Ride the coaster

So now, a few weeks after a very bad diagnosis, there's a new salvage regimen for H. For weeks, he's been heading downhill and now with these new meds (one is brand new to the market), he's thinking is clearer, he has energy, he's eating...all in a few days. Hard to go from getting ready for the end to now he's getting better. Again, the dichotomy rears its ugly head.

I didn't realize until just recently, and I haven't explicitly shown it to H much, just how angry I am. Not really at him, per se, but at the situation. I feel like my lover was stolen from me 9 years ago...I feel cheated. Since then, I've had to keep it all together (because he cannot work anymore) and I told H last night that I'm not certain I can do it all anymore. I'm exhausted from the past month and all the ER visits, stress, the family circus, crying marathons, and lack of sleep/food. I just feel overwhelmed, plain & simple. And really, really, really pissed off.

Do the dichotomy

Each day, I'm torn. While I don't want him to die, I do. Horrible to lose someone you love, but horrible to see them suffer, not to mention the cost to me either way.

So, I sit here on the horns of the dichotomy (sic), all the while wanting and needing something different. The (realistic) options are not appealing: he limps along with a marginal quality of life or he dies. What I really want, no need...need more than anything...is a healthy lover...the way he used to be. And that ain't gonna happen.

Damned power ballads!

So, I wake up early this morning, H is sleeping & snoring by my side, with a song in my head. This doesn't usually happen to me (although sometimes I confess that some commercial jingle gets in my head and I just can't shake it for the entire day). The song was "Here Without You" by 3 Doors Down.

I’m here without you baby
but your still on my lonely mind
I think about you baby and I dream about you all the time
I’m here without you baby but your still with me in my dreams
And tonight it’s only you and me

Damned musak at the gym! For months, they've played this song over and over again there and even in public there I'd get a bit teary. But to wake up to the song playing in my head...shit. So, I just get up, cry for awhile, have a cigarette...and now hours later, I still can't get this song out of my head. And I cry everytime it plays in my head. Must get it together as I am at work....

There's this notion of "anticipatory grief," where you can see a loss coming (or smaller loses happen along the way) and you grieve along the way. Right where I am right now. Been here for years in fact. It sucks.

One good thing is that we have time to say our goodbyes. My mom died a very sudden death and it was very hard because I never got to say goodbye.

Waiting for the other shoe...

I decided to start this blog before I become a widower, even tho' the blog title is for after that unfortunate event. We recently found out that my partner, H, does not have long to live...complications from long-time HIV infection. In fact, recently I've been planning full-time nursing & hospice care for him.

For those of you who think that HIV doesn't kill anymore in the U.S., you are wrong. It isn't something that pills can "cure," only control. And over time, the virus became resistant and all the treatments have failed him now. There is one possible "silver bullet" left...a "back against the wall" salvage treatment...but Dr. is not optimistic that it will buy more than a few months at best. In the meantime, H is slipping into dementia due to neurological damage from the virus. He is no longer who he was. And who he was slips further away every day. I already miss him, because in many ways, parts of him have already left.

I didn't create this blog for your pity or support (although support is always welcome), nor to document yet another horrible AIDs experience, but rather to have a place to record & share my thoughts and experiences with this key transition in my life: from life partner to a single man and maybe even back to life partner again some day. I'm not the only one to have this experience, nor the last, unfortunately. So, I hope that this blog will be helpful. At the very least, it will be helpful for me, I think.

I've been with H over half my life and can't imagine living without him. But I must. And in the meantime, I'm doing my best to take care of him. He's been quite ill over much of the past few years or so and so none of this is unexpected really. But as much as you prepare yourself, you really can't be prepared for holding your lover of many years in bed as he's crying and saying, "I'm dying. I'm afraid. I'm sorry to put you through this."

And please don't think I'm being cruel by the title of this post. It is a horrible waiting game right now and all of us hope that God takes him quickly & mercifully. If you pray, please don't pray for me, pray for him and a painless & quick exit from this life.