A LOOK BACK! At 60DAYS SOBER, ... I once concluded that "I JUST have an UGLY face." However, despite the devastation of disfigurement, I was/am still conscience & cognizant of the fact that my Seventh Chakra shines – Sahasrara : "The Thousand-Petaled Lotus" – "signifying & assuring QHereKidSF of his supreme consciousness & sublime connection to the cerebral, spiritual & physical worlds" (cf. http://youtu.be/gg8mjhUqSpw – below).
At 1YR. CLEAN, I affirmed "BEAUTY!" ... "But, only at God's speed. God willing" : the choice words Director Daniel Cardone & I used to frame the closing of CONSTRUCT, our "epic" (not in length, but rather in magnitude of reverberation & depth) experimental docu-short, filmed as part of The HIV Story Project's STILL AROUND 2010 compilation (Exec. Producer: Jörg Fockele; Producer: Marc Smolowitz), which together feature a day-in-the-life of 15 individual PWA (i.e., People With AIDS) protagonists.
Now, today... At 18.5MTHS. OF HOPE (not dope!), I take the stage in a short time to proclaim how indeed I am finally & once again ablaze with "DESIRE" : red hot & risen, redeemed & reborn; as a "PHOENIX a'FIRE" (cf. "Resident Alien" - the Sins Invalid Artists In Residence Show), who prances, dances and sings poemsongs of Paphian pleasantries, indulgences & delights...
As my Sins Invalid artist bio reads, I am: "grateful for God's boundless love of & faith in [my] own purely imperfect and human desire 'for elaborate beautification & solemn self-betterment" (cf. CONSTRUCT, 2011). "But, then again, I'll be quick to say: We live to die and die to live... Forever! Come what may." (cf. JEER NOT! FEAR NOT!!; "Resident Alien," 2011).
STAY TUNED!! for my "flagrantly unfettered" foretelling of a future full of fortitude, good fortune, and truly "fag-o-licious fabulosity" of face... SUBSCRIBE TO MY YouTube® CHANNEL – mindflux | matt(e)o | mayhem : http://youtube.com/qherekidsf.
Cheers! Ciao & Namaste...
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
matthew@qherekidsf.com
http://bit.ly/qherekidsf
San Francisco, CA USA
[20110125T071435PST]
Showing posts with label surgery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label surgery. Show all posts
25 January 2011
21 September 2010
Facebook® POST (RE: R. Starner Jones, MD)
"CULTURE CRISIS" vs. "HEALTH CARE CRISIS"
Late, on the evening of September 20, 2010, I confirmed a Facebook® FRIEND Request from Matthew A. Elliott, a random acquaintance made via cyberspace connections to current Facebook® FRIENDS: Brandon Broehl-Phifer, and candidate for San Francisco District 8 City Supervisor, Raphael Mandelman. Out of plain & simple curiosity, I chose to indulge in exploring this new FRIEND'S Facebook® PROFILE, where I was shocked to find the following WALL Post, originating from one Richard Meckstroth, but re-posted recently to his own WALL by Mr. Elliott, himself:
Late, on the evening of September 20, 2010, I confirmed a Facebook® FRIEND Request from Matthew A. Elliott, a random acquaintance made via cyberspace connections to current Facebook® FRIENDS: Brandon Broehl-Phifer, and candidate for San Francisco District 8 City Supervisor, Raphael Mandelman. Out of plain & simple curiosity, I chose to indulge in exploring this new FRIEND'S Facebook® PROFILE, where I was shocked to find the following WALL Post, originating from one Richard Meckstroth, but re-posted recently to his own WALL by Mr. Elliott, himself:
Pictured is a young physician by the name of Dr. Roger Starner Jones. His short two-paragraph letter to the White House accurately puts the blame on a "Culture Crisis" instead of a "Health Care Crisis"...
It's worth a quick read:
Dear Mr. President:
During my shift in the Emergency Room last night, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient whose smile revealed an expensive shiny gold tooth, whose body was adorned with a wide assortment of elaborate and costly tattoos, who wore a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and who chatted on a new cellular telephone equipped with a popular R&B ringtone.
While glancing over her patient chart, I happened to notice that her payer status was listed as "Medicaid"! During my examination of her, the patient informed me that she smokes more than one pack of cigarettes every day, eats only at fast-food take-outs, and somehow still has money to buy pretzels and beer. And, you and our Congress expect me to pay for this woman's health care? I contend that our nation's "health care crisis" is not the result of a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. Rather, it is the result of a "crisis of culture" a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on luxuries and vices while refusing to take care of one's self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance. It is a culture based in the irresponsible credo that "I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me". Once you fix this "culture crisis" that rewards irresponsibility and dependency, you'll be amazed at how quickly our nation's health care difficulties will disappear.
Respectfully,
ROGER STARNER JONES, MD
If you agree... Pass it on!
FACEBOOK WALL POST
By: Richard Meckstroth
The COMMENT(S) I shared on Mr. Elliott's Facebook® WALL were an abbreviated version of what I am now publishing to my own social media space on the Web. I'm altogether willing & ready to acknowledge that I had intended for this entire article to be shared with Mr. Elliot and his FRIENDS; although, I did do my best to condense my COMMENT(S) in a way that preserved the overall "positively progressive" tone of my extemporaneous opinion essay. Here's what I wrote at length, without any omissions:
Does he have a point, really?
Let me counter the argument extemporaneously,...
I've suffered from a disabling HIV/AIDS diagnosis since leaving The College of William & Mary (Williamsburg, VA) two months before graduation, in 2002. Conceivably (depending on your point of view and/or level of intimate experience living a closeted college life on the campus of an elite, albeit very conservative, small public "Southern Ivy" university), I was all but forced to leave.
Traipsing cross country in search of the solace of acceptance & understanding from like-minded, health-conscious homos, I chose to make San Francisco my home. Only upon arriving, without a penny in my pocket and desperately in need of support, did I sign on as a client with Bay Area Young Positives, Inc. (BAY Positives) & Larkin Street Youth Services (LSYS).
Both agencies offered much needed assistance, but what they offered that proved most invaluable to me was the means and wherewithal (i.e., advocacy, linkages & coordination of services) with which to apply and be accepted immediately for Supplemental Security Income & Medicaid.
I freely and shamelessly admit that, back then, I was little aware and in no position to be convinced of what good fortune I had run into; what, with access to universal health care and all. In spite of the care, guidance & supportive services I was receiving on a daily basis, I let my once promising life degrade into a dangerously absurd cacophony of unmitigated drug dependency/abuse and unmonitored, unmedicated manic depression & HIV/AIDS disease.
It was only after having recovered from a six month messianic schizoid-delusional borderline personality psychosis and AIDS-related PCP pneumonia that I was coaxed into pursuing employment by the gentleman who was then Prevention Outreach Coordinator and is now Executive Director of BAY Positives: my very dear friend/provider/colleague, Curtis Moore, MPH. In January 2006, with a great turn of luck, I was hired on by FOLSOM STREET EVENTS® (FSE) as their Administrative Coordinator.
During a single year of employment in the charitable nonprofit events planning & fundraising sector, I was able/invited to catch a quick but fleeting glimpse of true independence. Since arriving to San Francisco, my time with FSE was the only time ever in the last nine years that I’ve been able to afford simple mundane luxuries, such as the immense pleasure of going on spontaneous shopping sprees to buy new clothes or amenities & accouterments for my TenderNob/CathedraLoin studio apartment.
In early 2007, after my employment with FSE came to an abrupt and untimely end, my life immediately reverted into a state of perpetual degradation. I freely (although, this time quite shamefully) admit that, at that point, I was still very much unable to accept or acknowledge the very fortunate position in which I had been.
Consequently, I once again allowed myself to turn down the dismally dark, dreary & dangerous path of the "party scene." Of the nearly $30,000USD worth of Unemployment Insurance Benefits I received from the California Employment Development Department (EDD) throughout 2007, I spent a total of $22,758.00USD solely on illicit substances & paraphernalia. Again, unmitigated drug dependency/abuse & unmonitored, unmedicated HIV/AIDS disease lead to what turned out to be my most cataclysmic & death-defying demise.
