ONE STEP AT A TIME

Back from Ecuador a couple of days ago.

Good trip. Exploring Quito, going to the Amazon, and ended up for a few days staying in the hills/mountains around Laguna Quilotoa. All the time finding time to hike. Of course, the highlight of the trip was climbing Cotopaxi.

I've often wondered about my relationship with hiking and climbing and having AIDS. Especially when it involves tough hikes and climbs of endurance. People may ask why someone living with a life-challenging illness would risk their health further by taking on physically demanding endeavors.

I see it differently.

In order for me to climb a tough mountain, everything else in my life has to be in place. I can't just show up one day, and start putting one foot in front of the other. My life has to maintain a balance to get to that point. If I'm truly serious about being successful, I must be aware of and maintain my physical, mental, and spiritual health. Each day, I must be motivated to exercise, eat right, avoid undue stress, and maintain a openness and awareness of what is going on in my life that might disrupt the goal of obtaining a summit.

Sure the climb itself is tough, but I know to be successful for the climb, everything else must stay in balance for months beforehand. I can't take things for granted. To work for that summit, I need to make sure my whole life is lived in health.

In some of the classes on living with HIV that I teach, I like to tell people who are newly infected, especially if they are in their 20's or 30's, that if they "get it", and realize how important their health and life is, and start doing the things needed to stay healthy (eating right, exercise, disease and stress management), then by the time they turn 50, they will in many ways be healthier than the average 50 year old in this country.

Being infected for going on 25 years now, I've probably had a harder time than most. Only recently being able to maintain an undetectable viral load. During all that time, I kept climbing.

On the day I climbed Cotopaxi, probably 25 other people reached the summit. I was undoubtably the only person with AIDS standing on the top of the highest volcano in the world.

More surprisingly, I think I was the only person over 50 to reach the summit that day.

That did not happen by accident.

That is why I am alive today.