut their price in half, they could not find a buyer for their stinky house. Word got out and eventually even the local realtors refused to return their calls.

Finally, they had to borrow a huge sum of money from the bank to purchase a new place.

The ex-wife called the man and asked how things were going. He told her the saga of the rotting house. She listened politely and said that she missed her old home terribly, and would her ex be willing to reduce her divorce settlement in exchange for getting the house back. Knowing his ex-wife had no idea how bad the smell was, he agreed on a price that was about 1/10th of what the house had been worth, but only if she were to sign the papers that very day. She agreed and within the hour, his lawyers delivered the paperwork.

A week later, the man and his girlfriend stood smiling as they watched the moving company pack everything to take to their new home... including the curtain rods.

This may be too deep.....

2005-06-11T20:59:00.000-07:00

Fear has many expressions. For some folks, it often manifests as a need to be perfect... the perfect home, perfect children, perfect marriage, and a perfect body; and they usually want to always appear happy and optimistic. At the other end of the spectrum are those who self-sabotage in negative ways. They become delinquent, addicted, irresponsible, neglectful, or sexually promiscuous -- the people society and the religious right ostracizes, particularly when they pick up a disease like HIV. We look down on folks who are in the bar every weekend, or the one whose lives are utter chaos. Somewhere in the middle of these two extremes are folks who are simply indifferent. Unmotivated, uncaring, tuned out from the world… they live each day without hope or purpose: watching hours of TV, wasting endless time on the telephone, or chatting online with strangers. They distract themselves from their fears by vacating -- that is, they self-sabotage by doing nothing at all.

Although the behaviors of the perfectionist, the promiscuous, and the indifferent are contrary, the symptoms all come from the same source: feeling inadequate. Inadequacy drives many people to search for worth and validation. If, as children or young teenagers, they never felt pretty or handsome enough, smart enough, rich enough, tall enough, skinny enough, loved enough, or wanted enough, they may still be carrying that fear deep inside.

Many people will do anything to hide that fear from the world. This is what drives so many to become controlling. I'm reminded of a time, more than 12 years ago… I was devastated by a health diagnosis, and decided to talk to a very good friend. I was an emotional wreck, and broken hearted about my newly apparent shortened life, of which I’d lost complete control. She gently smiled at me and said, "You never had control of it to begin with." My friend spoke such words of wisdom.

The enormity of her words didn’t hit me at first. Over the years, I have realized the magnitude of that simple statement. We really don’t have any control over the final outcome of any situation. No matter how diligent we are, there will always be extenuating circumstances over which we have no control. We’ll never be able to please everybody and make everyone like us. We won’t be able to stop people from gossiping about us if they want to. Folks who talk about others and put others down must be so miserable in their own lives, they resort to mean spiritedness just to feel better about themselves. We can not change our mate, children, parents, or friends. And we’ll certainly never be able to stop natural disasters and diseases, so why do we kid ourselves into thinking that we could actually have control over anything? People are people, not perfect, not even close. I only know of one perfect person, and he gave his life for us a long time ago.

We must let go and choose to exert energy in the only areas that we do have control over: our own attitudes, moods, actions, and energy levels; what we say about others; how we view ourselves; what we put into our mouths; and what we choose to do with our bodies. The beautiful Serenity Prayer is one we should all live by:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

We need to love ourselves for all our frailties and imperfections, because, although things could be better, they could also be much worse; and in order for us to learn and grow, things are meant to be just the way they are for now. We need to love those who love us back in a healthy and giving way, and accept that we don’t always have to be right or perfect, or pretend that we’re happy when we’re not. Having flaws doesn’t mean that we’re flawed… but it does mean that we’re human.

Many of us learned unhealthy attitudes while growing up. If raised by overly strict parents, our lives were focused on following rigid rules. I discovered that by keeping quiet and stuffing my feelings down, my father and stepmother were somewhat appeased -- Dad focused on his beer, and my stepmother on Chivas Regal, Darvon and Librium. If were raised by neglectful parents who were rarely around, folks learned to fend for themselves out of necessity, growing up sooner than they should have had to. Something in the middle must be closer to proper parenting, and raising a healthy, well-adjusted, normal kid.

One way to break the cycle is by cultivating joy. Joy is different from happiness -- joy is something you are -- happiness is something you search for. Happiness comes from external events or experiences; therefore, you have little control over it. In other words, you can have it swept right out from under your feet. Joy can’t be bought or sold, and it absolutely can’t be found in a pound of chocolates or a tub of ice cream or a bottle of bourbon. It doesn’t come from someone telling you that you’re wonderful or beautiful -- it comes from within. It arises when you live in the moment, appreciate the simple things, give thanks for your blessings, and keeping your faith in the bad times. It stems from facing your fears and relinquishing control.

I know all too well how difficult this is to achieve all the time, and I’m sure that even the most serene people must occasionally feel anxious when life throws them a curve ball, but those folks have somehow mastered accepting those things they can’t control or fix. Their internal dialogue continually reinforces that they like who they are, and as long as they stay true to themselves, they’ll always be okay. This is authentic power, and it opens the door to joy. I’m envious of them, for I imagine their lives must have so much more meaning.