On October 7, 2007, I was discovered alone, lying unconscious & half-dead in my own bed, drenched in my own blood, vomit & defecation. My face was blackened with necrosis; nearly all my teeth had fallen out. For a second time already in my short, young life, I suffered from an AIDS-related PCP Pneumonia; although, this particular instance of the disease was drastically & dangerously compounded by an unrelenting, out-of-control necrotizing poly-microbial bacterial infection of the face.
Sirens blaring; the SFFD rushed me to the hospital, where I stayed in forced comatose sedation for eight (8) weeks. During that time, only San Francisco's best diagnosticians, doctors & surgeons fought to subdue, control & obliterate the pneumonia. At that, they were successful; however, they sadly sorely failed at doing the same with the bacterial infection that had devastated & destroyed my face. In order to save my sorry specimen of a warped & wasted life, they were forced to amputate my entire upper jaw, mouth and nearly two thirds of my nose.
The only good fortune I can boast of having during this tragic period in my sorry life is that, thankfully, the many millions of dollars that I have incurred in medical costs since late 2007 – when I literally lost all face to the devastation of illness & injury – have been fully covered by the federal & state public health insurance systems (i.e., Medicare & Medicaid).
I have had 11 surgical reconstructions since doctors first debrided the necrotic skin & bone of my face, in late 2007; I still have what will end up most likely being more than 12 facial reconstructions left on the books. As you might assume (what with the direction this article/essay has taken up 'til now!), I expect all of these costs to be covered by a public health care & insurance system.
Don't imagine for a single instance, however, that I haven't been intensely jarred, jawed and jogged into sublime, unadulterated consciousness (maybe, okay probably, for the first time ever in my young, short life) by the terribly unconscionable tragedies that have befallen me, recently. In fact, my life is on an upstart path toward resoundingly resolute redemption!
Despite the ubiquity of my bitterly unbecoming and brutish ugliness, I am on a path towards elaborate beautification and self-betterment. Since clearing the myriad mile-high hurdles of disease, depression, drug dependency and disfigurement, I have discovered a more righteous path toward self-acceptance, sobriety, sanctity and salvation.
In turn, I’ve finally allowed the potency of my profoundly pertinent story of and perspective on survival to turn me no longer in the direction of dependency (i.e., neither on State, on System, nor on DRUGS!!), but along a more promising path of fulfillment through autonomy & altruism (i.e., enough independence to be of worthwhile service to others).
Rest assured!! No matter what direction my writing has taken presently, I am as resolutely committed to living sane, safe and sober, as I am devoutly determined to do so without being reliant upon the System for sustenance & support.
Yet, as for this moment of my life in particular, I am desperately in need of immediate, enduring supportive services & care from a government which practices, as it preaches, in policies protecting our universal rights to progress & peace...
No matter what those other sad, sorry specimens of mankind choose to do with their lives in any given instance, I resolutely & astutely believe that we’ve also a universal right to be hoped for & hoped upon, as well as to have the realization of our purely plebeian potential for salvation through redemption shamelessly, solemnly sanctified, supported & assured by a government founded on what I call “fore-fathered philosophies of happily helped & unhampered human fulfillment.”
Without Medicare & Medicaid, I would have been nothing but left for dead. Now, if anything, I can boast of having not only a marred & mangled, most misfortunate, Tina-torn & AIDS-quilted tapestry of scars, skin-grafts, and flaps of flesh festooning my funny, freakish face, but also a very potent & powerful determination to survive beyond all odds, to beat the odds, and become one hell of a stand-up, admirable, fabulously fagged-out & fortunate Fog City fellow, who’s done something smart with his story of sheer, shamefully scary stupidity & selfishness.
Who knows!? Maybe in writing this comment here on the “WALL” of some random new Facebook® FRIEND of mine, I have effectively furthered my first few footsteps of foray down the path of right direction (although, albeit skewed way to the far left of some people’s fancy!!).
Maybe in writing this comment, I have effectively initiated my endeavor to affect truly positive change in the world; otherwise, I don’t imagine that the giant PLUS SIGN (+) plastered on every last page of my medical record would prove to amount to much of any sort of inspiration for my own (or anyone else, for that matter!) piety, pedantry, and purely pulchritudinous progress in the World. Let’s hope the best for us!! For, if not, nothing’s left but the worst of us…
Most respectfully, and…
Sincerely submitted,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
San Francisco, CA USA
[20100921T011437PST]
http://bit.ly/qherekidsf
http://twitter.com/QHereKidSF
http://facebook.com/mblanchard79
What do you think, after reading this?? Whose side do you favor; that of the conservative interpretation of "CULTURE CRISIS" (How very "TEAPARTY," n'est-ce pas?) or that of the progressive's point of view: the ulterior acceptance and mainstream, status quo point of view of "HEALTH CARE CRISIS"?
What I can say in defense of the conservative interpretation is that "CHANGE" in my life has been slow in coming; but when it did finally come, it came in heaps & heaps, loads & loads, bounds & bounds, and tons & tons of tough-knuckled know-how, not begot happiness, self-betterment, beatitude & beautification!
I'm not sure if "CHANGE" is meant to come at the same pace for everyone on this Earth; however, as for myself, I am oh-so-glad that change has arrived and is in the works for me. Still, I mean/t every word I have herein writ. So, in closing, I will gladly reiterate: "Let's hope the best for us!! For, if not, nothing's left but the worst of us..."
What I can say in defense of the conservative interpretation is that "CHANGE" in my life has been slow in coming; but when it did finally come, it came in heaps & heaps, loads & loads, bounds & bounds, and tons & tons of tough-knuckled know-how, not begot happiness, self-betterment, beatitude & beautification!
I'm not sure if "CHANGE" is meant to come at the same pace for everyone on this Earth; however, as for myself, I am oh-so-glad that change has arrived and is in the works for me. Still, I mean/t every word I have herein writ. So, in closing, I will gladly reiterate: "Let's hope the best for us!! For, if not, nothing's left but the worst of us..."
14 July 2010
UBIQUITY OF MY UGLINESS...
Years before a corrosive, killer HIV/AIDS and Crystal Meth Combo cut a gaping hole in the middle of my face, stealing of me my beauty in one nightmarish turn of a page, a more curious and less caustic HIV/AIDS Crystal Meth Combo calamitously curtailed my intellectual and creative development.
The first chaotic combo interrupted and/or either suspended my bright young life for a good long while by stealing of me my sanity, my serenity and by forcing me into a manic messianic schizo-delusional psychosis.
Coincidentally, while my second doomsday downfall damn near destroyed all real remnants of my tangible, physical beauty, the AIDS & Crystal Meth Combo of my first foray with death through delusions brought be into a celestially sublime connection with the pure essence of beauty.
Back when the better bastion of boyhood me beamed smiling and sexy, you would have heard me brag in brash whispers of secrecy that my unmitigated drug dependency, coupled with my not-yet-medicated, unmonitored manic depression and HIV/AIDS disease likely stole a few good inches from my inseam and waist line. Drugs, depression and disease had turned me into the tweaked-out top-hungry twenty-something twink slut barebacking bottom boy I was better off born to me. By God!!
With legs freshly shaven, I used to like to try my way at prancing and dancing in heals. I had the posture of a princess back then, or better yet, of a QUEEN!! Taut, toned, tender and tanned, my thighs tightly tucked into tawdry, sultry, see-through silk-striped stockings, topped with frilly, flamboyant, fluorescent pink tutus & leotards, a black leather-laced bodice and breasts of bagged basmati. I dreamed of doing DRAG!!... And, my delusions brought me as close as I'd ever be to a diva's starlit status.
