I’m having success with two new meds, One has helped me improve two areas - walking and sleeping, but is it just a temporary fix? The other medications? Well, read on………

At my last doctor’s visit I was telling him again that I was having troubles when going on my hikes. After walking long distances or standing in one spot for long periods of time, it felt like I was standing in bare feet on a bed of stones. I would always have to shift from one foot to the other to take the pressure off and get a little relief. He said it could be peripheral neuropathy which is a common condition for people living with HIV. (PositiveLite.com editor Bob Leahy wrote about his experience with neuropathy here  and now Dave R.,an expert in this field, has wriiten about the topic for The Body.com and PositiveLite.com here.) So my doctor prescribed a new medication.

The medication he prescribed is Elavil, a drug used many years ago to treat depression. He said the dosage I was getting would be a small fraction of the amount they used for depression. I have no idea what that dosage was; what I'm taking is a 10 mg pill. When I started it, I was to take one tablet at bedtime for two weeks and then take two tablets at bedtime after that. There are some side effects that I have experienced like dry mouth and constipation but that can be better than the other option - well most of the time. There is one good side effect though -  I'm getting some very much needed sleep, I can roll over and nod back off for another hour or two. As for the neuropathy, I can now stand without so much discomfort. Walking, well, like I said, I have other issues with my ankles, but I can walk longer distances now and it no longer feels like I’m walking on stones.

So the medication is working except for the aches and pain in the joints of my ankles, thanks to normal aging. I also have different issues with my left foot, I smashed it on both sides back in the early 80s which resulted in having a plate with five screws on the outside of the ankle and a big long one on the inside. They were removed about a year later, so there are times when it bothers me in other ways.

The extra sleep?, I can’t say enough about how it is helping me. I use to be up all hours of the night, going to bed around 3 a.m. because I just wasn't tired. Sometimes I felt tired but would go to bed and just lie there and not be able to sleep. Now, I can go to bed much earlier, I try to watch TV for a while but nod off quickly. I have to drag my butt out of bed around eleven the next day and I feel much more rested. I am not a groggy person who hates to get up, I’m usually in a good mood except when I wake up in a strange bed. By strange I mean in a hotel whenat a training workshop or conference, or when I’m visiting somewhere.

The only drawback to the Elavil is, and I’ve only heard this from others who have taken this type of medication, it may only work for a while. One day it might not work anymore.

The other new medication I have is for my calcium problem. I was taking Actonel, a once a month pill along with Vitamin D3 and Calcium that were to help build up calcium. I have next to no bone density in my spine, as of my last bone scan. The other bigger bones in my body are good. The doctor felt the Actonel could be a contributing factor for my acid reflux/heartburn problems so he changed it to Teve-Risedronate 35 mg, a pill I take once a week. This too has helped, I'm having less incidents of acid reflux. I have stopped eating or drinking certain things before bedtime as well.

I really didn’t like adding more medications to the mix but the relief I’m having, even if it may be temporary, has made me do a happy dance. 

I have only been to one real play in my life I think. About a year ago we went to see an off-beat version of Peter Pan. There was so much sexual innuendo in it and I was surprised to see so many children in the audience. They weren't laughing at the same things the adults were. We had free tickets so I thought, why not? In any event,  I think I'd like to go see a real play someday but right now, I'm watching Smash.

I grew up in a time when movie musicals were all the thing with stars like Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, and Ginger Rogers. I didn't see them in the movie theatre though, as way back in the early 60's there wasn't much to put on television except musicals and westerns. Disney had Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Mary Poppins, The Sound Of Music. We were able to see movies in a theatre when we moved to a town that had a theatre. I think I watched everything like this I could so maybe that was my first clue that I was different. Mind you I did watch a lot of westerns too.

There were times when I think I wished I could dance like the people in the musicals, but I can't. I recall in grade five or six I signed up for square dancing. I think I stomped on several feet before I had to quit.

I really miss the late 60s and early 70s, when variety shows became the show you didn't want to miss, like Sonny & Cher, Carol Burnett, even Donnie and Marie. They were all successful in keeping the old song and dance  tradition alive. Many of the early stars would appear on them as well. 

I have never sat through an episode of Glee, ever! I applaud Glee for everything it stands for but I find it’s too young for me. They do use music that I grew up listening to and maybe it’s supposed to help me relive my past but it doesn't. In most cases, well ............. well they butcher most of the music. Sorry, just my observation, but some music you just don't change or try to update and put  in a musical. 