I continue to work on self-love -- not looking good for others, making lots of money, or having a perfect body. Self-love comes from acceptance, forgiveness, and faith. It’s having faith that, without question, you alone are enough, you’re worthy of love, and you’ll be fine with whatever comes your way.

Young children have an in-born faith. They don’t question whether things will work out; they know exactly what they want, who they are, and what they like. They never question themselves, and hopefully never doubt their parents love them. Have you ever seen a two-year-old having a temper tantrum? He doesn’t care who’s watching! It’s poor Mom standing in the grocery store who’s embarrassed and worried that people will think she’s a bad mother. Kids know exactly what they think: No one can tell them that their pink polka-dot shirt doesn’t match their blue striped skirt (some adults I know too), and they don’t worry about the designer label inside their jacket or even if their hair is combed. Children haven’t yet learned to deny their feelings or to numb them with one of society’s coping mechanisms. I’ve never heard of a three-year-old who needs a rum and Coke in his bottle to calm his nerves, although sadly I have heard of a parent doing such a thing for their own moment of calm.

The abundance of energy most kids have is natural and normal. They love to move their bodies, running, jumping, swinging, and climbing . . . feeling alive. And they should have that time to do so, as life can be so very short. Instead, our parents taught us to sit in front of the TV for hours and shut up, while they complained about life and adult matters. Children are taught these lessons very young -- and we learned them very well, too. It happened just around the time we began searching for acceptance and approval.

We stopped listening to our bodies and doing what we loved around the time we hit puberty. We were changing and growing into young adults, and the messages we heard from our parents and society were becoming a part our internal dialogue. As we grew, these attitudes intensified, and soon our self-worth was determined by external approval: the size of our bank account, home; or how popular we were. Still, we search for happiness from these things, oblivious to the fact that it can never come from someone or something outside ourselves. We’re constantly tempted by the distractions of the world as we struggle for validation and approval. Being an adolescent is tough enough… I can only imagine all the struggles teenagers and young adults go through these days. My youth was rough enough. More than 20 years later, society norms have changed dramatically.

Feeling the pain or stress of difficult times can be very hard, but it’s the most important lesson you can learn and a lesson I continue to study and work through. Of course, it’s easier said than done, but you have to accept that tough times are a part of life. Everybody’s on a roller-coaster ride, hoping to be up more than down. So know that every time you overcome your natural desire to reach for a coping mechanism such as cigarettes, alcohol, drugs or food, you become stronger in all ways: emotionally, physically, and mentally. Each time you discover why you’re responding defensively, sensitively, or aggressively, you’ll find yourself spending less and less time in the valleys, because you’ve learned how to pick yourself up and listen to your body’s true needs. You’ll respect and nurture yourself with love, refusing to find comfort with artificial means. Very soon, you’ll climb those mountains of life faster and easier, and you’ll realize that those bad habits no longer have a hold over you.

Question of the day...

2005-06-11T16:43:00.000-07:00

Is Don obsessive-compulsive, anal-retentive, or just very thorough?

obsessive compulsive: [ ob sés sív kòm pul sív ] psychiatric condition of compulsive behavior: a psychiatric disorder characterized by obsessive thoughts and compulsive behavior, for example, continual washing of the hands prompted by a feeling of uncleanliness.

nope...

anal-retentive: [ áyn'l ri téntiv ] obsessively self-controlled; in Freudian theory, relating to adult personality traits, for example, obsessive neatness, stubbornness, and frugality, that are considered to have originated during or be characteristic of the anal stage of development.

getting closer... although I'm to sure about that "Freudian anal stage of development" part.

thorough: [ thúr ro ] extremely careful: extremely careful and accurate in doing something; done fully: complete in every detail and carried out with care; absolute: that is so to the fullest extent or in the truest sense of the word.

Is the Pope Catholic?

I think growing up in a military family with very controlling alcoholic parents got me to where I am today. The following statements are a good picture of me at times...

- Perfectionistic, driven, rarely satisfied
- Intimidated or easily angered around controlling people
- Lost in relationships by automatically putting others' needs first
- Hard to relax, laugh or be spontaneous
- Trouble finding a spiritual belief that feels right
- Expect others to hurt, judge, or take advantage
- Harsh "inner critics"
- Trouble asserting or feeling proud of accomplishments

So my life journey continues with education, working through those childhood issues, and making sense of who I am. And finding comfort and peace in who I am, and what I can contribute.

Day from hell...

2005-06-09T17:28:00.000-07:00

Well my lack of sleep finally caught up with me... having stopped smoking for 14 days, and then having a backslide really fucked up my sleep. I laid down to go to sleep at 10pm last night, finally got up around 11pm and loaded the dishwasher. Went back to bed and started a meditation CD with nice, calming music. Listened to the hour long CD and still no sleep. Still awake at 3am.