What are the odds that a poor, sorry, solitary, sad, sick, insane queer kid for sale on the streets of Skid Row, new to San Francisco, might remember in rich vivid clarity, in multi-dimensional Technicolor timbres and tonalities, his actual psychological demise from climax to cure, from onset to overture? Well, I do!!
I recall with great delight the drug-induced, yet truly transmundane delusions that seemed — For six months, let's say! That's a safe bet. — more reasonable and real, more true to me than ordinary and onerous everyday life, thanks to the immaculate bliss and beauty that back-lit every waking instant of my insanity.
Yet I couldn't, wouldn't waiver on the whims of consciousness long enough to remember much the long stretch of days three years ago that would prove to be so much more dramatically life-changing for me: twelve days of comatose confinement caged up in my stuffy, sterile studio, asleep, unconscious. My face pressed flat onto a putrid, pestilent pillow, under the heavy weight of my aching, dying brain. Saliva dripping down my cheek and chin to the sullied, soiled, sickening sheets only to invite infection in!!
Context may help! ... Here goes!! Far before October 2007, when I was found alone, half-dead in my apartment; on the brink of dehydration, starvation and brain damage; desperately in need of dialysis; having survived only by some heavenly happenstance the devastating detriment of PCP pneumonia and a necrotizing poly-microbial bacterial infection of the face... Far before a team of California's leading diagnosticians, doctors and surgeons attempted valiantly yet albeit failed so sorely to salvage my once so cute and charismatic, gorgeous gay boy grin...
Far before I woke from coma to gasp and gawk at my godforsaken, gruesomely grotesque, ghastly, ghoulish gaping hole of a grimace, I was so long ago quite blessed — Or cursed? However the story goes! — to have had a right entrancing, sexy smile.
Before my brutal, bestial, ferocious fall from grace and yet thanks still then too to drugs, depression and disease, I could boast the beauty of a primped, polished pansy boy physique made potent by the unrelenting rush of salacious, sex-crazed hedonism which happened to hammer out haphazardly into hormonal hot flashes and "meth'merized" highs.
Oh!! And shan't I forget the illicit, alluring beauty of my tight little tush and thighs that tempted and fed far too many a head-spun, tail-furious tweaker top tucked away either between the bathhouse backrooms of Berkeley or beneath the bent, broken branches and burning bush there best past bedtime in Buena Vista Park.
Now, today, post-op eleven-fold with twelve more surgical reconstructions on the books, I'm nothing but a torn, tattered tapestry of scars, skin grafts and flaps of flesh festooning my funny, freakish face.
My legs, once softened and smoothed by the razor's edge, are now covered in patches of naked, hairless, flimsy flesh only a few layers fine. Coincidence now predominates, for the large surgical scar that defiles to devastating depths my sorry specimen of a lower left leg seems to be far smoother and softer, far more delicate and lady-like that it e'er had been before, despite the patterned ripples of a serrated texture that rises and rolls along the "miscontours" of my crippled calf.
I should be thankful then that hair still groups from the pair of embossed rectangular skin graft scars that are slowly fading from the front of my lower left thigh. But, I'm not grateful to have my torso tarnished by the twisted pucker of a scar in the middle of my gut where a G.I. tube once hung for fourteen months, two weeks and five days past the point it first proved futile at feeding me.
I call it my "Octo-Orifice!!;" although, it's shut tight & leaks no more. I call it also my "Second Bellybutton," because in all actuality, that's exactly what it is. Yet, instead of being nourished by placenta pumped to my stomach through an umbilical cord, I was this second time around, at the moment of my rebirth, fed synthetic, high-protein, carb-loaded "blender'ized" slop seeped into me through a twelve foot long number three plastic tube that hung between my belly and an upside down bottle of so-called sustenance like a drip-line. In all actuality, that's exactly what it was...
Moving onward and upward, we arrive at the loosely bandaged, still wide open hole in my neck, where my tracheotomy tube once hung. Honestly, I don't know whether or not I am more grateful to be rid of the tube that took so much time and attention to tend to, or if I am madly resentful of my own eight layers of healthy, still living skin and of the thick musculature of my tender trachea for taking so long a time to heal up and seal up.
So, still I wait... Committed to a daily ritual of stripping Xeroform® and four-by-four gauze sponges from the sweaty, scratchy hole in my neck, still I wait... I wait only still to be enslaved to a stolid, chin-strapped schedule for showering, in which I must each morn tightly velcro a water-hazard choke-guard security-sheath above my shoulders and below my chin, before stepping in to let my cleansing begin.
No wonder that I avoid the shower spigot like SARS or Swine Flu: the plagues which passersby suppose sicken me. ME! The sorry, sad face behind the surgical mask who meanders mindlessly, miserably amid mankind's miscreant misjudgments of much of my own mad, mad melancholic misfortune.
And, By God!! I sure as hell am not one infinitesimally small grain of grit grateful for this muddled mutant monstrosity of a quasimodo mouth I've been melded into for the moment. I don't have enough fingers or toes or hairs growing from my forehead flap of a nose... There are a lot of them; mind you! Bet your life on it! Hairs grow hoggishly long and hamstrung from the impenetrable depths of my makeshift nostril, nose and septum to curl down the coarse discolored curvature of my leg flap look-alike lip. And, Hell Man!! Fuck!! Do they itch or what??
Truth be told; I don't even have enough holes, appendages, protrusions, flaps of flesh, scars or skin grafts on my body to be able to begin to count the magnanimous mind's eye momentum of hatred and disgust that I have for this gruesome, ghoulish, ghastly grin of mine!
And, Yet Alas!! I've stayed safe, sane and sober over one full year, and for what reason? Because despite the ubiquity of my bitterly unbecoming and brutish ugliness, I've somehow retained remnants and remembrances enough of a time in my life when in my bitterly unbecoming and brutish insanity, I discovered the true meaning of beauty.
Beyond the awkward, obtuse, abstract, anthropomorphic aesthetic of the Tina-torn, AIDS-quilted, quizzical contours of my monstrosity of a mouth, I seen endless opportunity for elaborate beautification and solemn self-betterment. Buried not too deeply behind the dug-out disfigurements of my blasphemed, begotten, brutalized body and face — For sure! I'm certain. — there lies alive immaculately innocent, blessedly beautiful baby blue boy eyes...
Respectfully Submitted,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
San Francisco, CA USA
[2010.07.14@20:29PST]
AIDS IS A PERVASIVE PANDEMIC THAT BLEEDS THROUGH
THE LINES OF COLOR, CREED & CAPITULATES TO NO ONE BUT
THE POSITIVELY AWARE & PREVENTION-MINDED SURVIVORS.
— Matthew D. Blanchard
THE SUBJECT NO LONGER HAS TO BE MENTIONED BY NAME.
SOMEONE IS SICK. SOMEONE ELSE IS FEELING BETTER NOW.
A FRIEND HAS JUST GONE BACK INTO THE HOSPITAL.
ANOTHER HAS DIED. THE UNSPOKEN NAME, OF COURSE, IS AIDS.
— David W. Dunlap
OVER & OVER, THESE MEN CRY OUT AGAINST THE WEIGHT OF
SO MANY LOSSES — NOT JUST A LOVER DEAD, BUT FRIENDS,
AND FRIENDS OF FRIENDS, DOZENS OF THEM, UNTIL IT SEEMS
THAT AIDS IS ALL THERE IS AND ALL THERE EVER WILL BE.
— Jane Gross
The first chaotic combo interrupted and/or either suspended my bright young life for a good long while by stealing of me my sanity, my serenity and by forcing me into a manic messianic schizo-delusional psychosis.
Coincidentally, while my second doomsday downfall damn near destroyed all real remnants of my tangible, physical beauty, the AIDS & Crystal Meth Combo of my first foray with death through delusions brought be into a celestially sublime connection with the pure essence of beauty.
Back when the better bastion of boyhood me beamed smiling and sexy, you would have heard me brag in brash whispers of secrecy that my unmitigated drug dependency, coupled with my not-yet-medicated, unmonitored manic depression and HIV/AIDS disease likely stole a few good inches from my inseam and waist line. Drugs, depression and disease had turned me into the tweaked-out top-hungry twenty-something twink slut barebacking bottom boy I was better off born to me. By God!!
