The Time Has Come. . .

During the past couple of months, I have been getting some answers from all these medical tests (MRI, X-RAYS, you know the drill) I have sat through. It seems that my early years of HIV are again coming back to haunt me. . .

During my first three to four years of being positive, I volunteered for a few drug studies as my way of helping "make a difference" (and since the various drug companies were paying for everything, I felt that I was saving taxpayer dollars too).

I was considered drug-study "naive," because I was not on any medications yet, and I think that is why I was in the "control" groups for a couple of them (I would find out what group I as slated in at the end of the study), so I only took placebos and AZT most times.

I am sure AZT has its uses, such as preventing the spread of HIV from a mother to her unborn child (last I heard, it cuts the rate to less than five percent, but I may be a little off), but as with many drugs for the treatment of HIV, AIDS, and many, many other illnesses and conditions, no one has done any sort of long-term study or whatnot on the effects of these new "wonder drugs."

All I know is that at the age of 35, I was diagnosed with Osteoperosis, and later had others conditions (like neuropathy) morew akin to nerve degradation. . .

Anyways, I have a degenerative disc in the lowest part of my spine, and along with that (and possibly in relation to) a small bit of bon is jutting out from the spin and may also be pinching on a main nerve.

If I stand longer than 5-15 minutes, my right leg begins to go painfully numb, as if it is decaying while still attached. Sometimes it is my left leg, and one it was both, but mainly it is my right,

So now I have a cane. Even though it looks very very cool. It haunts me. Thes are the changes that I feared. The ones that kept me withdrawn into myself.

Thers are so many times that I wish I did not see my best friend, Mikel die. Even though I know each person/patient is different and all that, but you cant hekp but use him a a gauge sometimes. . .