Blaze Like Meteors

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


Just phoned through for my results, rather than wait for the email. I think that's the way I'm likely to be with this. I mean, calling in means you control when and where you get the news. By email, you could be at work or on holiday when it comes. Still, there's nothing for me to be concerned about yet, CD4 is 486, up a little on last time and Viral Load is 33081, so down on how it's been. It's the first time, though, that two sets of results have been similar. Let's hope that they remain that way. I wonder if I could try to boost my CD4 through careful living a little more, so my Christmas results won't be the nasty surprise they were last year when somehow I got a result of 85 which was either to do with them making a mistake, me having a rough time of it or indicative that I was diagnosed while seroconverting. No real way of knowing; it's only been a year.

Do I need to work hard to change the result next time? No, I don't think I want to. This virus has invaded my mind as much as it's invaded my body and I'm not really willing to allow it to invade my time any more than it must. I might start going back to acupuncture, more for aches and pains than for that, but I'm generally fit and well, and although the chest infection that knocks other people out for four or five days knocked me out for two weeks, I think I'm generally healthy.

One year. Nothing to say. Let's keep it that way.

Cruel

There's something particularly awful about waking up on the day after your father's 65th birthday party at which he's said he intends to be like the guy who was working on his 100th birthday and worrying that you might have pneumonia. I've been overheated again, enough to keep me awake at night, combined with a lot of stress factors I've had lately. Lost my boyfriend for a faraway land I'm not allowed to live in because of this fucking thing in my blood and losing my job because I didn't finish a qualification when things like that seemed suddenly less important than living all of a sudden. It's probably just a chest infection, but the irony is a cruel one. My father, fighting fit, dancing his heart out, while I fight fatigue and my t-shirt's patchy with sweat and I get home and fall deeply asleep, waking up damp and clammy with sweat.

There's no reason I shouldn't have a 65th birthday party, too, if everything works, if I start treatment when I need to and I stick to it all through the intervening 35 years, watching the people around me getting vaccinated against me, watching the world change while I'm totally reliant on the state, on drugs companies, for survival.

That my father could outlive me is something a son shouldn't have to consider.