With legs freshly shaven, I used to like to try my way at prancing and dancing in heals. I had the posture of a princess back then, or better yet, of a QUEEN!! Taut, toned, tender and tanned, my thighs tightly tucked into tawdry, sultry, see-through silk-striped stockings, topped with frilly, flamboyant, fluorescent pink tutus & leotards, a black leather-laced bodice and breasts of bagged basmati. I dreamed of doing DRAG!!... And, my delusions brought me as close as I'd ever be to a diva's starlit status.
What are the odds that a poor, sorry, solitary, sad, sick, insane queer kid for sale on the streets of Skid Row, new to San Francisco, might remember in rich vivid clarity, in multi-dimensional Technicolor timbres and tonalities, his actual psychological demise from climax to cure, from onset to overture? Well, I do!!
I recall with great delight the drug-induced, yet truly transmundane delusions that seemed — For six months, let's say! That's a safe bet. — more reasonable and real, more true to me than ordinary and onerous everyday life, thanks to the immaculate bliss and beauty that back-lit every waking instant of my insanity.
Yet I couldn't, wouldn't waiver on the whims of consciousness long enough to remember much the long stretch of days three years ago that would prove to be so much more dramatically life-changing for me: twelve days of comatose confinement caged up in my stuffy, sterile studio, asleep, unconscious. My face pressed flat onto a putrid, pestilent pillow, under the heavy weight of my aching, dying brain. Saliva dripping down my cheek and chin to the sullied, soiled, sickening sheets only to invite infection in!!
Context may help! ... Here goes!! Far before October 2007, when I was found alone, half-dead in my apartment; on the brink of dehydration, starvation and brain damage; desperately in need of dialysis; having survived only by some heavenly happenstance the devastating detriment of PCP pneumonia and a necrotizing poly-microbial bacterial infection of the face... Far before a team of California's leading diagnosticians, doctors and surgeons attempted valiantly yet albeit failed so sorely to salvage my once so cute and charismatic, gorgeous gay boy grin...
Far before I woke from coma to gasp and gawk at my godforsaken, gruesomely grotesque, ghastly, ghoulish gaping hole of a grimace, I was so long ago quite blessed — Or cursed? However the story goes! — to have had a right entrancing, sexy smile.
Before my brutal, bestial, ferocious fall from grace and yet thanks still then too to drugs, depression and disease, I could boast the beauty of a primped, polished pansy boy physique made potent by the unrelenting rush of salacious, sex-crazed hedonism which happened to hammer out haphazardly into hormonal hot flashes and "meth'merized" highs.
Oh!! And shan't I forget the illicit, alluring beauty of my tight little tush and thighs that tempted and fed far too many a head-spun, tail-furious tweaker top tucked away either between the bathhouse backrooms of Berkeley or beneath the bent, broken branches and burning bush there best past bedtime in Buena Vista Park.
Now, today, post-op eleven-fold with twelve more surgical reconstructions on the books, I'm nothing but a torn, tattered tapestry of scars, skin grafts and flaps of flesh festooning my funny, freakish face.
My legs, once softened and smoothed by the razor's edge, are now covered in patches of naked, hairless, flimsy flesh only a few layers fine. Coincidence now predominates, for the large surgical scar that defiles to devastating depths my sorry specimen of a lower left leg seems to be far smoother and softer, far more delicate and lady-like that it e'er had been before, despite the patterned ripples of a serrated texture that rises and rolls along the "miscontours" of my crippled calf.
I should be thankful then that hair still groups from the pair of embossed rectangular skin graft scars that are slowly fading from the front of my lower left thigh. But, I'm not grateful to have my torso tarnished by the twisted pucker of a scar in the middle of my gut where a G.I. tube once hung for fourteen months, two weeks and five days past the point it first proved futile at feeding me.
I call it my "Octo-Orifice!!;" although, it's shut tight & leaks no more. I call it also my "Second Bellybutton," because in all actuality, that's exactly what it is. Yet, instead of being nourished by placenta pumped to my stomach through an umbilical cord, I was this second time around, at the moment of my rebirth, fed synthetic, high-protein, carb-loaded "blender'ized" slop seeped into me through a twelve foot long number three plastic tube that hung between my belly and an upside down bottle of so-called sustenance like a drip-line. In all actuality, that's exactly what it was...
Moving onward and upward, we arrive at the loosely bandaged, still wide open hole in my neck, where my tracheotomy tube once hung. Honestly, I don't know whether or not I am more grateful to be rid of the tube that took so much time and attention to tend to, or if I am madly resentful of my own eight layers of healthy, still living skin and of the thick musculature of my tender trachea for taking so long a time to heal up and seal up.
So, still I wait... Committed to a daily ritual of stripping Xeroform® and four-by-four gauze sponges from the sweaty, scratchy hole in my neck, still I wait... I wait only still to be enslaved to a stolid, chin-strapped schedule for showering, in which I must each morn tightly velcro a water-hazard choke-guard security-sheath above my shoulders and below my chin, before stepping in to let my cleansing begin.
No wonder that I avoid the shower spigot like SARS or Swine Flu: the plagues which passersby suppose sicken me. ME! The sorry, sad face behind the surgical mask who meanders mindlessly, miserably amid mankind's miscreant misjudgments of much of my own mad, mad melancholic misfortune.
And, By God!! I sure as hell am not one infinitesimally small grain of grit grateful for this muddled mutant monstrosity of a quasimodo mouth I've been melded into for the moment. I don't have enough fingers or toes or hairs growing from my forehead flap of a nose... There are a lot of them; mind you! Bet your life on it! Hairs grow hoggishly long and hamstrung from the impenetrable depths of my makeshift nostril, nose and septum to curl down the coarse discolored curvature of my leg flap look-alike lip. And, Hell Man!! Fuck!! Do they itch or what??
Truth be told; I don't even have enough holes, appendages, protrusions, flaps of flesh, scars or skin grafts on my body to be able to begin to count the magnanimous mind's eye momentum of hatred and disgust that I have for this gruesome, ghoulish, ghastly grin of mine!
And, Yet Alas!! I've stayed safe, sane and sober over one full year, and for what reason? Because despite the ubiquity of my bitterly unbecoming and brutish ugliness, I've somehow retained remnants and remembrances enough of a time in my life when in my bitterly unbecoming and brutish insanity, I discovered the true meaning of beauty.
Beyond the awkward, obtuse, abstract, anthropomorphic aesthetic of the Tina-torn, AIDS-quilted, quizzical contours of my monstrosity of a mouth, I seen endless opportunity for elaborate beautification and solemn self-betterment. Buried not too deeply behind the dug-out disfigurements of my blasphemed, begotten, brutalized body and face — For sure! I'm certain. — there lies alive immaculately innocent, blessedly beautiful baby blue boy eyes...
Respectfully Submitted,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
San Francisco, CA USA
[2010.07.14@20:29PST]
AIDS IS A PERVASIVE PANDEMIC THAT BLEEDS THROUGH
THE LINES OF COLOR, CREED & CAPITULATES TO NO ONE BUT
THE POSITIVELY AWARE & PREVENTION-MINDED SURVIVORS.
— Matthew D. Blanchard
THE SUBJECT NO LONGER HAS TO BE MENTIONED BY NAME.
SOMEONE IS SICK. SOMEONE ELSE IS FEELING BETTER NOW.
A FRIEND HAS JUST GONE BACK INTO THE HOSPITAL.
ANOTHER HAS DIED. THE UNSPOKEN NAME, OF COURSE, IS AIDS.
— David W. Dunlap
OVER & OVER, THESE MEN CRY OUT AGAINST THE WEIGHT OF
SO MANY LOSSES — NOT JUST A LOVER DEAD, BUT FRIENDS,
AND FRIENDS OF FRIENDS, DOZENS OF THEM, UNTIL IT SEEMS
THAT AIDS IS ALL THERE IS AND ALL THERE EVER WILL BE.
