What About Me?!

The past few posts have all been about Baby Nathan. Baby Nathan, Baby Nathan, Baby Nathan. It’s all been about Baby Nathan.

What about me? I have HIV too, you know? How have I been doing? This is my blog, remember?

Okay, since you asked, I’ll tell you. It’s been seven months since I found out I’m HIV positive. I’ve been on anti-retrovirals or ARVs for the past three months. And I’m doing pretty good.

My weight is steady at around 140 pounds. No other allergic reactions to my ARVs. I’m due for another Quantitative RPR test in December, to make sure my Syphilis has gone or is going away.

My last test results came out a month ago, which was a Hepatitis B viral load count. I didn’t know what to think when I saw the result was over 100,000 units per milliliter. I was just relieved it was far from the maximum detectable level, which was in the hundreds of millions of units per milliliter. And showing it to the doctor at the RITM, she kept me for under a minute, pointing out it was just a baseline count to begin with. She reassured me that two of my three ARVs were acting against the Hepa B virus as well, which I knew already from doing research. She told me I’d need to redo the test six months after, in March, which I’m not exactly looking forward to, because it cost me over PhP 5,000.00. But considering all the other freebies I’m getting, it’s not that bad. I just need to start saving up for it little by little.

I had a bad cold again a couple of weeks ago. No thanks to my mom, who doesn’t have enough etiquette to cover her mouth when she coughs, nor to my boss, who just won’t take a break from work to get well no matter how bad her flu, nor to my selfish colleague at work, who would rather have everyone else freeze to death from the air-conditioning than turn an electric fan her way, just to douse her hot flashes and cool her menopausal vajayjay. Geesh. Fortunately I’ve recovered without having to medicate further. I did notice though, that whenever I get sick like that, it manifests further in the form of breakouts on my face. How bad is it? Let’s just say a colleague of mine wanted to play connect-the-dots on my face. Argh.

All this ranting might just take its toll on my CD4 Count, so you know what... I should get back to talking about Baby Nathan instead. Here’s the latest update.

Another donor sent a bit of money for the medicines and supplies of the baby. I was meaning to go sometime this weekend, so I called Ate yesterday to find out what exactly he needed. She said the baby was doing fine, and fortunately, so much help has been pouring in directly, that the baby still had enough of everything he needed. So she told me to hold on to the money in the meantime, and that she’d send me a text message if some sort of a need for it came up. She did mention that the mom has started working somewhere, and was already able to support the family’s needs when it came to food. Still no final word on when exactly they’re gonna get discharged.

So there, let’s end this on a positive note, and leave it at that. Thanks for letting me rant. Hahaha, like you have a choice. Let’s just all enjoy what’s left of the weekend. Ciao!