Thought Picnic: To love and work at it

Knowing what is up

The beauty of love and being in love has a profound way of giving you both a sense of being and joy of living that cannot be effectively put into words. There is a satisfaction and stability that can come with being a relationship that we fail to nurture and tender, we just allow things to trundle allow naively assured of nature without nurture.

Yet, when I review relationships past, I find that we never really took the time to review if what each of us expected in the relationship was matched to what our partners sought, of if there was any alignment that helped compatibility and interdependence, we just left ourselves to the issues and situations without attending properly the bonds that defined us.

Working at it more

If there is any lesson to be learnt, it is to cherish more and nurture better the affairs of the heart. Give time and consideration to the garden of love that it does not get overgrown with the weeds of distraction, indifference, and complacency.

With Brian, I find that I need to appreciate what I have for I know and maybe that is a cliché that I have never loved like this before, all the loves I have had have been in their ways significant, they have all been part of the fabric of my life and the stories I get to tell.

Then this is different and wonderful, experience has been an unrelentingly hard taskmaster, that one would be a fool to commit the old mistakes again. I am resolved to work at this.

My hopes say my fears will not prevail

In all my weakness

Sometimes, I have to wonder how I keep pressing on, how despite the many things that cause fear, anxiety, uncertainty, and turmoil, hitting at the door of my composure threatening to break an entry and overwhelm me with the audacity of the invasion of an armed robber.

I am only human, all the more vulnerable, concerned about circumstances that I believe will turn right, though, at this time, things are not where they should be. The vicissitudes of life are an ever-present indicator that ease and difficulty are the ebb and flow of the currents that define the stories of life.

I will not falter

At times, it seems relentless and unyielding, then you think again, I can face this and face this down, this will pass, it will become a distant memory. It is just not that comfortable when you are sitting in the middle of a storm. I know I will weather it, even when I think my strength is totally exhausted, the reserves that buoy me up would say, grace, good fortune, blessing, and favour is on my side.

Until I draw my last breath, I am here to tell a better story. Using the spirit of hope to my fears, they will not prevail.

Chemotherapy as a journey to survival

A body for assault

No two experiences of taking chemotherapy are the same, at least that is what I think from my own situation. As I took my delayed first session of Caelyx chemotherapy (liposomal doxorubicin) on the 5^th of October 2009.

It was scheduled for 9:30 AM but postponed for 3 hours. In that time, I received a brilliant bouquet of flowers from Stockholm which brightened my outlook quite a bit.

I had been informed that I was not going to lose my hair, not that I had any to lose, and my fertility will be affected, not that I was planning to procreate nor was I in the state to make a preservation order on that account.

Taking cancer head-on

When I was wheeled to the oncology theatre, I was canulated and this red liquid in large sachet covered in aluminium foil to shield it from light was passed into my veins for a period of 45 minutes to an hour.

It felt like a homeward straight in my therapy, the fungating tumours of Kapasi’s sarcoma were going to be snuffed out. The chemotherapy being cytostatic, meaning it kills cells and stops cells from growing also meant that I was a health hazard to others who had to be careful about having any contact with any of my bodily fluids including blood.

After the first session, my bed was cordoned off in isolation and that affected me more than the bloated feeling that was a side effect of drug. I was informed of everything I could expect apart from the isolation which was removed after 2 nights.

How it all transpired

I had 7 chemotherapy sessions every third Monday until the 8^th of February 2010. In terms of side effects, it was the loss of taste, the only things I could perceptively taste were yoghurts and cassis black currant drinks. I was literally knocked and without strength for the second and third day, then by the fifth session, I could not keep my food down that I had to be given medication to manage the emesis.

By December, the cancer lesions had disappeared, new pink skin was showing up from under the necrotised skin which needed to be cut away. It is not the best experience, but if it is the only viable course of treatment, you just have to hope you pull through it, for at the same time, a close friend on chemotherapy treated by the same oncologist did not survive his third session of chemotherapy.

Just striving to live

I guess what I learnt through the process was that you were given more of the chemotherapy if you tolerated it well. When I visited the hospital for my out-patient sessions, the ward was well-equipped, the couches were fully adjustable to recline into beds, if so desired. I took my thermos flask of tea, some biscuits, and some reading material.

Apart from the staff, we were a ward of people fighting to live, from the boy who came alone, hardly a teenager to the elderly people, just hoping that the medicine gave us a lot more time than when we first heard the word cancer spoken about our condition.

This blog of reflection is one that also recognises that people with my condition at diagnosis rarely lived for another 10 years. I have been fortunate, and I am grateful for the grace of God on my life, the amazing miracle of medical science, the support of extraordinary friends and now the wonderful love in my life, Brian. I am blessed.