— Jane Gross
10 May 2010
ONWARD & UPWARD! Always : Part ONE
Recently, I witnessed a shining example of the true love of enduring -- albeit, long lost -- friendship, written in a most eloquent manner by a person I hold very dear to my heart. While permission to identify this person has yet to be granted, I would like to take it upon myself to breach the great Zeitgeist of absence that has separated me not only from the blogosphere for quite sometime, but also from this dear friend of mine for far longer a period than ever should have been permissible in the mind's eye.
Rest assured; my mind's eye faces forward, in face of much "trepidation" -- as I call it in my response to her eloquently evocative and poetic enunciation of regret, remorse and respite of rectitude. Or else, be it called turmoil, trauma, terror, torture, and eventual tenacity of spirit sprung up through experience and circumstance, disease and degradation, deflation of ego -- ergo, we marvel together at miracles and pontificate over pain, as a peculiar pernicious passing way to cleanse ourselves of calamity and chaos.
Hence, I help myself to a heaping dollop of duplication, as if perchance to replicate the immense emotion(s) that teemed deep within my mind at the moment I read and responded to the unfortunate circumstances under which she wrote these words:
Now, while retyping her message to me for the sake of perpetuity via the ever so accessible blogosphere and cyberwaves, I realize that I should have responded some way simpler than I initially did respond. My first reply was an abrupt, pointed plea for direct, person-to-person communication, live, over the phone. In many ways, I was so intangibly humbled, honored, privileged, « ou comme on dit en français: bouleversé », bent through and through by the bones of me, dramatically empowered, emboldened, impassioned, and empathetic...sorrowfully, shamefully sympathetic...all in one instance, that I could only find it in myself to call out to her as brashly as a boy could begin the volley and tarry of a new dialogue with an old friend, writing:
I've hesitated even meandering through her Facebook profile, for fear of seeing a more recent photo of my truly beautiful boyhood best friend bald now, bare of her long, lank, straight, sleek, sultry, always beaming so black it blinded you, locks of gorgeous hair. You know, the stuff of which dreams were made. Like me, however, I know that even bald, she beams boundlessly of beauty beneath the glimmer of her gaze, within, through and surrounding the ecstatic "Elysium" of her eyes.
SHAME ON ME, DAMMIT ALL!! What ungodly right do I have to be afraid to bear witness to the shedding of mere remembrances. She, herself, had the courage to view my awfully frightening misfortune of a face misshapen by death and disease through then not yet up to date photos chronicling my demise. So, as if to invite her to be reassured of the myriad of blessings which could/should/would befall us, together as friends or apart as individuals -- suffering through nightmarish parallels of conspicuous calamity and chaos, I today uploaded all of the photo portraits taken of me since my sixth surgery.
These photos include me with and without extensive scarring and stitches, with and without a forehead flap to nose, remaining left with nothing but a mere mutable, more or less monstrous left nostril and lips: "quasi-motor mouth" lips. Yet, they all capture my own innate beauty in the framing of my expressive, expansive, joyful eyes. I want so deeply for my dear friend to see beauty in my eyes, if not in my words, written:
Rest assured; my mind's eye faces forward, in face of much "trepidation" -- as I call it in my response to her eloquently evocative and poetic enunciation of regret, remorse and respite of rectitude. Or else, be it called turmoil, trauma, terror, torture, and eventual tenacity of spirit sprung up through experience and circumstance, disease and degradation, deflation of ego -- ergo, we marvel together at miracles and pontificate over pain, as a peculiar pernicious passing way to cleanse ourselves of calamity and chaos.
Hence, I help myself to a heaping dollop of duplication, as if perchance to replicate the immense emotion(s) that teemed deep within my mind at the moment I read and responded to the unfortunate circumstances under which she wrote these words:
MAY 7, 2010 at 4:22PM EST
Matt, like I asked before, how did we ever lose touch? Admittedly, I used to be awful at keeping up with people -- late email responses, missed phone calls, misplaced addresses, and the like. And let's be honest, people drift apart. Friends go their separate ways. it's a natural occurrence, the inertia of which I didn't fight. But I thought of you often. I wondered where you were and what you were doing. I look back at my yearbooks sometimes and fondly stare at the pages onto which you left your mark. Your artwork, the creativity you applied just to write my name. Yours were always my favorite entries. So colorful and alive. Like you. We were all so awkward back in high school. Armed with the braveness and audacity of youth, yet lost and afraid of the unknown, of our futures, of ourselves. I was especially...weird. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. Most times, I felt very alone. But having you as a friend made a difference. You made me smile and laugh. you made the really long days bearable. Then we graduated. It's 13 years later, and I regret not trying harder to stay in contact with you. Hey, it's never too late right? I've seen all of you posted photos and they're respective captions. I am so sorry for what you've been through and for the battle you are still fighting. You are so brave, Matt. Last September, I was in a coma, resulting from complications due to chemotherapy. I'm also bald now. I suppose we all have our own problems, our own sources of pain. But we are fighters, you and me. Keep fighting. I hope to hear from you, my friend.
Now, while retyping her message to me for the sake of perpetuity via the ever so accessible blogosphere and cyberwaves, I realize that I should have responded some way simpler than I initially did respond. My first reply was an abrupt, pointed plea for direct, person-to-person communication, live, over the phone. In many ways, I was so intangibly humbled, honored, privileged, « ou comme on dit en français: bouleversé », bent through and through by the bones of me, dramatically empowered, emboldened, impassioned, and empathetic...sorrowfully, shamefully sympathetic...all in one instance, that I could only find it in myself to call out to her as brashly as a boy could begin the volley and tarry of a new dialogue with an old friend, writing:
MAY 7, 2010 at 7:19PM PSTThree days have passed since I wrote that speedy, contrite, emotionally bland and bottom-tight message to my long lost, new found friend, and she has yet to have called me or communicate with me outright in any way, which sure as the day is long, worries me in a weird, weird way.
What's your phone number? I would love to talk to you. I have so many thoughts running through my head, so many things I'd like to say to you, to ask you. And, Facebook would only allow me a pitiful tool for expressing myself. You have always been in my thoughts; now you will remain in my prayers. I love you, and I miss you. Even bald, I'm sure you're just as beautiful as ever!! If you don't feel comfortable giving your phone number over email, feel free to check out the INFO Section of my Facebook profile for my phone numbers, address and emails. I hope you will reach out and contact me again, but this time more directly. Looking forward to hearing your voice. Love, your dear ol' friend... Matthew...
I've hesitated even meandering through her Facebook profile, for fear of seeing a more recent photo of my truly beautiful boyhood best friend bald now, bare of her long, lank, straight, sleek, sultry, always beaming so black it blinded you, locks of gorgeous hair. You know, the stuff of which dreams were made. Like me, however, I know that even bald, she beams boundlessly of beauty beneath the glimmer of her gaze, within, through and surrounding the ecstatic "Elysium" of her eyes.
SHAME ON ME, DAMMIT ALL!! What ungodly right do I have to be afraid to bear witness to the shedding of mere remembrances. She, herself, had the courage to view my awfully frightening misfortune of a face misshapen by death and disease through then not yet up to date photos chronicling my demise. So, as if to invite her to be reassured of the myriad of blessings which could/should/would befall us, together as friends or apart as individuals -- suffering through nightmarish parallels of conspicuous calamity and chaos, I today uploaded all of the photo portraits taken of me since my sixth surgery.
These photos include me with and without extensive scarring and stitches, with and without a forehead flap to nose, remaining left with nothing but a mere mutable, more or less monstrous left nostril and lips: "quasi-motor mouth" lips. Yet, they all capture my own innate beauty in the framing of my expressive, expansive, joyful eyes. I want so deeply for my dear friend to see beauty in my eyes, if not in my words, written:
MAY 10, 2010 at 8:17PM PST
It's Monday, May 10. Sitting here rereading your most beautiful message to me, with a dear friend at my side. Wallace (WES) Smith is my replacement you. I wish you could meet him. He's an amazing person; much like the person I know you to be: loving, giving, understanding beyond all measure, funny, and above all, happy at just the right moments, and sad with me when I need him to be.