Smash is for grown ups and I can relate to much of it. I haven't missed an episode and it resonates with me more. Yeah, sometimes they breakout in some Broadway number, often in a daydream or imaginary sort of way but it works. 

The show centres on a production about Marilyn Monroe's rise to fame, something they all admit has never been done successfully. Debra Messing plays a songwriter and her songwriting partner is - get this - a gay guy. Gay characters are very well represented in the story, all are believable, not stereotyped with plenty of male/male kissing and intimacy. A cast-off from American Idol, (I forget what season), Katherine McPhee is the title character  - and what a voice! (The person who won American Idol that year was I think Taylor Hicks, not sure but he never made it. McPhee should have won, the judges were the most surprised when she got the boot off the show. Her mother managed to land a job with American Idol recently.)

Other familiar names in the show are Angelica Huston, Bernadette Peters in an appearance in one show as the mother of the girl who had the lead in the Marilyn play, and then Uma Thurman came into the show to replace her. Teen heartthrob Joe Jonas of the Jonas Brothers appeared in one episode, hmmm. This first season must be close to winding up, I’m really hoping it gets renewed. Lots of drama, lots of twists, great entertainment, again, in my opinion.

When I heard this show was being produced by Stephen Spielberg I thought, hmmm, but the trailers were enough for me to give it a view and I'm glad I did. I really like this show. I may not buy the DVD set when it comes out because I've already seen the whole series so far but there is a CD available with 13 songs from the show, I might be picking it up.

I am still waaaaaay behind the current technology but I have made a couple of steps forward. I now have a phone that I can text; with the plan I have it's much cheaper to text than talk. A while ago I bought myself a netbook for when I am out of town at workshops or conferences. It’s great but there were times when I couldn't get online at some of the places I was staying.

One of the biggest problems I am having with these new gadgets is learning to be a two-finger or two thumbpecker. The keypads are just too small for me. Back when I was in high school, I learned to type the right way. I use the home row on the keypad and I prefer the full size normal one. I can type fairly fast, a lot faster now than I was able to in high school but I quit during my second year. I went three decades without ever typing again until my kids had computers and introduced me to the internet. Like riding a bike, it all came back. 

I can be all thumbs with a lot of things but when I text I want accuracy so I am forever going back to correct something. It got so frustrating that I went and bought a stylus which seems to do the job most of the time but still, not much speed for getting the message out, so I keep pecking away with two thumbs. 

A couple of weeks ago my computer had an issue. It decided it wasn't going to work for me. It had been running sooooo slooooow for a while but I ignored it. I would defrag it each week, did some virus scans and it would be good for a day or so but then it was back to slow. It was kind of like me, two speeds - slow and stop. It got to stop before I did. Lucky for me I had the netbook and my cell so I could stay online and in touch. Talk about panic attack or maybe it was withdrawal. I tried to hook up the external hard drive to the netbook but I couldn't access anything, I wanted to transfer the pictures from my camera.

Only one thing to do and I hate it. I shut down the computer and went to do a system recovery which took everything back to factory settings. I should kick myself for not having transferred all files to the external hard drive weekly, just in case, or I wouldn't have lost as much as I did. So for the better part of five hours, I had to download all the search engines, messengers, everything I was using. For most of the week I have had to put up with "updates", about 400 of them. 

Now that I have it all back, it’s running fast and smooooooooth, but now the mouse is choking up. It’s a wireless, it takes batteries and those things run out of power fast. I have another one that plugs in but it chokes as well, that’s why it was replaced. It’s getting nuts trying to move the cursor around, even as I'm typing this. If I had more hair I'd be pulling it out. I learned the rechargeable batteries are better, I should have known that too. Why me? 

Every time I get a new gadget I tell myself “this is all I need, nothing else”, then I find that maybe I could get one more thing………… Who knows, maybe I’ll get one of them smart phones one day. I just don’t want to get app-dicted. 

I don't know why I'm whining about all of this. It’s a real different world now, we need these things to communicate today. Through social media, I’m meeting people from around the world on the internet and it’s so much cheaper to text, email or use social media to stay in touch.

For people I see on a regular basis, I prefer to talk to them in person. Thats the way it should be. If there is a way to get together and talk, then we should do it. Some just have to leave the gadgets behind or put them on silent and enjoy the company of their family member or friends.

 

March 1st is the official start of my new year. It's my birthday. I've had 58 of them now.

