Remembering...
I am going to tell you a story where some of it may seem unbelievable, but it is all completely factual.
In 1999, I was diagnosed with AIDS, the day was June 13 and the rest of the next three months is a blur. Why you ask? I fell into a comatose state and was unaware of anything around me. All I know is that when I came out of it, my father sat down with me for over four hours and told me what had happened over that time span. He started off by saying that i developed pneumonia a day or so after i went under. To make matters worse, i started showing actual signs of the disease affecting me. The symptoms included spasms, tremors, and the losing of weight at a rapid pace. I then had 5 more bouts of pneumonia over that same time span. The bad thing was with two of them, my doctors told my parents i was not going to make it and they started making funeral arrangements and that scared the hell out of me. My father went on with how i went from 210 pounds to around 140 and he could see it in me every day he came back to visit me.
By this time I was freaking out because I could only imagine what I must have been putting him and my mother through during all this. He said it was harder and harder to be positive about the outcome with my situation. I had to have nurses do everything for me and I absolutely hate the feeling of complete and total helplessness. I had to realize that i was lucky to be alive and also had to thank everyone involved in my care taking. There are a lot of things my dad skipped over, but he said at any one time i had 3 to 4 IVs in my arms and the doctors were constantly changing my medication to get something that would actually work. The doctors also told my parents that from the results of the tests it seems like I had had the disease for seven to eight years previously. This became very important for me because during that time I was in a relationship with a woman and we had 2 sons. My first thought was, " What happens if I have infected her and the children got it?", it took a while but I found out that by some miracle none of them were affected. If i had endangered the life of any of them, I do not believe I would be sitting here telling you this story because that would have been too big a cross to bear for me.
I know who I was before this entire ordeal and I did not like him so i did something that i had not done in many years, i prayed and i did it for two hours. When I got done, I got the biggest chill down my spine and it was life altering for me. I knew I had to make myself stronger in all aspects of my life, whether it be physically, emotionally or spiritually. My father ended with him telling me that he wanted to be there for me so I was never alone. That is when I told him I would not be alone because I knew there was someone watching me at all times. It was a very strange occurrence for me because it was then that my attitude changed, i became alot more humble than i have ever been before. I guess there is nothing like a life threatening experience to do that to someone.
The next step for me was something I knew I could not avoid, but i knew it was going to be very painful. I was moved to a rehab center to start three months of rehabilitation where the final goal was for me to walk, yes, walk. I know that sounds so simple, but trust me, it is not. They made up a schedule where i was to do rehab six days a week for 5 hours a day. They tortured me because they wanted me out of bed and I was not the willing type because simply moving hurt for me. they stretched my arms and legs, they massaged me, and and they prepped me to get me out of bed and i dreaded it, more than words could ever express. I finally got the srtrength up and put my foot on the ground. As soon as my foot hit the ground it felt like someone had shoved a long sword straight up my leg. It scared me that it hurt that much and it took me a week to get past it. My father talked to me and basically gave me a pep talk so I knew I had to get through it. I told myself because prolonging the inevitable was not an option. In the next three weeks, i worked through the pain and was on forearm crutches and roaming the halls like I owned the place.
This is just to show that I have become a different person and with the right motivation, I can do anything I put my mind to which did not used to be the case.