Chances are odd that I would sob tears of sorrow only after reading your message a second time, in the company of a friend. But with him here to witness your undying beauty in words, in pictures, in memories never lost, never forgotten, he invited me to be as open and comfortable with my feelings of regret and remorse as ever I could be or couldn't without him.
When I first read your message, I was struck with an urgent impulse to communicate with you immediately in person, but as that luxury has not presented itself, I've found time to ponder further the feelings I have around the circumstances of your writing to me.
Above all measure, I feel that yes, in fact, we are "FIGHTERS" (as you so gracefully observed), but I see what is happening to us as entirely undeserved and unjust; for that, I am heart-fully sorry.
However, I remain an eternal optimist, as I am sure you do, as well. And, I see in our enduring strength and almost pigheaded determination to outwit destiny (or death -- or whatever one might choose to call that foreboding intent of our Higher Power to outwit us outright ourselves in our hubris), the stamina and true, free will to survive beyond all odds, beyond all measure, beyond all degradation of our innate, inherent beauties.
I don't know much of your story since our senior year of high school, and I can only grasp at a mediocre mindfulness of your present suffering, yet I hear it in your words, behind the echo of a certain righteous trepidation -- something of which I have the most astute familiarity: the voice of fear. Likely also, the voice of regret and shame and injustice.
So, in your words of stamina, strength, sure will, and willingness to self-expose, I find parallels between us that I only wish could have taken different shape or different form.
How are we deserving of such pain, such suffering, one might ask? I once was compelled to cry out to my God in ever bitter bereaving those whys and wherefores of the ways in which the ill reluctantly survive despite the most awful degree of torture: cancer, coma, kidney failure, chemotherapy, catheters, or the cutting and sawing, stapling and screwing, sewing and stitching (or "re-tapestry") of face through disfigurement. Yet, I have ended my bewildered haranguing of my Higher Power, no longer to ask of reasons for my ruination.
I've accepted the injustice, the undeserved destruction of my body, as a solemn soulful, serendipitous enunciation of my own sacred self.
We are more that just fighters. We are, until the day He takes us from our endless enduring pain into ecstatic everlasting Elysium, always and evermore... SURVIVORS!
Survivors of a shared past, shared shame, shared joy and of our own shared, self-construed, self-conscious, self-structured, surreal but earthbound « jardins de paix aux champs elysées ». We are survivors today, just as we will survive tomorrow, whether tomorrow brings us great misery, pain, beauty of bold undying love. We are together survivors of immense, unfathomable, unique sufferance shared.
Together, it is my hope that we... together ...may cry out in our off-chance omniforce of grace and gratitude the quaint and quintessential hymn of our youth. Today, tomorrow, whatever life may lay at our feet, may we hold hands and stumble forward together, singing life's love song -- a simple three-word phrase: "ONWARD AND UPWARD." Always.
Remembering most fondly every beautiful moment we've shared, and not forgetting the ugly patches either, I worship your grace and pay homage to your truly blessed beauty!
Love eternal & with pride,
Gratefully & graciously yours,
Matthew Blanchard
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
DEATH IS A FRIEND OF OURS, AND HE THAT IS
NOT READY TO ENTERTAIN HIM IS NOT AT HOME.
-- Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
IF ONE ADVANCES CONFIDENTLY IN THE DIRECTION
OF HIS DREAMS, AND ENDEAVORS TO LIVE THE LIFE
HE HAS IMAGINED, HE WILL MEET WITH A SUCCESS
UNEXPECTED IN COMMON HOURS.
-- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
QHereKidSF's photostream
www.flickr.com
QHerekidSF @ 1/4-Life!! Questions, Quandaries, Conundrums and above
all else, CUTENESS, despite degradation and denigration of face. The
unfathomable fortune and fastidious splendor of spirit shown through the
face of a Fagged-Out Funambulist Freak Show : Mindflux | Matt(e)o |
Mayhem!! Enjoy!
Consequently, I feel most privileged to be able to share this writing with the followers of my blog, and with my Facebook friends. Part of me hesitates to divulge this entirely personal exchange via a blog post, but as I've set out in the past to use this blog as a tool and mechanism for record-keeping, chronicling and creatively expressing my most pungent, potent, putrid and prettily poignant passing pedantry and pontification(s), I will continue down this same route for the sake of posterity and perpetuity. May these words resound with you, and may they be remembered.
Who knows? Maybe, with likely permission from my begotten (not forgotten) friend, this dialogue will further develop before the blogosphere, as an intimate exchange intending to touch the hearts of millions. I've so much more to write to this dear friend of mine, as I'm sure she has many more words of wisdom with which to bequeath me in preparation of the inevitable... (i.e., the restoration and rebuilding of our relationship through remembrances, respite and reunification). DOT. DOT. DOT. God Willing!
So I subtitle this passage: PART ONE, of more to come!!
Hopefully humble,
Humbly hopeful,
Herein and hitherto,
Straight forward to great fortune & fortitude...
Clutching the hands of my best friend(s),
I sing out in privilege and in pride,
ONWARD AND UPWARD! Always.
God willing,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
San Francisco, CA USA
[2010.05.11@00:50PST]
THE DIFFICULTY IS NOT SO GREAT TO DIE FOR A
FRIEND, AS TO FIND A FRIEND WORTH DYING FOR.
-- Homer (800BC - 700BC)
Who knows? Maybe, with likely permission from my begotten (not forgotten) friend, this dialogue will further develop before the blogosphere, as an intimate exchange intending to touch the hearts of millions. I've so much more to write to this dear friend of mine, as I'm sure she has many more words of wisdom with which to bequeath me in preparation of the inevitable... (i.e., the restoration and rebuilding of our relationship through remembrances, respite and reunification). DOT. DOT. DOT. God Willing!
So I subtitle this passage: PART ONE, of more to come!!
Hopefully humble,
Humbly hopeful,
Herein and hitherto,
Straight forward to great fortune & fortitude...
Clutching the hands of my best friend(s),
I sing out in privilege and in pride,
ONWARD AND UPWARD! Always.
God willing,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
San Francisco, CA USA
[2010.05.11@00:50PST]
THE DIFFICULTY IS NOT SO GREAT TO DIE FOR A
FRIEND, AS TO FIND A FRIEND WORTH DYING FOR.
-- Homer (800BC - 700BC)
07 January 2010
POTENCY OF "POWERLESSNESS!!"
Midweek already and I feel like I’m living a dream. Not a schizoid manic maneuvering or mulling over my own misery and mayhem, but a blessed vision of beauty, betterment & beatitude… “Plentiful Beatitude” is what I see here sat slumped over my computer at an unconscionable hour, a reprehensible hour of late night / early morning rambling rumination and running in circles. Naw! I kid. For, there is a very distinct clarity to my vision, my dreams, and my self-revelation.
I’ll keep the text of this journal entry simple and succinct, relaying only the remaniés of my ruminations on recovery and reconstructions via an embedding of my most recent YouTube® video upload:
But that which was forcedly stricken from my meditation on mis(sed)-fortune – no longer! – is mention of the mindful, miraculous, meditative revelations that came of me subsequent to this seemingly sagacious soliloquy, only after I was ironically able to enunciate an elaboration on this exquisite expression of my unsuspected/(ing) shift in perspective on the Program, its potential and its “promises.”
