In June of 2007, I met a wonderful man named Brian, who, despite all my desire to not date anybody for a long time, got a grip onto my heart, and we've been dating since then. I have been true to my desire to not jump headlong back into a partnership where my life is completely intertwined with another. We maintain separate homes and he has been very respectful of my need for alone time. He is starting a new work life anyway (change of profession), which also requires a lot of his time and attention, which is good. It allows me the private time I need to continue to heal and grow. It also, and equally importantly, allows him the time to develop his business without constant distraction.
My life has changed in many other ways as well. I lost the last of my original 3 Basenjis, Kaelii, this February, at 2 weeks shy of her 16th birthday. I still have the 2 Silky Terriers that Ken and I acquired, Bobby and Hillary, and last year, Hillary had a litter and I kept one of the girls from the litter, a lovely and highly-entertaining little ragamuffin named Minnie. I also got a new Basenji 18 months ago, another high-energy, silly and entertaining little boy named Danny. At the same time, I also got a cat, the first one I've had in over 1o years. He is without a doubt the COOLEST cat ever, and it's not just me that feels that way; everybody that meets him says the same thing. He is a big handsome Maine Coon Cat named Angus (after Angus Young of AC/DC), and really adds a lot of fun to my home.
A little less than a year after losing Ken, to my dismay at the time, I had to sell the home that Ken and I bought in 1992. We took a little 1200 square foot 1911 cottage and remodeled it from basement to roof, turning a ramshackle little mess in need of a lot of love into a spectacular 3000 square foot showplace. It was an elegant and comfortable city home, and Ken and I were both extremely proud of what we accomplished. Unfortunately, not only did the home become a very sad place for me after losing Ken, but it also became unaffordable after he was gone. We had borrowed against it substantially in order to do all the work, and as such, it had a mortgage that I could not afford.
So with a heavy heart, I sold the home in September, 2007. It sold quickly, and at a price that allowed me to both pay off the mortgage and have a down payment for a more modest home. I began to look in San Francisco for my next home base earlier that summer, but was never able to find a home that I felt comfortable in and that was in a neighborhood that I felt safe in. As such, I started to broaden my search. Luckily, I've always felt comfortable in a city, a suburb or in a rural setting. This really gave me a lot more options. If I was to move out of the city, I made a resolution to myself that I would keep myself close to San Francisco and I would buy a home that didn't need to have a lot of work done. I had lived for 12+ years in a state of constant construction, and I needed a break from that. Luckily, I found exactly what I was looking for.
Very soon after the sale of my SF home closed escrow, I began looking in earnest, and the perfect home fell into my lap. I found a beautiful single-story ranch home, built in 2ooo, in a suburb 25 miles outside of SF called Walnut Creek. I had always loved WC; it is quiet, similar in population to the town I grew up in (approx. 60,000), and really doesn't have a bad part of town. The weather is spectacular. Instead of having one season like I did in SF (cool), I now have 3 seasons (cold, warm and a very hot summer). The home is on a perfectly-sized lot, already had been beautifully landscaped, and only needed to have cosmetic work done. Though it was well-built, unfortunately all the finishes were very economy, so before moving in I did a speedy remodel of the kitchen and bathrooms and had my nephew come out from Montana to paint the entire interior. It is now nearly exactly what I want. There might be a little thing here or there that I would like to do, but nothing that I need to do.
So in the midst of all this good change, there of course had to be some speedbumps on the road, and I sure hit them. Easily the most difficult challenge has been that sometime in the last 18 or so months, I contracted Hepatitis C. On its own that would be enough to cause concern, but that was the just the cherry on top of many other health issues. The most obvious was that I have now lived 26+ years with HIV. So HIV disease, with all the immune system compromise that it has caused, has now been complemented with another very compromising chronic viral illness.
Perhaps the worst part of Hepatits C is the treatment. Though it is generally a slowly progressing disease when dealt with alone, when it is a co-infection with HIV the damage is often realized much more quickly, so the treatment has to start as soon as it is diagnosed. Unfortunately, the only current therapy is a very toxic combination of drugs, Interferon (which is basically a chemotherapeutic agent) and an antiviral drug called Ribavirin. The interferon takes a heavy toll on the immune system in general, and is quite damaging to the bone marrow in particular. Consequently, the treatment (which lasts 48-72 weeks) requires close and frequent monitoring of my response to treatment by my physician. I have to have frequent blood draws for laboratory testing of my blood cell counts, organ function and endocrine function. I also need to keep a careful, complete and accurate history (journal) of any problems that I'm having.
Which has led to this being the primary topic of my blog posts over the next 12-18 months. Though I'm likely to take some detours and scenic side-trips along the way, this is going to be my most important story at least for now. Since there are a number of you that have asked for me to keep you posted (and many kind and generous offers of assistance along the way for which I'm very grateful), this will be my main forum, partly out of laziness (I don't want to have to keep retelling the story on a daily basis) and more importantly, so I don't leave out some of the details, which would be a likely occurrence if I had to keep retelling as I keep you all updated. So bear with me, and enjoy the ride. I'll try to do updates on a frequent and regular basis, but I'm sure that at times life will get in the way.
If you don't see postings from me in awhile, don't assume that there is something to worry about. I just might be busy and just not have the time and/or the energy, and I will prioritize and make sure that I'm taking care of the most important things first. You are welcome to call or email me any time if you're worried or just want to check up on me.
One final caveat: as most of you know, my way of managing the challenges that I've encountered in my live has been to retell with humor. My humor, unfortunately for you sometimes, is a very gallows sense of humor, but those of you who know me know that this is no cause for alarm. Please don't read between the lines of my often acerbic, dry wit and assume that there is something really wrong. If there is something that you need to worry about, I'll let you know, straight out, no beating around the bush. Most of you know this, but there are a few who will be likely reading this journal and who don't know that about me, so for those of you who this speaks to, please keep that in mind.
So with all this in mind, let's have the story begin...keep in touch, and let me know what you're thinking. If you don't understand something I'm talking about just ask. If you want more of the story, just ask. Also, when there is the occasional post that I think may not be for the faint of heart, I will warn you in advance. You may just want to pass those over, because I'll likely be explicit. Since I'm a nurse and many of my friends are also health care professionals, I'll sometimes address things that they will find both interesting and graphic, and you might find a bit too gory. If I warn you, and you still read and as a result are disturbed, remember, you were warned. So here we go, welcome to The Viral Monologues: a bitter confection of viral infection, introspection, genuflection and intellectual dissection. Welcome aboard, make sure your seatbelt is securely fastened and your tray table is in the upright and locked position.
Maybe you'll learn a thing or two about me that you never knew or thought possible. As I am often told, I'm a mystery, wrapped in a riddle, veiled in opacity and covered in a conundrum. I'm a fiercely loyal friend and a formidable foe. I'm passionate, intense, loving and scary. I'm a thief and a shit-kicker and I want to be famous. I'm fascinated by the outrageous and bored by the mediocre. I'm hedonistic, realistic and supercalafragilistic. Sometimes at parties I can be a wallflower, sometimes I'm the party. I am often self-contradictory and unapologetic. I can be moody and brooding. I can be very funny, often by mistake. I can be frustrating, fascinating and flatulent. But I'm rarely boring. So, with much love to all, welcome to my (our) journey.
Doggydad's Life Now: The Viral Monologues by Parry Tallmadge is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at doggydad.blogspot.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.runnymedesilkys.com.
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