Running the gauntlet of influencer clout blackmail

Be glad for the professionalism

I got involved in a thread conversation on Twitter this morning because I felt there was a seething sense of entitlement bordering on blackmail that could not be overlooked. The poster had used the services of a skin specialist whose professionalism had eradicated hyperpigmentation from his face, and one would assume out of customer satisfaction, the poster recommended other people to the skin specialist.

It transpired that the skin specialist told the poster that through his recommendation, some 500 other clients had used his professional services. The skin specialist thanked the poster for the recommendation and that should have been enough.

This is just barefaced entitlement

However, the poster did a mental calculation on the 500 clients, imagined the total income from that clientele and came to the conclusion that the skin specialist’s gratitude could have been better expressed in a probably a free year of skincare services and so by inference labelled the skin specialist an ingrate for getting all that custom and providing no tangible reward.

Now, I cannot say how large the skin specialist’s business is, but one thing is certain, if the skin specialist had not achieved the results of fixing the poster’s face, everything else that resulted in referrals, increased clientele and additional income from the clients would not have happened. What professionals do is provide a service for which they get paid and if the customer decides to recommend them, that is a bonus.

Please respect the professional

What I take issue with is people who having obtained a good professional service for which time and resources have been meticulously devoted expecting to get a free service in reward for their recommendations. It is one thing to have agreed beforehand that you will bring custom to a business for some reward, and it is another to expect a reward from having benefitted from a service. If it is exclusively your decision to recommend a business, do not return to blackmail the business owner into giving you a free service.

In fact, professionals should always be treated as professionals with skills on the market to be monetarised, please respect the professional, and pay up. For example, would anyone having had a successful surgical procedure and then recommended the surgeon to others now expect the surgeon to provide free services for subsequent surgeries as an expression of gratitude? What makes a surgeon different from a skin specialist or a computer expert except for the tendency to denigrate and contemn one in relation to the other?

Paying forward is better

I have recommended businesses and services just as I have written reviews about services that have not been to a professional standard either to get them to change or to alert other customers about issues with the business. Where my reviews have redounded to the bottom line, I do not stand at the gate seeking compensation or reward, I pay fully for the service provided respecting what they do.

My principle is to pay forward rather than seek reward, what I can afford, I pay for, if the business wants to be generous, that generosity is better directed to those in need. I would not let acquisitive greed deprive others of opportunity and access. Like if the skin specialist offered a free session, I would probably suggest it be given to someone who needs it but cannot afford it.

It is blackmail, no less

This brings me to the issue of influencers; these are people who have a large following due to activity in their situation who have consequently promoted a business or service to their followers. Whilst I cannot essentially class fame or infamy as a profession, some do use their influencer clout to then attempt to blackmail businesses, services, or professionals into providing free products and services for exposure to their following.

For some businesses, there can be a beneficial end to that, but to put upon a professional and predicate that by your influence their business has survived and without you, they will be nothing is quite an aggrandisement and close to delusions of grandeur. It is the professional’s prerogative to express gratitude as they deem fit without having to be excoriated or abused for just expressing thanks instead of doling out freebies.

Ultimately, if you can’t pay for the service, go elsewhere. If you feel entitled to a free service, find a gullible professional ready to sacrifice their professionalism for your influencer schtick. Enough of the backhanded recommendations seeking reward, if anything, it is utterly reprehensible, and I have no qualms about calling it out.

Thought Picnic: 13 years on antiretroviral (ARV) medication

Taking treatment for HIV/AIDS

I was put on first-line antiretroviral (ARV) drugs on this day 13 years ago, on the 9^th day of admission to the hospital, seriously ill, in pain, and after a battery of tests and biopsies. At that point, the consultants and specialists had agreed on the course of treatment to address HIV that had deteriorated into AIDS with the opportunistic infection of cancerous Kaposi’s sarcoma.

Other schedules for my treatment were being planned as I was informed the next day. I started on Kaletra (lopinavir/ritonavir) and Truvada (emtricitabine/tenofovir), two of the former and one of the latter, once daily, I tolerated them well apart from occasions of diarrhoea. Within 6 weeks of that regime, my HIV viral load had been reduced to undetectable. [Drugs.com: Drug Interactions between Kaletra and Truvada]

Changes to medication

I was kept on this medication until May 2010 which was over 3 months after my last session of chemotherapy and when literally all other medications had ceased before I was put on Atripla. Today, I am on its therapeutic equivalent as branded Atripla has been withdrawn from the market because it is no longer under patent and the demand for branded formulary has fallen with the introduction of generic alternatives.

However, the more reason for writing this blog is to indicate that the antiretroviral drugs are efficacious, they work, they considerably diminish the effects of HIV leaving you with an undetectable viral load and usually an increasing CD4 cell count that gives you the ability to fight off disease.

