Monday, December 21, 2009



(Cotopaxi)

In Ecuador, doing the things I love most.

Hiking & Climbing.

Never knowing what my capabilities are, but I push it, maybe too much. Rage against the Disease.
Yesterday, getting up at 12am from the refuge on Cotopaxi, getting gear together: harness, iceaxe, crampons, etc., embarking on the journey again. Tough, but beautiful climb, which I had prepared for by doing a couple of hikes up to Rucu Pinchincha during the week. At 15,300 feet, I hoped the hikes were enough to help me acclimate to Cotopaxi.

Of course, always worried about he stress on my body. I end up taking an extra dose of my HIV meds at midnight, because I get so caught up in the climbing, that I can forget a dose.

And of course it was tough. I try to not make AIDS (or my age an excuse), but it does come into play.


Near the summit, I end up taking 10-15 steps, needing to stop, to fill my damaged lungs with air. If not, I'd end up coughing and gagging. Thank God, my 3 member rope team were patient enough. The climb took about 6 hours to the summit. Then we were there....


And I Never felt more alive.




Sunday, December 06, 2009

It had been like dying, that sliding down the mountain pass. It has been like the death of someone, irrational, that sliding down the mountain pass and into the region of dread. It was like slipping into fever, or falling down that hole in sleep from which you wake yourself whimpering. We had crossed the mountains that day, and now we were in a strange place.


Annie Dillard -- 'Total Eclipse'



Sunday Morning trip to Powell's books, picking up a couple of travel books for my friend in Ecuador. Browsing through several sections for something to take for myself. Rumi? Gracia Marquz? Annie Dillard came into my mind, so I picked up a compilations of her work. The first paragraph struck me, and I settled on it.

Much like traveling. Going to an unknown time and place. The death of something, the birth of somethings new. Like my move to Portland Oregon over 14 years ago. Four days, driving across country with a few meager possessions in back of my truck. Some boxes of odds and ends, clothes, a few books. A dresser was about the only piece of furniture. During the drive I continued with my fevers which would start up in the afternoons, and increase to 101 or 102 by the time I'd find a cheap hotel for the night. It was irrational. It was the death of someone. It was in some ways going into the region of dread, knowing that I might be dead by the end of the year.

Looking back, I want to say I was totally at peace, that I welcomed and embraced everything that would come. That I had no sleepless nights. But it was tough. All I knew is that I did not want to live the few months I had left in South Carolina. And I did not want to die in the place where I was born, where I felt no longer safe. I was willing to risk going into the unknown, even the dread of it for the chance, the hope of something better.

How many times in history has that happened? Where people have traveled across continents, across oceans, in the hope of the unknown, knowing the risk, knowing the dread, but driven from the intolerable, to jump off the edge of a cliff, falling, falling, sliding, down, down. Hoping to at the least to come to rest, in a new strange place, the potential, the possibility. Of? The just maybe, maybe....


Sliding, I come to a halt, take a breath, and slowly, slowly, open my eyes....

Friday, December 04, 2009


Slowly pulling things together for my trip to Ecuador next week. My friend there has given me a list of things to bring, which I don't mind doing.
Yesterday, he informed me that his partner, who is HIV+ cannot get one of his HIV meds, because of a disruption in the supply chain. I've been going through some contacts here to try to locate the particular med. The best I can do so far is find someone who has some outdated bottles, or another dual combo pill that has the med in it along with another unneeded one.
In the process I've come head on into realizing the fragility of living with HIV in a third world country. Almost all the meds I'm on, the "latest and greatest", which have saved my life, aren't even available in most third world countries. I realize that if my friend in Ecuador should fail his current regimen, he probably as few options left. The meds I'm on will aren't available there -- and they probably won't be in the foreseeable future -- they are simply too expensive. (The ones I'm on probably run $75,000/year).

And my friend is one among many. Many millions, who are in the same boat.
It's like being in a row boat in a vast stormy sea, steadily rowing, hoping we make it, somewhere.


Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Cross Country Skiing on Mt. Hood

Getting cold, falling down, snot running down my upper lip, falling down again, sweaty from overdressing, getting cold again, falling down again, more snot, achey muscles.
All and all, I say it was a pretty great day.