My realization came quick, pounding my peripheral lobe with the profound potency of powerlessness and the plentiful pretences and possibilities for perfection (i.e., the “spiritual awakening”) of which the Twelfth Step presupposes, after I posted my most recent, previous entry, entitled “May Today There Be Peace Within…”
I’ll keep the text of this journal entry simple and succinct, relaying only the remaniés of my ruminations on recovery and reconstructions via an embedding of my most recent YouTube® video upload:
Mindflux | Matt(e)o | Mayhem -- Meet ME!! : Matt, Matthew, Mathieu, Matthias, Mattia, "Il MATTO Matt(e)o!!" My sweet enunciation of sacred self : "Gift from God," a story of blessings, beauty, betterment & beatitude -- "Plentiful Beatitude!!" QHereKidSF celebrates six months of sobriety and his sixth surgical reconstruction, ever more grateful of his own once fabled (now forever) fortune, fortitude & FABULOSITY!! -- © 2010 QHereKidSF (a.k.a., Matthew D. Blanchard) | All Rights Reserved.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V_-P6n9ZJQ
http://www.youtube.com/qherekidsf
The good humor and clarity with which I express myself in this video is not so sterile that it's striking; but rather, the jovial, unsanctified spirit of this monologue surmounts sterility and vapidity to tend more toward an extemporaneously tender, telling exposé – an elaboratively "sweet enunciation of sacred self," as so poignantly posited in the description of this video upload and post (above.)
But that which was forcedly stricken from my meditation on mis(sed)-fortune – no longer! – is mention of the mindful, miraculous, meditative revelations that came of me subsequent to this seemingly sagacious soliloquy, only after I was ironically able to enunciate an elaboration on this exquisite expression of my unsuspected/(ing) shift in perspective on the Program, its potential and its “promises.”
My realization came quick, pounding my peripheral lobe with the profound potency of powerlessness and the plentiful pretences and possibilities for perfection (i.e., the “spiritual awakening”) of which the Twelfth Step presupposes, after I posted my most recent, previous entry, entitled “May Today There Be Peace Within…”
I came to a timely, telling conclusion – No! I shouldn’t call this a “conclusion.” A word exists, I know, that better evokes beginning, rather than end, for that is what this is: a seedling, a serendipitous sprouting & savoring of spiritual revelation…and yes, perhaps premature “awakening!” – during a group therapy session at my LGBTQ Mental Health and Substance Abuse Recovery Center here in San Francisco, the day after my surgery (i.e., only just yesterday!!).
I must respect the unequivocal expectation of confidentiality in this retelling of my in-group revelation, so I ask both my readers and the well-respected, well-meaning members of my Abstinence Support Group to allow me the liberty and right to tergiversate an equivocation of my in-group pontifications and feedback without any indulgent unveiling of identities through ambiguity and ambivalence.
Here’s a synopsis of my statements to my Recovery Community that I’d like to make available on the public domain as a testament of the potential for a consummate conclusive curtailing of our old misguidance and of a tendency toward a cyclic sharing of life’s lessons learnt through long-lasting, sustained sobriety:
These past few weeks – especially, the last three days – have been quite transformative for me, and I mean “transformative” both in the literal and figurative sense, in the physical, mental and emotional sense tending toward a complete shift in perspective and a reshaping & saving of face.
Fortunately, after indulging the heed by my Sponsor of my obligations to the Program to acquire and begin to read the canonical tome of Twelve Step literature: The Big Book, I found that I had been suddenly and spontaneously convinced by the sumptuous eloquence of its words, and that my perspective had suddenly shifted in its logic and leanings.
I live today in stark contrast to the shape & form of my former perspective, reason, logic and emotion: that of “active” addiction. There has been so much drastic imminent change in my life, both physically and spiritually, during the last two and a half years – particularly, during the last six months, and I owe it all to my sobriety. That’s an amazing, self-affirming realization for me and a lesson to others.
For prior to my discovery of the “promises” of the Program, I held such a indomitable contempt for life and for circumstance and for fate and for kharma and for my Higher Power’s so-called “plan” for me. But now, after so much transformation physically and emotionally and circumstantially, my perspective on the Program (and on my blessings, beauty, betterment & beatitude – “Plentiful Beatitude!”) has subsequently transformed into something distinctly positive and grateful.
This is what I did not mention in my video: an erstwhile realization or discovery to which I have only hitherto come. This is the essence of my share with the Recovery Community, and I sum it up in a solemn spiritually promising message to the Newcomer(s): Keep coming back! It works!! I am only evidence of this otherwhile indomitable truth and promise of the Program. Thank God for that! Amen. Alleluia!!
Respectfully submitted,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
San Francisco, CA USA
[2010.01.07@5:03PST]
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WHEN WE HONESTLY ASK OURSELVES WHICH PERSON
IN OUR LIVES MEANS THE MOST TO US, WE OFTEN FIND
THAT IT IS THOSE WHO, INSTEAD OF GIVING MUCH ADVICE,
SOLUTIONS OR CURES, HAVE CHOSEN RATHER TO SHARE
OUR PAIN & TOUCH OUR WOUNDS WITH A GENTLE AND
TENDER HAND. THE FRIEND WHO CAN BE SILENT WITH US
IN A MOMENT OF DESPAIR OR CONFUSION, WHO CAN STAY
WITH US IN AN HOUR OF GRIEF & BEREAVEMENT, WHO CAN
TOLERATE NOT KNOWING, NOT CURING, NOT HEALING AND
FACE WITH US THE REALITY OF OUR POWERLESSNESS,
THAT IS A FRIEND WHO CARES.
— Unknown
http://twitter.com/QHereKidSF
http://qherekidsf.blogspot.com
http://qherekidsf.myspace.com
http://facebook.com/mblanchard79
http://qherekidsf.stumbleupon.com
http://www.last.fm/user/QHereKidSF
http://www.bebo.com/aimsn/cheesefryz
http://www.flickr.com/people/mblanchard79
http://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewblanchard
http://www.xtreak.com/go/QHereKidSF/141027
http://www.pandora.com/people/mblanchard79
http://www.google.com/profiles/mblanchard1979
WHEN WE HONESTLY ASK OURSELVES WHICH PERSON
IN OUR LIVES MEANS THE MOST TO US, WE OFTEN FIND
THAT IT IS THOSE WHO, INSTEAD OF GIVING MUCH ADVICE,
SOLUTIONS OR CURES, HAVE CHOSEN RATHER TO SHARE
OUR PAIN & TOUCH OUR WOUNDS WITH A GENTLE AND
TENDER HAND. THE FRIEND WHO CAN BE SILENT WITH US
IN A MOMENT OF DESPAIR OR CONFUSION, WHO CAN STAY
WITH US IN AN HOUR OF GRIEF & BEREAVEMENT, WHO CAN
TOLERATE NOT KNOWING, NOT CURING, NOT HEALING AND
FACE WITH US THE REALITY OF OUR POWERLESSNESS,
THAT IS A FRIEND WHO CARES.
— Unknown
06 December 2009
Rough Draft : Retelling My Ruination
I am a young gay man living with AIDS, who has already on numerous occasions fallen to the detriment and devastation of this horrifying disease. And, I am only 30 years old! This rough draft retelling of my ruination serves a specific intention: to catalog both the tender touching and terribly traumatic moments of my miserable mayhem, for the sake of both posterity and universal accessibility.
My intention here is to be brave and bold in the broad casting of my courage, contentment, and collected wisdom through written narrative, while refining my eloquence through an evocative enunciation of the eternal conflict and reconciliation between external/internal beauty and ulteriorly ultimate, indomitable integrity inspired by such doomsday devastation as disease(s) and disfigurement(s).
In late 2007, I was living a very isolated, lonely life... addicted to crystal meth and ignoring the obvious signs of the deterioration of my health, when I acquired PCP pneumonia (but didn't know it!), fell unconscious (for what my doctors now believe was between ten to twelve days!) alone in my stark, sterile studio apartment. Laying face down on my pillow in bed, I allowed eminently dangerous bacteria to enter my mouth through the constant streaming of saliva and drool that dripped from the curl of my lips and cheek.
At some point during my apparent coma, I was infected by a poly-microbial bacterial infection similar to, but much more destructive, aggressive and incurable than, say, MRSA (staph infection) or Gangrene. This bacterial infection invaded my face and began necrotizing the flesh and bone of my upper jaw, mouth and nose.
