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Here is another dirty little secret I am going to let my readers in on: "Sometimes life just sucks!" Pure and simple. Life, life the people that live it, is imperfect. Remember it is also about PROGRESS NOT PERFECTION (I leave the perfection thing up to God). Keep questioning yourself. Argue with yourself. And know that you have ever right to even disagree with yourself. When I talk about surviving it is not just about "getting by" it is about living in complex world as a complex person.
Yes, yes!! I think I see. I've got the survival thing down--have even become a little complacent after surviving a major illness (non HIV related). I have imagined what I would do if I were rich and had done just about everything I wanted including giving back. The question remains--"Now what?" Certainly not another thrill. What is greater or more in depth than survival alone? It sometimes feels like continually moving the goal posts further away. And that's O.K....eventually. Being a warrior seems to have many levels on a spectrum--one self-serving alone--the other of self for serving others. The latter is the warrior I was referring to based on some of what you said about you. The self is the only place to begin I think. That's the kind of selfness I've been lately--beginning to feel a little guilty. Also came out of the health care provider role under a client's psychiatric treatment plan prior to my illness-- bit of a rationale now--recovery. Perhaps a balanced process--equilibrium and the capacity to adapt to whatever comes. Apart from labels, wouldn't that be a pretty decent "I" to proceed from? "The catch is how you decide to survive." Some "hows", I've found, tend to turn into their opposites. There's the rub. What precisely IS survival after a certain viable point? (question to self)
You know I used to shy away from the "warrior" analogy since it always sounded (and still does mostly) rather self-serving. However, while I may feel some reluctance to accept this "mantel" of identity I have come to realize that most simply people go to work every day, but I (and many others) cross over the line in stand. We simply walk through the DMZ and enter "enemy" terrorist and go on with it. I don't know if this makes "different" but I do know that I heard some lyrics in the great musical about bipolar disorder - "Next to Normal" - that was a play on an old saying that jolted me right up out of my seat..."what doesn't kill me doesn't kill me"...and I got it in split second of a T Cell dying. Sometimes life is not about doing better or fixing things. Sometimes life is about survival. The catch is how you decide to survive.
Thank you Richard, I got the answer I needed--the difference that makes the difference is that you are a Warrior. Classic! So sometimes the shadows get long and seem to fill the landscape, but you keep putting a foot forward. I'm glad you are one of the many able-minded clinicians on the front line. Thank you for your service and blog. LAofLA
One of the things that your comment triggered in me LAofLA is how much I hate bad medicine. I mean I really hate lazy practitioners who think that "numbers" are somehow magic and that those of us living with these great number should just shut up and be happy. I say, once again, fuck them and the numbers. How I wish for the "magical" power of taking nearly all my well intentioned HIV clinician colleagues who are negative and simply bashing their fucking skulls in. It may not make THEM feel any better but I can assure you I would get a lift. But I am on a rant so I need to own that. However, the basic problem with medical providers is simple. They are simple jerks with a degree but have somehow been placed on pedestals by society, themselves, and their patients. The only thing I know that happens to objects place on pedestals is that eventually they topple and crack. Sure some clue and wizardry can make them seem almost flawless again but the fact of the matter is that they (us, them, me) were never flawless in the first place. Medical care is hard to deliver. Good medical care is painful to provide. The other night a women sitting at the same table as I was at a wedding asked "How I did it?" I knew exactly what she was talking about. She was a big time architect and brilliant but she knew no matter what her job she never had to walk into a battlefield and say things that are painful, harsh, and sometimes fatal to people. So when you ask how I manage without "old compensations" all I can come up with is that they were compensations at all. They were simply chemical smoke screens. On a daily basis I acknowledge and accept (sometimes not without a lot of bile spurting) that I have little say in most matters. Yea, I have brains, experience, and brawn..and all that equals is my current clinical drag that gets me through the day. No patient deserves to be ignored or dismissed because the guy the the initials behind their name thinks it is okay. Again, fuck that notion three ways to Sunday and back. Being a good medical clinician take about the same thing it take to be a good writer...first you open a vein then you do what is necessary. There are days when I feel like I have sliced open every vein in my soul and curse the fact that did not become a hunky gay boy-man waiter in some overpriced bistro and take home tons of money and eat free. But you know what else? For all my rant and bitching...I wouldn't change a thing. I like being a warrior and do not have any problems with letting my patients, my friends, myself, and my God know when the battle scares are not scabbing over.
Richard, Are you walking in the sunlight but still looking at the shadows? The source that creates them? I wonder. If so, I sympathize. I'm still there. I would be interested to know how you really sustain yourself without the old compensatons. Lately I have wished that I had a bent to seek their temporary relief--but I'm just too damned ordinary. I have also noticed too often that their is an apathy creeping in from the front desk to the doctors themselves. The doctors restrained somehow by the medical plans they serve from. If I complain of other non-HIV related issues their eyes glaze over and I am again told my numbers are fine. Sometimes the affected need a shoulder to lean on if not cry upon. I do it nowhere else. Thanks for article. I love your association without self editing. LAofLA
Thanks for the great comments which I really appreciate. However, when I write most of my blogs I think it is important for readers to remember I re-telling a situation that really happened and not just some "story". The longer I remain in HIV practice the more I realize that so little has changed in so many ways. Ignorance has been coupled with arrogance and complaincy. Also, good old fashion "hate" seems to regaining social acceptance. I sometimes come home from AA meetings (where everyone know I am HIV positive) and am dumfounded by the casual hate talk that enters into meetings. To make it worse when people express their concerns about this happening the only thing that happens is NOTHING. I often wonder how many people are slammed back into the HIV closet of shame and hiding on a daily basis due to these issues.
Ian R.
wow great article, really took me there!
September 24, 2009