It's the time when alot of other numbers come to mind, birthdays, anniversaries, mine and other people's. However, my birthday doesn't have the same importance for me anymore because my older brother's birthday was just days after mine and he passed away from leukemia. He would have turned sixty this year; I have lived two years longer than he was able to. After finding out I was HIV+ he often worried about my health, what was going to happen to me. He talked about it more with my mom, I wish he would have talked to me so I could have reassured him I was going to be alright. He wasn't very educated on HIV but he wasn't negative about it, or me. 

The next important date for me is the anniversary of my diagnosis, I find it to be a commonality some of us have that we remember that date. April 3rd, 2003, nine years and starting my 10th year living with it  - and I do live with it. I knew it then and still believe it today. Birthdays don't matter but I know I will see 60 and 65 and maybe way beyond 70. My goal is to be a great grandfather.

On April 4th I had my follow up appointment with my doctor for the blood work done in February. It didn't go all as well as previous ones. My viral load is and has been undetectable since I was diagnosed back in 2003 but my CD4 has been up and down but mostly just a slight difference each time. On the 4th though, it took a sizable drop from 380 down to 310. 310 is the lowest its ever been. I was put on meds almost 2 years ago when it dropped to 330. The doctor ordered another test to see what might be happening with my counts. He asked if I had been ill or fighting off something and I wasn't sick, no cough, nothing. I get the sniffles but that is only due to colder weather, it is in no way a cold. I told him I have to fake being sick.

Today the nurse called me to say that my CD4 had gone up to 450, so another huge difference, up 140. She told me that I must have been fighting off some virus but again, I don't recall anything. When I had the test done in February, there were a few things going on with me, I guess you could say I was feeling a little down. Stress has never been kind to me; my CD4 had gone down to the point of going on meds when they got too low, so all I can say is that it may have been the cause for this change.

Things have been looking up for me since that test on April 4th, I got involved in many things that made me more upbeat. I even landed a part time job. I haven't started it yet, I need some training. All of this could be why there was such a spike in my counts. I take several supplements that are supposed to support the blood or immune system so this might be another reason. I'm just going by what I'm doing or noticed in myself, I’m not qualified to say this is the true reason. For me, if I think positive and don’t stress, my counts go up and level off.

 

When I submitted the first two parts of this to PositiveLite.com, the editor commented that they were “brave”. By going out, learning and doing public speaking I hear many stories by others that are far more brave than mine.

In some of those stories people admit to years of drug addiction. Talking about this subject I can relate to their addiction in a small way. Cruising is an addiction as well, a sex addiction where there is plenty of it around  - but you don’t pay for it. You sneak off into the night, don’t tell anyone where you’re going or what you do, and you lie about what you did last night.

Every addiction comes with a darker side, a dangerous side. Mine had me out there meeting a total stranger, someone I knew nothing about, and no one knew where I was, alone when something goes wrong?

Sometimes you get to know some of the men. Someone might want to go for a coffee after the act or just find somewhere to talk outside the area. You might share some war stories, learn what to watch for. I learned that if you weren’t sure about someone, of you thought that he might be a police officer, ask if he is. He is required to identify himself or it’s entrapment if he tries to arrest you.

There is another form of cruising that I was a part of and it actually involved driving my car. There are many places to go with a car -  carpool stations, parks, hiking trails or truck stops. You pull in and wait; other men will cruise by you and there will be some sort of contact that will let you know the person is interested. Sometimes people will come up to your car; you chat a bit until you are both sure of what you want. Things can happen right there; you both go off into the bushes or agree to drive to a safer area, and in rare cases you might go to someone’s home.

One night I picked up a young guy. We went out to the industrial area of town, did our business and I began to drive him back into the city. On the way he pulled a knife on me and started waving it in front of my face. He demanded I give him money, saying he was part of the Mafia and he couldn’t go back without being paid. I knew that the Mafia didn’t deal in male prostitution. I almost laughed at him, I just tried to let him think I was cooperating with him until I could get into the main part of the city. I told him I had money in the bank but nothing with me in case something like this happened and I would have to go to a cash machine.

I found a bank with a big parking lot. There was a city worker there cleaning it with a vacuum machine. I pulled in, got out and ordered the guy to get the hell out. I had a witness now if he tried to actually use his knife. The guy almost started crying, telling me he had a girlfriend and a child. I told him that he needed to tell me that he was doing it for money ahead of time so people like me could say “no thanks”.

