I back that up, & hope you get the medical help you need, Chris.
Doug
On 8-Jan-10, at 7:44 AM, Mark Weiss wrote:
> Precisely right. If you can't get to another place for the test get
> it where you are. The progression of the disease will out you in any
> case if you don't get treated. The social fallout from that will be
> a lot harder to deal with, and you'll end up dead.
>
> This sounds like there's more than a little fear of finding out
> involved. Do it. And tell your actor friend.
>
> Mark
>
> At 09:05 AM 1/8/2010, you wrote:
>> Can you get the test in a hospital or clinic in a city that is far
>> enough
>> away but that wouldn't be too expensive to travel to?
>>
>> Judy
>>
>> 2010/1/8 Chris Jones <[log in to unmask]>
>>
>> > Some time ago, when I was working in the area, I said I
>> understood the
>> > problems of gay men living in isolated rural areas when it came to
>> > living with HIV/AIDS.
>> >
>> > There are purple splotches growing over my right ankle and some
>> spots
>> > are beginning to grow on my left ankle and foot. Having seen it
>> before
>> > this looks like KS. While I can go to my doctor for narcotics and
>> will
>> > happily admit I am opiate dependant, I cannot bring myself to ask
>> for a
>> > HIV test. Even going to the local hospital would be too much, as
>> I would
>> > know the nurse who takes my blood and send it off for a test.
>> Even if it
>> > does not come back positive everyone in the town and local area
>> will
>> > know I had a HIV test. Due to my chronic ill health, it is already
>> > suspected that I have AIDS.
>> >
>> > I will admit to having great and wild unsafe sex with an actor,
>> around
>> > my own age. But still, locally, I cannot bring myself to ask for
>> a HIV
>> > anti-body test. The purple splotches on my ankles continue to grow.
>> > Severe disabling muscle pain, disabling fatigue, I have seen this
>> before
>> > in others. This is how I feel.
>> >
>> > And still I cannot bring myself to ask for the test. I would have
>> > married him if the time was right, the sex was that good, but
>> this could
>> > not be. (The eldest of an old and respected grazier family cannot
>> shack
>> > up with a male actor, at his whim. This is simply not done. Patrick
>> > White, how I envy you.)
>> >
>> > I said I understood the plight of gay men living in isolated
>> rural areas
>> > with HIV/AIDS. How wrong was I. How wrong. And still I cannot ask
>> for
>> > the test.
>> >
>
> Announcing The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry (University
> of California Press).
> http://go.ucpress.edu/WholeIsland
>
Douglas Barbour
[log in to unmask]
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
Latest books:
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http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
The artist has no right to waste
the time of the listener.
Eric Alfred Leslie Satie
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