Got up, and went out on the patio so the dogs could go potty. Laid back down and finally got to sleep. Ended up going in to work late. I barely remember calling in at 7:30.

Once I got to work, I called and left a message with my doctor's office. They called back and will phone in a prescription, so I'll pick it up after the board meeting. Supposed to help me sleep. God, I hope so. I feel like shit. And quitting smoking is supposed to make you feel better and be more healthy?

Loving Someone... Rules to Live By

2005-06-07T17:46:00.000-07:00

Loving someone is no guarantee that one day that person won't leave. There is no choice in the matter. You must give your love freely, and without strings attached. If you go toward people always asking for guarantees or protection, you will make them feel that you don't trust them. In turn, they won't trust you. It's a vicious cycle, and the only way out is through giving your heart unconditionally.

The Eight Beatitudes

2005-06-03T20:53:00.000-07:00

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall posses the land.
Blessed are they who mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5, verses 3-10

What's too bad is that the current leadership in Washington, DC, seems to have forgotten parts of the Bible they like to thump so often...

Talk about hitting a brick wall...

2005-06-02T21:34:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a struggle without cigs... today was the worst day yet. Considering I didn't get to sleep until after 2:30am and the alarm went off at 6:30am, it's been a day from hell. After spending over an hour on the phone this morning trying to see if I could get some help from either Regence Blue Cross, the benefit board, or the Stop Smoking Line, I was told that after two weeks, nicotine patches would make me sick to my stomach. Great, f-ing great. Meanwhile, I'm turning into the mean, nasty troll (no pun or truth intended) that lives down the hall. Talk about feeling like shit. So far, I've been able to maintain and not freak out on anyone... but I can feel it coming. The first dumb ass biyatch that walks into the office and says something stupid will get more than an ear full.

F U D G E ! as my stepmonster used to say...

instead of saying fuck. I need a back rub, a soak in a hot tub, and no more food. Time for sleep... I hope. Peace!

Back to work, and what a day...

2005-05-31T20:50:00.000-07:00

I only had 189 emails to go through this morning, made worse by the fact that an IS guy reloaded my computer last Wednesday - while I was on vacation - and clobbered my work computer. These guys make a lot more money than I do, yet many folks at work think of the "Help Desk" as the "helpless desk". State bureaucracy at its finest. Thankfully, a different IS guy had backed up my computer, prior to the other IS guy reloading my computer.

So BIG THANKS to Tom!

It took 30 minutes to restore the hard drive after lunch, so I spent most of the afternoon sorting through my in box and through the emails. Today for the first time, however, I really missed my cigarettes. 12 days later, and with the computer mess and issues at work, I sure needed a cig. I started a walk this morning on break, and had gotten halfway down the sidewalk when I realized how hard it was raining, and the fact that my umbrella wasn't going to work. So I went back inside with a soaked sleeve. Damn Oregon anyway. And dam cigarettes too.

It was amusing to see the aftermath of the games played while I was on vacation by co-workers and the like. Like waiting until my first day off to raise a ruckus looking for a special check request, only to discover that it hadn't been faxed in the first place. Another co-worker tried to strong-arm my online security contact at our office supply company to no avail. The lovely thing about email... there is that trail to follow, and emails don't lie. But it does bum me out to realize that folks will stab you in the back the minute they don't think you're watching, or think you won't see what happens. Actually, it does more than bum me out... makes me a little sad.

It is somewhat amusing, although not at this moment, to realize that most of my friends at work are smokers. Which makes sense... birds of a feather flock together and all that crap. Most of the folks in accounting do smoke... which speaks volumes on workload issues and not having enough staff. And that many folks are pretty much stressed out a majority of the time. So I sit and wonder and try to make excuses and come up with reasons why I should smoke, none of which will hold water.

Thursday, June 2nd will be 2 weeks... 14 days... 336 hours... 20,160 minutes... 1,209,600 seconds... since the last cigarette. Actually, the last cigarette was roughly 11:30 something Thursday night, May 19th. Well shit, remembering that didn't help at all. Time for food.

Memorial Day and the end of vacation

2005-05-30T20:03:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe vacation is over, and it's back to work tomorrow. The weather has been great... everything from record heat to rain showers. Still lots of work to do in the yard, but at least I made some headway. The house is another matter... lots of work to do inside, like the main bathroom... still not sure how I should fix the wall in there. The front of the house (north side) needs a good cleaning, so I need to either buy a pressure washer, or at least go rent one.

Day 11 with no cigarettes. Being off work was the way to do it, although it will be a challenge tomorrow to make it through the day. Hopefully it will be a quiet day. I can only imagine how many emails I have to wade through.

The reality is that I really do have it made, compared to other folks I know. I just wish I could get that thought through my head and into my heart. Believe it. Know it to be true. And move on. Get on with life. And make a difference.

Day 7 and all is well

2005-05-26T12:40:00.000-07:00

Wow, I've made it to day 7 and already noticing a difference. Taste and smell has returned, but I really need to keep an eye on the appetite. Ravenous would be an accurate word to describe my food intake.