Another time, I picked up a guy, it was during the winter. I was sitting in my car at a park when the guy approached me, I invited him in. My car wasn’t very roomy and when this guy got in it got much smaller inside - he was bundled up in heavy clothing. Things started rather quickly; it was going to happen right there. As things progressed he was having trouble getting it up and keeping it up. This was not a good thing; he got frustrated and grabbed me around the neck and he was pulling it in a way to snap it. I swear I could see my life playing out before me. Luckily, because of the confined space in the car, it worked to my advantage, I was able to break free. I grabbed my keys, turned off the car and got out. I told him to get out and we would just go our separate ways. If he didn’t I would call the cops. He got out and ran.

I’d like to say that my days of cruising ended on that note but they didn’t. However I exercised a lot more caution. It even continued after my HIV diagnosis - but I never forgot my status. There were times when I knew I had to disclose and depending on the activity all decisions were by mutual consent, with emphasis on practicing safer sex

I can’t say when exactly it did stop, or why, but it has. Maybe it’s the age thing; my testosterone level has dropped somewhat, not completely but it has dropped some.

Maybe it’s because it still isn't a spectator sport.

 

I can say with all honesty that when you are the new guy on the scene you are new meat, fresh meat. This is your coming out, your peak of popularity, but it doesn't last. There will always be the next “fresh meat” that everyone will go after, you become just another, "been there, done that". This is the time you go off on your own - you go cruising. To be fair, this is not the reality of everyone; some have had to do it and for others, it’s what they do and they are happy.

So my first year out of the closet went by fairly quickly. I was going out with my new friends to the local dance, to bars around the area and occasional trips down to the big city of Toronto. These guys only wanted to go to places where they knew it was fairly easy to hook up. When the bars closed, there were the after-hours clubs. Some of them had back rooms where you could go and have random sex. Most of them weredown long dark hallways, low lit rooms, no furniture to stumble into, lots of moaning sounds. You could smoke in them at this time so you could light up a cigarette if you wanted to let your presence be known.

The first few times I went to the after-hours club, I stayed out in the main room listening or dancing to the music and watched people going in and out of the back-rooms. It scared me, I heard about pickpockets, or old trolls, I was told to avoid them, but how would you know? Its dark in there! I was told if I did go back there to put my money in my socks or in my shoes; if they got my pants down around my ankles, they couldn't get my cash. One night I took that advice and I put "Canadian Tire" money in my pocket. On it I wrote, "Sorry, you will have to spend it all in one spot, happy shopping" and on the other side I wrote, "and you give a lousy blowjob". I checked my pockets when I left the place and the notes were gone.

One of the scariest places to cruise has to be the park. You can’t go in until after dark, the best time being just before the bars close. Guys, straight or gay, married or single, if they struck out at the bar they may go looking for some action. I remember one of my first visits to a park. I came across a couple of guys going at it in an open space. I stood there watching for a few seconds and one guy looked over to me and said, “this isn’t a spectator sport”. The only thing I could get from that statement was join in or get lost, I moved on. I found it funny that, on occasion, people who wouldn’t give me the time of day at the bar or at the dance would be in there and have no problem approaching me. Like many things, there is a stigma attached to people who cruise. Everyone has a history, I’m not the only one who has………been around.

Along came my introduction to cruising on the internet. It’s not a secret; if you’ve been following me you’ll know I am not a big fan of dating or hooking up online. People will advertise to meet someone by saying “anybody want to hook up, contact me”. That statement always got me to ask back, “is that meant for anybody or a certain type of anybody?”

I’ll admit the internet did help me become less shy. I could talk to people on there and meet them face to face and hold a conversation…….well what was needed to get a hookup. Not every connection was a good one though. Many turned out to be head games and no-shows.

In my time going into chatrooms, I would pick up tips on where to cruise, what sites I could go to. One site called Squirt.org literally had everything; it’s the yellow pages for cruisers. You check the profiles and the members would list everything they are into and where they are willing to meet. The site told me where the cruise areas were in my city, complete with directions and maps. Some of the more common places were the mall, the university, truck stops, the carpool stations and some I never would have thought of. There was also information on things to be careful about - if cops patrolled the area, how to let someone know you are interested, like if I was to go to the washroom at the mall, I was to go in a stall, someone comes in, I tap my foot. If the other person is looking they will want to come in. For me there is just something wrong with this because it is too much of a public place and many are just kids.

When I started this article, I had some foresight that it was going to be long and would take two parts to tell it all. Now I find that there is another part to tell that involves a couple of dangerous experiences I had that almost ended my life. It involves being mindful of who you are approaching. I hope I don’t bore anyone but there will be part three.