Healthy status and medical adherence

With an undetectable viral load, you cannot pass on HIV, which has given rise to the U=U Campaign, Undetectable = Untransmittable. People of ARVs adhering to their medication and having regular check-ups on their blood chemistry and sexual health can expect to live as normal as possible lives.

This is all possible if one is under medical supervision and no decisions are made regarding the use of medication without expert instruction, even if by some good fortune, there is some indication that HIV has been eradicated by whatever means. Your HIV consultant must have fully tested and verified that claim before you change anything regarding your medication.

For me, I am a living testimony of how medicine with expertise, the support of many, the hope that helped my faith, that HIV even when you have fully developed AIDS-defining illnesses can be brought under control with medical intervention. Once again, it is not a celebration just sharing facts about my own experiences.

Blog - Reflecting on 20 years after an HIV-positive diagnosis

Childhood: Standing up to the powerful

The headmistress’ daughter

Certain girls in my childhood experience were big girls, taller and fierce, bullies at times, against whom I could do little if anything. In one case, when I was just 8, and she was probably 10, the daughter of the headmistress would on occasion share the Land Rover school bus with us; my sister and I along with children for 3 other families that met in the front of the ATMN (Amalgamated Tin Mines of Nigeria) offices in Rayfield, Jos.

I presume she would normally travel to school with her mother. However, in the time that we were on the school bus, for whatever reason, rather than be kind and friendly, she would pinch and bruise me whilst I grimaced and winced in pain, just wishing for the journey to school to end and be rid of her menace.

Getting a pinch back

It happened a few more times and I told my dad about it. He simply said, pinch her back. The next time we shared the school bus, she pinched me and quite immediately, I pinched her back. Maybe the shock of retaliation or something hit her, but now she reported me to her mother. I do not think I was called into the headmistress’ office, but the headmistress contacted my father to remonstrate my behaviour.

There was an interesting power dynamic at play that taught me a veritable lesson about not being afraid of people with means and influence, along with power and money. It was in the way my father addressed the issue.

At first, he explained that the girl had been attacking me for days before I reported the issue to him, that she was much bigger than I, that she had been bullying me, and what made the attacks stop was when I retaliated. I think the headmistress understood, and not only did the attacks stop, but the girl also never joined us on the bus again.

Don’t dread the powerful

Another thing, her father was the Managing Director of ATMN whereas my father was the Deputy Chief Accountant, they were all Caucasian, though that is beside the point, I had always been in an international school setting that race or identity in that regard never mattered to me, though I do remember that we as children were quite cruel to those of Asian heritage.

The broader lesson was in the fact that I was exposed to possible repercussions at school just as my father was to such at work, because of who the parents of the girl were. Yet, when he made the case of kindness, fairness, and justice, without fear or favour, for me and for himself, I learnt from that time that if you were in the right and were doing right, you could hold your head high in any place.

Then one thing that has helped me navigate power structures through life has been, to be honest, and true, then, I am only afraid and terrified of people who have two heads. So far, I have met none such and I am glad it is an imponderable of the imagination than a vestige of possibility.

From 50 Cent to 1 Pound on the BBC

Tuning in to BBC

Let’s just take a break from this tummy upset that has overstayed its welcome and seek a sense of mirth that I apparently missed in the news until it appeared on one of those American night talk shows.

Perfection Plastic Surgery and MedSpa is the business of Angela Kogan who amongst other things does help put the long in schlong quite perfectly, or so it seems. For that, she has gained some notoriety and a lawsuit, because she has in her promotional material suggested 50 Cent (Now to be known as 1 Pound in the light of the crash of the Pound Sterling), was a client. [Independent: 50 Cent suing Miami doctor for allegedly suggesting rapper had penis enlargement surgery]

There is a picture of them together somewhere and the inference from 50 Cent is that she has suggested that he tuned in to the BBC. I cannot say how many channels can be tuned into, but this public display of phallic endowment and the disputations that follow can quite easily lead respectable blogs like mine into the abyss of tawdry lewdness.

Please, don’t

Now, if this does make it to court, I doubt the core aspects of discovery would be limited to proving whether 50 Cent was a client, for anyone with serious legal chops would be expected to ascertain if indeed there has been an enhancement whether cosmetic or radical and who might in his history have tuned the knobs on his television to watch more than a live performance on the BBC.

I adjure anyone who reads and listens, please, go to court on anything and everything, but never on the premise of submitting your manhood as evidence, it never has a happy ending, regardless of what you are packing. At best, frighten the living daylights out of her and find a settlement, for you will never be able to sustain an objection when the jury is curious.

If I recall, this blog did once find a doctor offering these same services, it is heartening to know that both male and female specialists are in the game to ensure that the result is fit for purpose, whatever, that might be.

Blog - Hello Dr Dick, my friends need a ... (2015)