Apparently, ants love hoyas also. I have two Hoya carnosas in my south-facing window over the kitchen sink. One is all green, and the other has variegated leaves of green and cream, with the new leaves a light pink in color. The all green hoya has been blooming non stop since February, due to our warm and sunny dry winter. Also known as the porcelain or wax flower plant, the tiny flowers look like they're made out of wax, and smell wonderful. During the last week, however, sugar ants decided that they also like hoya blooms, so I'm gonna have to figure something out. The all green one has just taken off, and had literally grown in back of the oak kitchen cabinets... I pulled out multiple runners at least two - three feet long. Currently have five rooted in water ready to plant, not the mention the four I've already given away. And it's obviously time to cut back more of the runners. Hoyas are from the South Pacific from Northern Australia to China.

I also propagate Streptocarpus gardenii to share with friends. Also known as the Cape Primrose, the species is from South Africa. The variety pictured is Daisy Jane.

And you thought this would be an interesting read...

2005-05-24T18:46:00.000-07:00

Beautiful day today... sunny, breezy, and currently 72 degrees. Front yard is mowed, and now taking a break to feed the animals. Not sure if it's psychological or physiological, but it seemed easier to mow the yard today. Could it be that after only 5 days of no cigarettes, this old body of mine is already reaping the benefits? That would sure be cool.

The weather forecast keeps improving with even warmer temperatures for tomorrow and now lasting through Friday. Weekend is now iffy with a chance of rain and temps in the 70s, but of course, this is a holiday weekend... Memorial Day. This is, after all, Oregon. Pick a summer holiday, and it will rain. Guaranteed. Such is life in Oregon.

Tuesday Afternoon...

2005-05-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

Well, here it is Tuesday, day 5 of no cigs and doing reasonably well. Took the Mazda to the mocha drive-through this morning, and of course the ashtray was full of dead cigarette butts.

Note to Don... clean car before taking it for a ride again.

Just beautiful weather this week... the weather forecast improves each day... tomorrow in the 80s and Thursday close to 90. Thankfully, when it gets warm in western Oregon, the humidity is always really low. The next two days will be perfect for laying out in the backyard with the sounds of ocean waves crashing on the shore courtesy an ocean sounds CD. I better get to mowing the front yard.

Monday, Monday...

2005-05-23T20:00:00.000-07:00

A beautiful but cool day today, with the weather really improving. Opened all the windows to air the house out. I seemed to have lucked out on taking this week for vacation. Last week we had mostly rain, this week sunny with highs expected in the 80s by the end of the week. Gosh, I love the sunshine. I bought one of those nice chaise lounges... the kind hotels and apartment complexes have. Costco had them on sale, so I had to get one for the patio. Looking forward to using it later this week.

Day 4 of no cigs and I'm actually feeling better. The headache seems to come and go... must be all the extra oxygen I'm getting. Definitely seeing my appetite increase, so some work in the yard tomorrow will be a good thing. And already seeing the benefit of the teeth whitening. I wear the tray at night... I barely remember a really bizarre dream last night about the tray and having a cigarette. No idea what happened.

There's the microwave, so din-din is ready. Later on...

Day 2 1/2

2005-05-22T13:50:00.000-07:00

So far, so good, except for the rotten headache that's going on. I slept in yesterday, then met with Rebecca at Noon. On the way home, I stopped at Buster's, the new BBQ place for lunch on south Commercial. They say they're Texas-style BBQ. Well, I know Texas-style BBQ, and Buster's isn't... just another wanna be. Hell, they don't even have sweet tea. When I got home, I laid down for a nap and slept until 8pm.

I understand why folks gain weight when they quit smoking. After a good meal, a cigarette is like the final touch. A signal that you've finished eating. I could start eating now and not stop until later. That trip through the Sizzler's salad bar is sounding better by the minute. Maybe a nap is just the right thing for now.

Come What May

2005-05-21T01:10:00.000-07:00

It's 12:30 in the freaking morning and I can't sleep so I'll write instead. The mad ramblings of a nicotine-deprived person. Now 25 hours since the last cigarette. Already took 2 Benadryl, thinking they would make me sleepy. Now, if anything, I'm feeling a little stoned, or at the very least, somewhat elevated off the floor. If I was a drinking man, I'd make a Spanish Coffee which would do the trick... but then I'd want a damn cigarette! So I'll just keep writing.

You may have noticed that I upgraded to a regular blog. I started off doing the blog in Notepad and coding the HTML, but I found this cool software that lets you blog on your own page. I can actually send an email to a particular address and it gets posted automatically. Pretty cool stuff. So far it's been free, so I'm not sure what the catch is... nothing in this world comes without a price. Blogger was purchase by Google, so maybe it's just something cool Google is supporting.

Okay, it's time for sleep.

