Since I started treatment for living with HIV and for my kidney failure, I have always attempted to keep track of the various blood results that come in. As I get further and further down the line of both conditions, … Continue reading Keeping track of blood results is important
Whilst on dialysis, Andrew had messaged me to let me know that he had set up Disney+ for the household — and to give me the login and password. So, that really brightened up my day. I got back home … Continue reading Disney+, Fantasia, and the Mickeys Mice
Every year since 2012, my husband and I have laughed at the HIV Hop. One or other of us has shared it on Facebook, and sometimes I have here. It is certainly worth sharing once again. Please think about wearing … Continue reading World AIDS Day – time for the HIV Hop
So, for the last few years, I have been using my second forename as my name in usage. Most people accepted that I was called John and if they knew my first forename was Michael, they just accepted that I … Continue reading Naming problems
For dialysis to work, each patient needs access from the body to the machine. Back in December, when my kidneys failed, I was given a permacath in my chest so that blood can be taken from my body, fed into … Continue reading Three points of access and a question from the 1980s
So, I’ve been on haemodialysis (HD) for just over two months now. Just settled into the rhythm of it. Sunday afternoons (after church), Tuesday mornings (first thing), and Friday lunchtimes are the days I have been going up to Tallaght … Continue reading Changes afoot to dialysis
Earlier this afternoon, I learnt that the doctors were not going to proceed with my expected plasma exchange as the damage to my kidney was just too much. Irreversible kidney damage due to Goodpasture Syndrome. There is always hope. It may be in a different form from that expected earlier – but there is always hope. Continue reading there is always hope.
I don’t think I have had a day like Friday for Firsts first-time my entire family-of-origin came to see me in Dublin; they arrived just after my first bad reaction to a drip of platelets — I came out in a rash. they went to find food when I went downstairs for my first biopsy of a kidney. which was followed by my first dialysis session of an hour followed by first two hours of plasma exchange and finally I get back up to the ward and get some food — ham salad. looking forward to tomorrow, the biopsy results … Continue reading a day of firsts
It is time to say Yes to Equality, to say Yes to Love, and to Say No to discrimination against people of the same sex who love each other. Sitting in Dublin, one could be complacent about Equal Marriage given … Continue reading Time for Equal Marriage in Gibraltar
It is hard to believe that it is about three-and-a-half years since I started taking Eviplera. Looking back it is clear that at the beginning I did know that it was meant to be taken with a meal, but somehow along the way I had forgotten. I had reverted to type and took it last thing at night before heading to bed. This means that it is not working as well as it should be, so the last time I was at my HIV clinic in Dublin, there is talk of me changing to a drug that does not need to … Continue reading Maybe less than a week to go on Eviplera
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