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Paul Vivian
In 1990 I was diagnosed with AIDS and my doctor at the time told me if I didn't take a certain drug I would die within a year. When the initial shock wore off my intuition came into clarity with a ...view moreIn 1990 I was diagnosed with AIDS and my doctor at the time told me if I didn't take a certain drug I would die within a year. When the initial shock wore off my intuition came into clarity with a resounding no in terms of taking the drug. For one thing it was designed to give you a few months to a couple years before your body would be resistant to it and you would die. Another reason is that I believe that any form of dis-ease is a form of unease of thought that has created an unbalance and manifested in the form of sickness. If I was going to take any new approach I would have to start there.
Knowing that I would have to be going to the doctor more often I changed my insurance plan and sought a second opinion from another doctor. He told me that if I didn't take AZT immediately I would die in months. Again, when I was in a quiet place afterward, my intuition reiterated what I had felt a month earlier that by itself was poison.
So I went about taking every immune boosting herb and tincture that I could get my hands on. I took up Tai Chi and meditating to reduce stress. I participated in acupuncture and massage therapy all the while looking in the mirror so to speak and assessing and changing my attitudes that were contributing to the unbalance.
This worked for a while even though my immune system was in a delicate balance. However two years later I became sick more and more often. I would recover each time until 1995 when I came down with a life threatening, rare illness. I was so demoralized at that point. One day I went to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and sat my weak body down on the grass and closed my eyes and contemplated whether it was time to let go or not. I had known so many people with AIDS who had died along the way that were taking AZT so I figured my approached had bought me more time. But was it time to let go? I asked myself. After a few moments as tears were streaming down my cheeks the answer within was that was not time but the day would come I would embrace it.
By the next year my condition was growing worse but a glimmer of hope came in the form of the so called cocktail mix of drugs that in theory could sustain you for years to come. I asked my doctor for a prescription but he replied that he believed that I only had a few months at best to live. But I insisted and here I am today.
Now Is All I Have is a dreamlike introspective of that journey.view less