4 Hours later...

2005-05-20T20:30:00.000-07:00

God, I want a cigarette. My brain is telling me to just have one, and that's all.

ut-sha up-a, ain-bra

It's either a cigarette or a 1/2 gallon of lactose-free ice cream, which will still put me in the john for most of the night. Must be all the sugar. Maybe I can just sleep through all of this. Maybe I should go for a walk, and take the dogs along with. Later...

So far, so good...

2005-05-20T16:38:00.000-07:00

Here it is at 4:30pm and no cigarettes today. I've stayed busy today, at least as much as possible, and am doing alright. I would love a couple of trips through a Sizzler's food bar, followed by 2 or 3 deserts.

Met my wonderful friend Judy, aka Momma-san, for coffee this morning. She and I used to work together... twice... and has been a wonderful friend. She retired from state service a couple of years ago, and now lives in Boise. It was great to see her, and I got a couple of pictures of us together. Since my new truck was from California, I then went to the Oregon DMV so they could inspect the VIN number. That took all of 5 minutes. Then a stop by Subway, followed by a trip to the dentist to start the teeth whitening process. Now I'm sitting here at home, waiting to meet my sister and our friend Dian Lewis with Coldwell Banker, for a walk through of Donna's new condo. Weather has been weird today, as we've had a couple of hellacious thunderstorms roll through. Looking forward to warmer sunny weather beginning tomorrow through most of next week.

The countdown is now...

2005-05-19T23:38:00.000-07:00

Well, I have one more cigarette left in my pack... and the anxiety has already arrived. The fear of waking up tomorrow morning and not being able to reach for that "wake me up" smoke is really making me a little nuts.

Well, make that no cigarettes left in my pack. Lord, give me strength. Deep breathing, bubble gum, and lots of low calorie snacks are just gonna have to work. I'm heading to bed before I get in the truck and drive to the store. Peace!

Go Live in 2005!

2005-05-18T21:30:00.000-07:00

Today was the "go live" day for our contracts and purchasing folks... thankfully, it went very well. We're definately running it right down to the wire, as all users must be moved over to the new version by June 30th. I look forward to the day when we can just do our work and see how the new system runs. I'm still working in the old system for some parts of my job, but that too will be moved over. I'm looking forward to some system testing next month, after vacation is over.

When I started in accounting, I had to learn both systems. The older version, aka "green screens", was mainframe based, while the update is client server based, and uses internet screens and java scripting to operate. There have been some fun times, betwen the JAS server gagging, folks not wanting to get with the program and learn and use the new system, plus some good ol fashioned generalized bitchin about change.

Counting down the hours....

2005-05-17T21:00:00.000-07:00

And the countdown is on... both for my vacation and stopping smoking. Already removed all the ashtrays and now only smoke outside. I was smoking not quite a pack a day. One reward is Friday afternoon, when I go back to the dentist to start the teeth whitening process. I look at it as both a reward and insurance... a reward in being a good thing to have nice pearly whites, and as in insurance because I won't smoke if I've paid $275 to have my teeth whitened. Such is Don... reward and insurance.

My sister signed the papers on her condo offer today which is a really wonderful thing. We've both been through a lot, and caring for Dad and all the legal crap we had to go through was more than I want to or will explain here. Suffice it to say... MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A F-ING WILL!!! It will save your family tons of work and heartache. I remember holding my Father's hand when he was passing, telling him it was okay, and that we would be okay. And that I would watch out for Donna and make sure she was okay. It sounds a little melodramatic to remember that time now, but it was true and something I'm determined to do. My sister is pretty dog-gone cool. The first time I met her (I didn't know I had an older sister until I was almost 10) it was the summer of 1970. She lived in San Diego, had a cute dark green Toyota Corolla, a little Sony portable black and white TV (remember the commercials... a Sony of my owny?), and had red Close Up toothpaste. Hell, I didn't even know there was toothpaste other than Crest. She was cool then, and even cooler now.

Friday the 13th

2005-05-13T21:00:00.000-07:00

It's Friday after work 8pm-ish, and it's been one hell of a week. Of course, being Friday the 13th didn't help. Thankfully, our accounting system ran fine with no problems. I stayed busy all day long, working on emails for online security access. My hands are actually sore from all the typing. Got my desk pretty much caught up, with another 20 or so emails to handle, so I'll spend next week - a short 4-day week - taking care of emails as they come in, plus processing any incoming A/P invoices. Just 4 more days and I'm gone from work until Tuesday the 31st. And the rain has started... a rare-for-this-area thunderstorm moving up the valley from the south. Tomorrow I'm going with my sister to Lowe's to look at drop-in ranges and washer/dryers. She's put an offer on a condo where several folks I know live. I hope she gets it... she's an awesome sister and deserves only the very best. And I'm gonna make sure that's what she gets.

A bargain for me...

