Standing ovation

Me ? Feeling good ?...Yes, i’m trying.

Some days i am right up there, performing.

Some days i am just lying. 

Feeling like on roller-coaster, up and down,

Over the moon, oversensitive, 

and at the verge of a nervous breakdown.

I woke up this morning after sleepless night

The pillow, soaking wet again.

I've managed a smile...despite.

I am weak, I am tired, i don’t care to shave, 

Yet, tomorrow will be different,

Tomorrow is another day.

The show must go on and i will not give up.

The stage is all set,

The audience sitting down.

Are they really all here to see me ? My life’s illumination ?

Very good performance, no doubt,

But surely not worth a standing ovation.

RR, April 2011

Day 16

You are all very welcome on this Wizz Air flight.....

Very early rise is not yet very well handled by my body. The alarm went of at 4 am CET and it wasn’t very pretty. I went to bed last night right after taking the meds in order to have few good hours, but again despite of the tiredness of past few days i still have trouble to fall into a real deep sleep. Hopefully this coming weekend will change that. The reason of my early rise is the fact that today i am traveling home for a long weekend and i am sooooooo looking forward to it. Not much planned apart of few friends coming over on Saturday night. By not much planned i mean that i will be spending a lot of time relaxing, catching up with the summer time change and the sleepless nights. I think you would agree that there is no better place to do that than my own bed (a very expensive one if i may add) and the fact that my hubby will be laying next to me. We are communicating on daily basis via SKYPE, however it will be his first time to experience me ‘in flesh’ since i started the meds. Being an ex-pat and traveling back home every couple of weeks was an additional problem with this treatment. He was insisting for me to stay home the first two weeks, however i really wanted to make things as normal as possible, hence decided that i will fly out and carry on as normal. More than 2 weeks after the first pill and i am glad i took this decision. I think sitting at home would make me very vulnerable and there was a real risk to fall into depression. If you have read the blog from the very beginning you would have noticed the emotional roller-coaster i was trying to express in the form of writing the blog. Having my mind occupied with work, dealing with customers and subcontractors as well as this blog kept me sane. I know that he was worried sick, but i really believe it was the right thing to do.

Trough the window of the Airbus 320 i am looking on the clouds beneath us, a perfect blue sky changing into a orange-yellow horizon line. This picture of endlessness and the Armin Van Buuren ‘Only Imagine’ playing trough the headphones brings me a wonderful calm feeling . Even the turbulences  and the screaming weans behind me do not bother me right now. I didn’t know i am able to put myself in such state of self control .. its almost like a self hypnosis. I am still very much aware of what is happening around me, yet my mind travels far away... trying to visualize in my mind the music i am hearing. No, trust me.. i am not ‘high’ or ‘stoned’ although it might seem that way. 

I think i need to check later on tour dates/places of Armin Van Buuren. I haven’t been in a good techno gig since seeing Tiesto couple years back. Even my dear friend, Miss Foo has recently commented via Facebook that it’s time to do something about it.

The captain switched the ‘please fasten Your seat belts on’ sign as we are starting to decent.....gosh i don’t like landings.

On the ground now and after 1 hour train journey i am finally home. Yes,that feels soooo good.  Outside, typical Scottish weather, as Glaswegians would say: It’s pissing down. The view of endlessness is also gone and replaced by gray thick clouds and wet air....but You know what...all that doesn’t matter, i am back home in Scotland and only that matters.

I will check some e-mails and make sure everything is fine in the office while waiting for my hubby to come home from work... 

Life is great

There is an APP for everything.....

... i take it all back what i said about my iPhone being slow.... it is the best phone in the world :) !

>>>source: www.positivenation.co.uk<<<

The University of Liverpool has launched an iPhone application - HIV iChart - that provides healthcare professionals and HIV patients with instant and easy access to information about drug interactions.

HIV iChart is a tool that provides HIV patients and healthcare professionals with immediate access to information on potential drug interactions between anti-HIV drugs and other medications that a patient with the virus may be taking.

Professor David Back, Professor of Pharmacology, said: “We are delighted to launch this application for iPhones that will provide HIV patients and healthcare professionals with instant and easy access to information about HIV drug interactions that is relevant, reliable and up-to-date. HIV iChart can be used on a hospital ward or in a clinic, in primary-care units, health centres and the community.

In addition to the HIV drugs interaction website, this new tool will increase awareness of how to manage the disease more effectively.”

Dr Ian Williams, Chair of the British HIV Association (BHIVA), said: “This technology provides a marvellous opportunity to greatly increase the ease of access to drug interaction information.  This is a way of helping to maintain best practice.”

HIV iChart is available free of charge and can be downloaded from the App store in iTunes. The application is compatible with both the iPhone and iPod touch and only requires web access for the initial download and updates.

