April 23, 2009 Thursday Afternoon

Drove to one of the finer grocery stores in the area and bought a ton of fruit for the weekend. Then went to Shorewood, to a bakery, and bought an expensive cake for tonight for my Birthday. Bought some coffee cakes and breakfast stuff for the weekend also.

Spent the afternoon on the couch with the dogs just listening to some favorite songs on the computer that I have downloaded. When I got up there was the following email from a guy named Anthony. I am posting his email because it is a perfect example of the emails I get from people finding this blog. I post it to show not only that you are not alone in your feelings, but to show others who are not dealing directly with HIV how this disease effects us physically as well as mentally:

"my real name is anthony i am 21 living with hiv new to it. i get so lonely sometime where no one can help me through it my boyfriend will never understand how hard it is for me , he get sad to know . i have told a couple friends and my parents but none of them really care, my boyfriend is my only support i think if i lose that i will go crazy. please dave help me in some way i dono what to do , like what i need to do with my health,everything i am new. thanks so much please write back"

I think a light bulb went off or got brighter after I replied to his email. I am going to spend my life helping others cope with the physical and mental effects of this disease. I am going to look into either updating this blog to include more links or start a web page that has much more content and help for those needing it. Maybe even an advice page. Will have to give some more thought, but that is where I am heading. It feels good to help others and I think there are more than enough people out there who need it. Stay tuned. The sun just came out here in Milwaukee.