2005-05-12T21:45:00.000-07:00

The guy from Autoland called me at work this morning... he starts the conversation... "well, I've got bad news and good news." I ask "So, you want the truck back?" He laughed and said no. The loan documents were clobbered by the printer or computer, so he needed me to come back in to sign the loan documents again. So I asked if that was the bad or the good news. He laughed again and said that was the bad news, because when the credit union ran the loan documents again, my credit had somehow improved in a week's time and my loan interest rate had dropped more than 2 points. So my payment is even less than I'd budgeted for. How cool is that?

I got home from work and started mowing the yard. Finished at 9:20pm... yes, in the dark. LOL Our damn weather has been so weird... first it was a warm and very dry winter, now we're getting all the storms and rain we normally get in the winter. Supposed to rain beginning tomorrow evening through next Friday, with a big storm coming in Wednesday with high winds. I had to get the yard mowed... the grass was past my knees in the backyard. What a freaking mess!!!

My baby's here

2005-05-11T21:00:00.000-07:00

The call came in at work around 10:30am to tell me my truck was on the way. Unfortunately, just as they were exiting I-5 at the Market Street exit here in town, a truck in front of the driver threw a rock and crack went the windshield on my new baby. Took my lunch late at 1:00pm, and got a ride to the credit union. And there she was... my beautiful new baby! The guy was already there replacing the windshield, so I went in and started signing the paperwork and loan documents. We weren't even finished when the guy walked in and handed us the keys.

The truck is even nicer than I'd hoped for. The camper shell, or canopy, or topper (depending on where you live) is a really nice one with gray carpeting attached for insulation. The interior is perfect, and it has not been smoked in. There's more room that I realized in back of the seats in the extended cab area. The third door is awesome. I know the dogs are going to love going for a ride now. Still has another year on the manufacturer's warranty. I purchased an extended warranty (6-years, 60,000 miles) so it's covered until the year 2011 or 77,527 miles. It rides and drives very well, and the first CD I played was Coldplay's "A Rush of Blood to the Head". Very, very cool. Yes, it's a guy thing.

Where's my baby?

2005-05-10T21:00:00.000-07:00

Today was supposed to be the day when the new addition arrived, but the new transport company Autoland uses was delayed... so now I'm waiting for tomorrow. Autoland is a car brokerage service that works with credit unions. You can walk into a credit union, tell the person what you're looking for - new or used - and they get to work. The person I worked with called me the following morning with just what I was looking for.

Friday at last

2005-05-06T21:00:00.000-07:00

It was sure "a week" at work. Finally able to complete two major projects, one of which I'd tried to work on over a year ago. At the time my emails were ignored, but now that the biennium is almost over, it became an issue. Funny how time (or the lack of time) can motivate folks. The other issue was one of the non-payment of certain bills, which affected numerous cost centers and budgets. Also funny how someone - who used to work where I work - and who was supposed to pay the above mentioned bills, got to leave to go to another job, no harm - no foul, and move on, leaving one hell of a mess to clean up in her wake. That's me... Mr. Fix-It. Mr. Clean-Up. Thank God it's Friday. By the way, you'll see me say Thank God it's Friday often... and I'm still waiting for next Tuesday.

Still here...

2005-05-04T21:00:00.000-07:00

Well, here it is 12 years later and I'm still here... and my wonderful Mazda is still running, although showing it's 16 years of age and 145,800 miles. I've wanted a truck for a long while, and actually hoped I'd be able to buy my Dad's pickup from the estate when he passed - a 1992 Dodge Dakota that had just over 23,000 miles with the original tires. But the rotten witch of a caregiver got Dad to sign his truck over to her for $1 without telling my sister or I about it. No, I'm not bitter... just very disappointed.

When I got the Mazda, I assumed it would be the last car I ever owned. At the time, I was actually fearful of not being able to work long enough to pay it off. But thanks to the miracles of science and modern medicine... actually, thanks to some unknown medical research technician working late into the night (my glorified Lifetime made-for-TV movie version!) I'm still here. Similar to the way I finally got my courage up to use my VA loan to buy my wonderful home, I visited the credit union, thinking all they could say was no. But they didn't... and next Tuesday after work, a co-worker friend is dropping me off at the credit union to pickup my new baby... a 2003 GMC Sonoma Extended Cab (with a 3rd door!) new-to-me Pickup, already with a camper shell. 4-speed automatic, 2.2 liter 4-banger, 17,467 miles, and another milestone in my so called life. And Helen at First Technology Credit Union... You Rock!

The headache that wouldn't die

2005-05-02T21:00:00.000-07:00

Had a ultra-quiet weekend... rotten headache that started Saturday lasted through most of Sunday. I was supposed to go to breakfast with my sister Sunday morning, but cancelled. Just wasn't up to it, and wanted to sleep through the headache, which kind of worked. Doc appointment this morning in Portland, so I left the house at 7:15 to get there by 8:40. Actually made good time and was 10 minutes early. It's the damn commuter traffic that I hit when I-205 runs into I-5 north of Wilsonville. Five lanes of traffic and it all slows to a crawl. The drive home only takes 50 minutes or so with the cruise control set at 72. Had to fast this time for lab work... last time my triglycerides were over 1200, primarily due to the meds. So I get to run 10-30 weight instead of plasma.

