He is me!

Instead of reading through all the articles in my log, you can read through these approx. 6-month summaries. You can use the links below to jump through the summaries.

Just because I was seeing PSAs (public service announcements) everywhere about getting tested for HIV, in December, 1992, I had the test performed by the Canton Health Dpt. On Dec. 29th, I received a positive result. The nurse who informed me was mystified by my easy acceptance of the news. I told her that it was '92 and it seemed like nearly every gay man was testing positive and I didn't consider myself unique enough to have been spared.

The following September, my partner, Randy, was sick with a mysterious month-long fever. Although he had Chron's Disease (a terminal intestinal problem mitigated with surgery), his sickness was no mystery to him. Randy figured that if I was positive, he was also and that was the cause of his illness. Soon Randy's condition worsened; and after struggling against thrush and anemia, he was at our home when he passed away on May 25th, 1994 at 5:55am. Randy's own mother (an LPN) was present and declared his death.

During the time I was caring for Randy, I, too, was getting sicker. I tried taking AZT to prevent the onset of symptoms; however, that drug was killing me faster than any disease was. One of us had to stay well enough for a while, so I went off the meds so that I had the strength to care for my Randy. It wasn't until 2 years after Randy's death, that I finally got really sick. In 1996, I was hospitalized for 5 days with pneumonia (PCP - the "bad" kind of pneumonia (3/96)). Afterwards, I started taking a newer set of drugs and they seemed to work well for a while. However, after a second bout of pneumonia (the regular kind (3/98)), I was changed to different meds since the others weren't working as well any more.

A pattern emerged over the years. Every March at my birthday I was getting very sick - unless it was a year that I went home to visit in March! During those years, besides the two bouts of pneumonia, I had Hives more times than I can count (once I suffered with it for 15 days - in August!), a small case of shingles on my left hip, and a lot of mild side effects from a lot of really potent medications.

For the next several years, I had my ups and downs. There wasn't any more pneumonia or hospitalizations; but I stayed pretty sick for several years and another pattern emerged. I've been through several different medications and, unfortunately, I seem to be highly sensitive to all this chemotherapy. For a while I was on a medication that made me so loopy, that I never knew what day I might spend an hour (or even a whole day!) so messed up that I would be walking into the walls in my house. You sure can't lead much of a life that way, nor hold down a job. After living like this for about 2 years, I slowly, negligently, quit taking my medications. (Thirty-six pills are a lot to take a day anyway!) When I began to get sick again, I quickly ran to the doctor (a new one) and started up on a new drug regime. Although there were fewer pills in this regime, and could be taken on a much better schedule, these new drugs make me very queasy and nauseous. (Just imagine throwing up about half a dozen times every week, and feeling like you could be that sick all the other time. Not a pretty sight!) Another year later, and I was off the meds, and getting sick again. I went back to the doctor and some of my meds were been changed to see if I can tolerate a different blend of the drugs; but I had been getting sick and the meds only made me sicker (starting them up again always has some icky side effects for about 2 weeks), so I wasn't doing so well as the '02 holidays were approaching.

My first website, through Prodigy.com (which closed because their machines were not Y2K compliant) went online in 1995 and I've been online every since.

I started my own web page design firm, ReigningPages.
My philosophy has been that everyone needs a webpage. Instead of telling the same personal information over and over to the people you meet online, you can just send them to your website to learn all about you. Since my family is over 800 miles away, they can easily check up on me and find out what's new in my life in just a few clicks!