My Journey with AIDS

An “AIDS day”

I can’t remember who first coined the phrase (and whether he’s still alive), or where I heard it, but I’m having an “AIDS day” – not as bad as they used to be, mind you, but unmistakable all the same. My stomach feels bloated, despite not having...

Published Mon, Nov 15 2010 3:31 PM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: autobiography, AIDS and HIV, medical update

I remember how Grandma’s memories stung her

Although I have never been in Perth to mark Remembrance Day, my grandmother felt the loss of her brother deeply, year-round, decades after the fact when I was a kid. My Great-Uncle Tom was killed in 1917 on the World War One battlefields of France roughly...

Published Wed, Nov 10 2010 11:04 PM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: family, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, VILLERS-AU-BOIS, Remembrance Day, World War I

Strive to be happy

“The universe is unfolding as it should” came up in a discussion this evening and it reminded me of the place, literally and figuratively, “Desiderata” had in my home growing up – particularly through the 1970s. A sheet of faux parchment paper, poster...

Published Fri, Nov 12 2010 7:42 PM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: spirituality, poetry, Desiderata

“Die” for access to generic AIDS meds in the poorest of countries – it won’t kill you!

Over the lunch hour this coming Monday the Bill C-393 Student Coalition, along with members of AIDS ACTION NOW and other allies, will join in creative protest in support of vital legislation before Canada’s Parliament. Bill C-393 is designed to reform...

Published Thu, Dec 09 2010 5:37 AM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: youth, autobiography, activism, AIDS and HIV, politics, Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime, social justice, Planet Earth has AIDS, Toronto, AIDS ACTION NOW!, Bill C-393 Student Coalition

Observations from Buckstars Coffee Shop

I’m home from picking up prescription refills to paint a story-picture. Note to self (the umpteenth): always, always carry a pen and paper! Having dropped off written prescriptions for repeats of my head meds, I walk briskly in the fresh cold wind...

Published Tue, Dec 07 2010 2:20 PM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: writing, autobiography, AIDS and HIV, mental health, medical update, Toronto, biography/autobiography

First days of school

I know I’m not the only one to feel some sort of generalized angst about the first day of school – even though it was thirty years ago last May that I graduated college! As Labour Day passes a temporary sense of dread settles over me. ...

Published Sun, Sep 05 2010 12:29 AM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: youth, autobiography, back-to-school, Frosh Week

HIV and friends

“HIV and friends” as in HIV and other diagnoses which have been visited upon me and/or HIV and how friends can, and do, help – with apologies to my favourite English teachers for lack of sentence structure. What physically ails me most...

Published Tue, Sep 07 2010 1:35 PM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: autobiography, AIDS and HIV, mental health, bipolar, medical update, viral load, CD-4, type-II diabetes

Trying to articulate, however inadequately, my spirituality

Anyone from “the rooms” who’s heard me talk about 2 or 3, especially since my comeback following Craig’s death, knows that I’m having trouble – at best – articulating my beliefs regarding spiritual matters and – at worst – am profoundly confused...

Published Tue, Sep 07 2010 10:41 PM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: photography, spirituality, music, faith, mindfulness meditation, recovery

Fussin’, ‘fessin’ and feelin’ (better)

The drug holiday hasn’t been as long this time. I just hope, as my specialist said the first time, that I still have “horseshoes up (my) ass” (medical-speak for good fortune) with no irreversible consequences. No doubt there’s...

Published Thu, Jul 22 2010 6:55 PM by My journey with AIDS

Filed under: autobiography, AIDS and HIV, mental health, bipolar II, medical update, HIV 'drug holiday'

Meet Sujata, Russian Blue beauty

Sujata, the name given to her by the previous human in her life, Kevin, is Sanskrit meaning “from a good family origin”; “Su” means “good”, “Jatakas” means “of good origins” or “well...

Published Mon, Apr 28 2014 7:54 PM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: friendship, cat, "Russian Blue"

Early morning, April 25, 2007

A prompt this week to write about something in a health-care context brought out this story which, despite having been told over and over in my head, had heretofore not made it down in writing. It wasn’t quite 5:30 am and Janice was already waiting for...

Published Thu, Mar 14 2013 4:55 PM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: family, grief, autobiography, AIDS and HIV, Perth, health-care, sexual orientation, Craig Chaplin, Montréal

A month since I last blogged…that feels about right!

Pictures from in and around Perth, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada in late December Read More...

Published Sun, Jan 06 2013 8:51 AM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: photography, Perth, architecture

Ninety-five years since World War One ended for my great-uncle

An addition to this otherwise repeat tribute, the above photograph was taken in about 1900 when my paternal grandmother was an infant. It’s now been over ninety-five years since her brother, Tom, (here with his foot up on a stool in the McIntyre...

Published Fri, Nov 09 2012 7:07 AM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: family, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, VILLERS-AU-BOIS, Remembrance Day, World War I, biography/autobiography, Veterans Canada, Canada, CWGC, Veterans Affairs Canada, Pte. Thomas Butler (1896-1917), Pte. Herbert Gibson

World AIDS Day 2017

I can’t find too much going on to commemorate World AIDS Day in Toronto this year but it just so happens to be the day my Beyond Surviving group meets, so I guess that’s something. With ACT’s shift away from surviving AIDS to living...

Published Thu, Nov 30 2017 7:19 AM by My journey with AIDS…and more!

Filed under: biography/autobiography

Music therapy – after which you may need some (without the music)

I cannot remember a time when music was not a vital part of my life. Music is in my genes, especially from my mother’s side of the family, with my grandparents having been matched up in the early 1920s as a violinist/fiddler being accompanied by...

Published Wed, Dec 08 2010 7:12 AM by My journey with AIDS...and more!

Filed under: grief, youth, writing, autobiography, AIDS and HIV, spirituality, YouTube, mental health, Québec, Montréal, poetry

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