My doc wrote me all new prescriptions, so I could move all my scripts to Walgreens, which is just down the road, open 24/7, plus I can request refills via the Internet. Tired and fed up with the current pharmacy... I use my debit card to pay, and they sometimes take as much as two weeks to deduct the money, and 2 times now they've deducted the money twice, which is really a pain in the ass when it's a week before payday. They are very nice folks at the current pharmacy, but small town pharmacies really need to get with the program... it's called the 20th century. And Don's surfing the technology wave as fast and as far and as long as he can... :)

Looking forward to vacation later this month. I took Friday, May 20th off, plus the following week. Which means a 3-day weekend, 5 days off, and then another 3-day weekend (Memorial Day). Friday, May 20th, is the stop smoking day... there was no way I could quit smoking and work too... I'd be too much of a shit to work with. Hopefully the weather will be nice, and I can take my frustrations out on the backyard with the electric hedge trimmers. I really need to quit... period. And am pretty much a dumb ass for continuing to smoke.

T G I F

2005-04-28T21:00:00.000-07:00

Work was crazier than hell today, which has become the "norm" over the past several months. I sure wish two great coworkers and friends - Michelle and Tami - were still part of the office. They had the same work ethics and beliefs that I hold very dear. After they left, things have gone downhill. Actually, in the year and a half that I've been there, we've had at least a 50% turnover in staff. Too much work, and not enough folks to handle it. I seem to get involved in cleaning up messes other people leave, like clearing up past due invoices that haven't been paid, or auditing an accounts payable account back to 7/1/2003.

At the same time, it's a good thing, because I really enjoy what I'm doing, where I'm working, and who I'm working with. It's a 10 minute commute to and from work... maybe 3 miles each way. I work in the "Dome Building", which is part of the State Hospital grounds, although I work for another state agency who leases the building for $1 a year, plus all of the building repairs. When you're talking about a building started in 1910, and finished in 1912, there are a lot of repairs! If you watch the movie "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", look for the scene where all the nurses are lined up on a circular staircase... I take those stairs as many as 8 times a day. It's a cool building, and I love my little office. Glad tomorrow is Friday...

2005-03-23T20:01:00.000-08:00

Over the last several years, I've posted contact information on adoption pages in Virginia, hoping to learn more about my birthmother. The information below is a letter from the Department of Public Welfare, York County, Yorktown, Virginia, containing "non-identifying" information:

"Donald was born in Norfolk, Virginia, (on a particular day in the very early 1960s), a full-term baby, and the mother was in labor only five hours. It was a spontaneous delivery and the complications of labor and delivery were uneventful and there were no complications during pregnancy. Donald weighed 7 lbs, 3 1/2 oz. at birth. Donald was a beautiful, healthy baby. He ate and slept well and was given splendid care.

Donald's natural mother was a quiet, gentle girl of 20 years at the time of his birth. She is a slender girl, 5'5" with olive complexion, large brown eyes and long dark hair. She is very pretty and attractive. She likes dancing and skating, is a high school graduate and at the time she became pregnant, she was employed as a switchboard operator.

The natural father was 27 years of age, of medium build with dark hair and eyes. He was a married man with a family. He came to this area looking for employment and he met the natural mother at a skating rink. He promised to marry her and it was not until after she became pregnant that she learned that he was already married. He soon left the community and his whereabouts is unknown.

No information was available on the paternal grandparents and Donald's mother knew nothing about the family background.

The natural mother had the usual childhood diseases and at the time Donald was born, she was in excellent health. She found it difficult to make the decision to place her baby for adoption, but after much consideration it was her feeling that her child should have both a mother and a father who would offer him not only love but every opportunity for advancement and development.

When Donald was three months old, he was seen by a clinical psychologist for an evaluation for adoptive purposes. He was said to be "a well-developed attractive baby who is al least average in his development and more likely somewhat accelerated. In addition to his physical and mental development, he appears to be emotionally well adjusted."

Thanks to the help of a wonderful person, an "adoption angel" named Kim, who, along with other adoption angels across the country, help folks by visiting county court houses and looking through legal documents that are public records, I found out my birthname on this day... Donald Edward Waltrip.

I'd always known that my birthmother had named me Donald, and that I had been adopted at 5 months. The feelings that I experienced that day are more than I can explain here... just know it was a day I will not forget. Suffice it to say... it just sounded right. And had a nice "Virginia" sound to it.

And life goes on...

2003-10-02T22:33:00.000-07:00

My father passed away this afternoon. He'd been living with Alzheimer's Disease for several years now, and I was holding his hand when he passed. I am so thankful that he is out of pain and not hurting anymore. Since his surgery in April his health had really declined. He'd been living at St. Rita's here in town since late May. His 80th birthday was September 11th.

