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.