May 18, 2009 Monday Night

Woke up feeling like I wanted to throw up. Lasted for a couple hours into the morning. Spent the morning very tired. Seems when I don't take a nap like yesterday, I can notice the difference the next day. Got to my therapist appointment at 11 AM. Was productive. Got home and just laid around all afternoon, or at least tried. Was restless and did not get any sleep. Can't wait to go to bed tonight. Did manage to vacuum the weekends worth of dog hair up from the carpet this afternoon. Vacuuming is a daily activity when you have four dogs. Put the left over spaghetti on the stove for Tony and went to my 6 PM dinner meeting at Bio Script. Today's topic was drug resistance. Not a pleasant topic. Stressed the importance of taking your meds, whatever they are, on time, at the time told to take them. If your suppose to take a med 2 times a day, that means 12 hours apart. 7 AM and 7 PM. If you only have to take one cocktail a day, like my Atripla, it has to be the same time each day. 10 PM for me. If you start adjusting the time you take your meds the HIV virus finds a way to increase your viral load of the disease, which then increases your chances of those HIV cells mutating into a resistant cell that your current meds do not know how to fight. Therefore you then have to start taking other meds along with what your currently taking to fight the now mutated HIV cells. This happens when your HIV becomes resistant to your current medicines. That plus the fact that eventually the current cocktail you take eventually does not work as well was not a happy thought. Sooner or later the HIV finds a way to fight whatever meds you are taking. Later is better than sooner, especially with the advances that are made each year. Also shows the importance of getting a full blood test done every 3 months so that if your viral load starts to increase one can find out what drugs are now resistant to the new HIV cells. I am hoping to be non detectable in June with my next round of blood tests. If my viral load would start to increase in any way after that it means my current cocktail of Atripla needs to be adjusted or another option looked at. Hopefully that all made sense. Going to log off and watch the season ending of CSI Miami and then off to bed. No appointments tomorrow. I do have to go to Walgreen's at some point during the day to pick up some refills on medicines. I should get a job working at Walgreen's since I am there so often. Most the clerks know me by name. Not sure if that is a good thing. Suppose to be a nice day tomorrow and continue to get better as the week goes on. Maybe tomorrow I will have time to come up with a topic for discussion. Any suggestions?