He was a US Navy veteran with almost 34 years active duty. My sister Donna and I are meeting tomorrow with Golden's to arrange the services... probably on Monday. My brother Steve is flying in tomorrow from Georgia and my sister Yvonne is going to try to fly in from Texas - my niece Hailey is not quite 2 months old. Our mother is buried at Willamette National cemetery in Portland so Dad will be buried with her.

The DOC has been wonderful, even with my starting a new job in Accounting yesterday... when it rains it pours. The following was his obituary...

Donald B. Mathews Sr.
September 11, 1923 - October 02, 2003
SALEM - Donald Bayne Mathews, Sr. (CWO4 USN retired) died from complications of Alzheimer's Disease. He was born in San Francisco, California, he recently celebrated his 80th birthday. Donald loved his family, the US Navy and his Atlanta Braves.

Donald was the son of Victor Ambro and Florence Althea Mathews of Salem and grandson of John Bayne, a Salem-area attorney and trustee who emigrated from Muthill, Perthshire, Scotland in 1871. Donald joined the Navy at 17 and served his country from 1940 to 1974. Nicknamed "Gunner", he was aboard the USS Lexington (CV-2) when it sank during the Battle of the Coral Sea. Donald was the sole survivor when his Grumman "Wildcat" went down at sea later during WWII. He was with aviation ordinance during WWII, Korea and Vietnam. He served on several ships, including the USS Lexington, USS Forrestal, USS America, and USS Coral Sea, and received numerous awards and medals during his service.

Donald was preceded in death by his wife, Dorothy Fullilove Mathews in 1992. Survivors include daughters, Donna Lynn Hayes of Salem and Yvonne Faith Stainback of Tyler, Texas; and sons, Donald B. Mathews Jr. of Salem and Steven Wayne Mathews of Waynesboro, Georgia; sisters, Polly George of Landing, New Jersey and Mary; brother, John A. Mathews of Salem; four granddaughters and two grandsons in New York, North Carolina, Georgia and Texas.

Visitation will be from 10 am - 5 pm on Sunday, October 5th at Virgil T. Golden Funeral Service. Family graveside services will be held at Willamette National Cemetery in Portland.

Earlier this week, an unknown young man, just back from Iraq, visited with our father. This young man wanted to talk to a veteran and thank him for what he had done for our country. Whoever you are, our family thanks you so very much for this beautiful act of kindness. The family would like to thank the staff of St. Rita's Senior Care Community in Salem for their wonderful care and incredible support of our father.

Don learns the ultimate lesson of life, or shit happens...

1993-02-19T08:45:00.000-08:00

Friday, February 19, 1993, 8:45am

This story started a couple of weeks prior. At the time, I had Kaiser Permanente for my medical and dental insurance through work. I'd had my teeth cleaned at the South Salem Kaiser office, and the rather young dental hygienist remarked that she had never seen thrush in men except when they are HIV positive. I asked her to repeat herself, which she did. I was floored. I'd been tested over the years every year, although hadn't gone in for a test for a couple of years, as I hadn't been involved with anyone, except with one person the prior November. Granted, after my step-mother passed away March of 1992, I had started drinking way too much, I guess primarily out of guilt, and also to cover up the pain. But I'd lost too many wonderful friends over the years, and knew what to do and what not to do.

I made an appointment with the Marion County Health Department for the test. The Marion County nurse, Karen Bender, was rather rude and abrupt, which I chalked up to Salem, Marion County, and the fact that a majority of folks here then were still living in the 1950s. So the two week wait was on... for Friday, February 19, 1993, at 8:15am.

It snowed several times during that week. I'd never seen this much snow in town. So when I pulled in to the Marion County Health Department parking lot that morning, there had to have been at least 10 inches of snow on the ground. My battle-weary 1977 Chrysler LeBaron, with it's genuine Corinthian Vinyl, faded blue paint and even more faded blue vinyl top, bashed in right rear quarter panel (from a hit and run driver) along with it's piece of shit 318 V8 engine with Chrysler's Lean Burn system, hated the snow, and the snow hated it. And I wasn't very happy with either. My appointment was at 8:15am. Shortly after I arrived, the next appointment arrived. So we both sat and waited... Karen finally arrived about 8:40, cursing the snow and apologizing at the same time. Hell, we got here... why couldn't she with her four wheel drive?

Karen walked in to her office for a couple of minutes, then walked back out. She pointed at the other guy and said "You, you will just take a couple of minutes." Then she pointed at me and said "You, you're gonna take a while." So that was how I found out. The other guy was out of her office in a matter of minutes. I was there for over 3 hours. I found Karen to be a really awful public health nurse, and very uncaring. Almost spiteful, although I was now the reason she had a job. My life changed that day, never to be the same. They say hindsight is 20/20... and they're correct.

Leaving the parking lot, trying to drive between tears and the snow, my car got stuck. I pretty much finished the transmission trying to get out. Now I had to go in to work, and keep it together.

That night, my best friend Cindi and I went to my sister Donna's house. We sat on the floor, ate homemade guacamole with chips, with either wine or wine coolers. The evening and what we talked about is a blur to me now. The rest is history...