Based on the University-developed website - www.hiv-druginteractions.org - which was developed to provide an up-to-date, evidence-based drug interaction resource, freely available to healthcare workers, patients and researchers providing up to date information on interactions which could occur between various anti-HIV drugs, and other medications sometimes prescribed to HIV+ patients.

The application has been created by the HIV Pharmacology Group at the University of Liverpool and developed with eMedFusion, a division of the KnowledgePoint360 Group. It is supported by the Elton John AIDS Foundation, MSD and Janssen.

HIV iChart was launched at the Tenth International Congress on Drug Therapy in HIV Infection which was held at the SECC in Glasgow.


FYI... i have downloaded the app (it's for FREE) and i have to say very practical. I will be using it frequently...

Day 14

Sleepless in.......

For the very first time in my life i have so much trouble with loosing one hour due to the time change to summer time. Its already third day since the clocks stole us 1 hour and i still can’t get over it. Please do not tell me that this is the sign of getting old. These jokes are not funny anymore. 

I am dead tired in the mornings trying to get out of bed, i am grumpy at work, i can’t focus or get motivated......and then,  suddenly when i am back at home the tiredness is gone. I do wonder... is that real tiredness, or am I simply fed up ? Fed up being so far away from home, fed up with my job (which is really boring in comparison with previous assignment in even further Eastern Europe), fed up with the weather, fed up with the water splashing out of my shower, fed up with the useless driver that parked the car so close to mine that i can’t get in, fed up with the politicians, with my iPhone because is too slow....

Third night in row i am laying wide awake at 2 am still, staring at the sealing, making my my mind work overtime.... and that’s DANGER DANGER DANGER.

Sometimes it is a very trivial stuff that is going through my head, like re-arranging furniture in my miniature living room or what am going to get for dinner tomorrow. 

There are also a times however, where all i can think of is my life, my HIV and the medication. 

All these years passed and i am still thinking of when and how i have caught the infection. I am almost certain when did that happen.. and yet, i do not have a 100% guarantee.

No, it wasn’t many of the potentially dangerous situations i exposed myself to (i am not that big slut). I know, it does sounds pathetic today, but I really have tried always to be very careful. Nevertheless, there were situations that, in the spark of the feeling of ecstasy during the sexual activities somewhere in the dark rooms of some sleazy gay bar, caused by alcohol mixed with some light drugs, didn’t care to trigger my body’s safety and security system.  So, why i can’t simply let it go ? Why do i torture myself with these thoughts ? These will not change the fact that today i am in the weak 2 of a HIV treatment.

During these sleepless nights my positive attitude that i am maintaining so easily during the day is not working. It is that time when, sadness, anger on myself, bitterness, confusion and feeling sorry for myself, comes out in form of cold sweat.

On top of these, now are also new thoughts, thoughts related to the treatment i have just started: Will it work ? Will the side effects not make my life miserable ? 

Last night, these ‘bad thoughts’ were so strong that at some point i was thinking that i feel the virus inside of me, destroying me from within. Instantly i have thought of Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics: “...The night is fallen, i am laying awake, i can feel myself, fading away, so receive me brother with Your faithless kiss...” 

...and in the morning all is fine again, apart of the the fact that i am tired again.

Do not worry dear reader, these sleepless nights are not happening very often and to some extend i do need such nights. I do need to remind myself sometimes how fragile my life is. This is a crucial factor in the evaluation process of its importance and the importance of other people that are such BIG part of my life.

...and by the way... I want to write a song !

Day 13

HOPE.......by Michael Stipe

..... suggestion for the Blog from my dear friend T

You want to go out Friday

And you want to go forever

You know that it sounds childish

That you dreamt of alligators

You hope that we are with you

And you hope you're recognized

You want to go forever

You see it in my eyes

I'm lost in the confusion

And it doesn't seem to matter

You really can't believe it

And you hope it's getting better

You want to trust the doctors

Their procedure is the best

But the last try was a failure

And the intern was a mess

And they did the same to Matthew

And he bled 'til Sunday night

They're saying don't be frightened

But you're weakened by the sight of it

You lock into a pattern

And you know that it's the last ditch

You're trying to see through it

And it doesn't make sense

But they're saying don't be frightened

And they're killing alligators

And they're hog-tied

And accepting of the struggle

You want to trust religion

And you know it's allegory

But the people who are followers

Have written their own story

So you look up to the heavens

And you hope that it's a spaceship

And it's something from your childhood

You're thinking don't be frightened

You want to climb the ladder

You want to see forever

You want to go out Friday

And you want to go forever

And you want to cross your DNA

To cross your DNA with something reptile

And you're questioning the sciences

And questioning religion

You're looking like an idiot

And you no longer care

And you want to bridge the schism,

A built-in mechanism to protect you

And you're looking for salvation

And you're looking for deliverance

You're looking like an idiot

And you no longer care