On October 7, 2007, I was found less than a few vacant steps away from death, by the San Francisco Fire Department, who came and busted down my door. I remember being woken by their inexorably loud pounding, so I peeled myself out of my urine- & blood-soaked sheets, in the daze of dying, and stumbled to the hallway that directly faced my front door. I saw the door collapse, the fire fighters and my property manager standing there calling my name. Then I in turn collapsed, fainted, again unconscious and was rushed to the hospital, where I remained in medically induced coma for eight weeks.
During this time, my doctors attempted to cure a pervasive PCP pneumonia, as well as the ultimately incurable bacterial infection in my face. While they succeeded in curbing the affects of the pneumonia, the heavy, heavy doses of antibiotics that they were injecting into me had no significant affect on the bacterial infection, which kept eating away at my face. Tragically, during the third week of my hospitalization, while i was still unconscious, my doctors were forced to amputate my entire upper jaw & palette, my upper and left lower lips, my left nostril and septum.
Five weeks later, I woke form the coma and was presented a mirror by a terribly awkward and forcibly compassionate student doctor. He told me to take it into my hands, directed me to lift the mirror above my head and to bring it down slowly, with calm and reserve, so that I wouldn't be too terribly "terrified." So, I did what he said.
I gazed through the mirror, first at the top of my head, where wisps of hair stuck out in all directions, noticed that it was getting long...longer than I had remembered it to be, and that it was pretty awfully disheveled. I brought the mirror down to my eyes and stared intently into them, begging to know what I was about to see, and then I slowly dragged the mirror down the length of my nose.
Before I had any chance to gasp for breath, I saw the start of it: my nose had been cut in half at it's tip; I could see inside of it. Suddenly, I experienced an astounding jolt of excitement, awe and curiosity in such a way that I had never experienced before; so, without fear, i continued to pull the mirror down the length of my distorted, disfigured face, and I saw the rest of it. From the edge of where my nose had been cut off, a large gaping hole obliterated, obscured and obstructed what were once the familiar features of my beautiful face and awkward, crooked smile.
I could see through to the back of my throat, to my uvula. I could see my tongue flinching hesitantly, reluctantly, with reserve, itching the few bottom teeth that remained. I realized just then that I had never once noticed nor recognized how gargantuan my tongue is: just a testament to how big my mouth once was, and still was just then.
I hated what I saw. It certainly intrigued me, but it horrified me very much just the same. So much so that I remained expressionless: my eyes void of emotion, as I continued to stare. I felt so many diverse, painful emotions in that one single instance, that I could not even bear to cry; however, the student doctor was determined that I should. He grabbed my hand and held it tightly, with angst and force; although, I did not want him to touch me. He explained the trauma I had experienced and stressed stoically that with modern advancements in the science and practice of plastic surgery, my face could...would...be restored.
I wouldn't, couldn't find the grace and courage and hope within myself to believe him, so I pulled my hand out of his and tenderly touched it to my my teeth and tongue, trembling. As if, with a single touch, I could denounce and defy the reality of my destruction. He noticed that no tears were coming out, and his eyebrows slumped downward in obvious concern. He said that he wouldn't leave my side until I cried. Almost whimpering, with a quivering lip and trembling eyes, suffering himself the agony of the moment, he desperately cajoled me: "You are supposed to cry, Matthew. What has happened to you... It's devastating."
I realized just then that I hated that word: "devastating," but that from that moment onward, it would be one of the only few words I could ever find to describe the full magnanimous force of the mayhem and misery that had befallen me. I was angry. I was puzzled. I was horrified. I was immensely, terribly, devastatingly saddened by what I saw staring back at me in that mirror: a ghastly, grotesque, gruesome grimace gone awry. And, I was very frustrated with this man who was just sitting there, watching me suffer, urging my suffering on, expecting me... asking me... telling me... to "CRY!!"
So, to appease and abet a little the young student doctor's dutiful determination and perhaps, in one way or another, to see if his sympathy was sincere, I let a tear tarry a second on the tip of my lashes, then drip down my swollen, scarred, scarlet cheek to fall into the chasm at the center of my face. And Goddammit! Then, do you know what he did? He immediately swiped the mirror from my tight grip, stoop up, began shuffling backward towards the door and muttered, "So, I guess we're done here. I'll check in on you tomorrow. Don't let this get you down, Matthew. Try to smile!" TRY TO SMILE!! That's what he said to me. The bastard! Then, he walked away, and I never saw him again. To this day, I don't know if I have ever hated anyone in one moment more than I hated that student doctor then.
It's been almost two years since my eight-month hospitalization came to an end. I eventually returned home, again to be isolated, alone in my studio apartment, where I began the tedious, depressive struggle of trudging onward through five consecutive surgical reconstructions, so far. My face is a tattered tapestry of flesh and bone taken from my lower left leg and hanging from my forehead. I'm currently awaiting with great anticipation my next surgery: "a division & revision of the left nasal flap," scheduled for January 4, 2010. Reconstructions will continue well into 2011, progressing at a steady six week pace if, and only if, I remain sober.
One redemptive aspect of my story: a "Saving Grace," per say, is that while my addiction resurfaced just after I returned home to isolation and to a $350.00USD baggy of crystal meth laying next to a dirty, used bulb-pipe at the center of my desk, I have fought long and hard to conquer this ulterior disease of drug dependency, ever since. As recent as July 14, 2009, I entered a ninety-day triple diagnoses residential rehabilitative recovery & transitional housing program called Ferguson Place, through Baker Places, Inc. of San Francisco.
Rehab was an immensely transformative, successful experience, and I have remained sober since graduating the program on October 11, 2009. I feel very secure in my recovery, thanks to my very strong support network, which includes doctors, surgeons, nurses, a psychiatrist, a therapist, a L.I.F.E. coach, a Care Navigator, a sponsor, friends, family and other sober members of my recovery community.
My concern during this tedious time of continuously tentative transformations, is the temptation that will doubtlessly seep through the walls of my studio apartment as I sit alone, day in and day out, in isolation. Isolation and inactivity can only lead to a progression of my disease(s). In fact, that is exactly what got me into the this predicament in the first place, I believe. Truth is: It's difficult for me to get up and get active, and to exercise with lots of strenuous motion, because I'm missing my left fibula.
The majority of the bone (save an inch & a half at either end, where the tendons and ligaments attach) was removed during my first extremely invasive, debilitating (although, quite successful!) maxillofacial reconstruction, only to be sawed, separated, screwed and secured to my face in an effort to recreate my upper jaw. So, I have a lot of trouble walking with stability and speed. I'm also only about five months clean and sober, as I alluded, previously.
For these reasons (and many more!), I am in need of the companionship and responsibility that comes with caring for a supportive service/assistance pet: in order to 1.) maintain sobriety, 2.) to get some exercise on a daily basis, and 3.) to venture out into the world, where I might encounter real people; instead of being always shut up at home.
The next two years of reconstructions are going to be long and arduous, but I maintain hope, determination and ambition. I'm looking forward to going back to school to get my Master's in Social Work (MSW), as well as either an NPA Professional Certificate (Non-Profit Administration) from U.C. Berkeley, or an only Master's in Nonprofit Management (MNM) from Regis University (based out of Boulder, Colorado). I intend to fully utilize all the various resources at my disposal as a resident of San Francisco, California, such as benefits I expect will be awarded to me by the Department of Rehabilitation: a state-run bureaucratic social services division that funds eduction and training for disabled peoples whom are aiming to return to work.
I am fully committed to positively impacting my community through expressions of compassion, courage, empathy & autobiography. I anticipate the moment when I am able and invited to share my story with the broader recovery community, to down my mask and recount the wretched horrifying lowdown depths to which addiction can thrust someone with utmost turbulence, and without the slightest pause in consideration of one's imminent trepidation and trauma.
For now, I practice my telling narrative nearer to the people, passed along via the ebbing, flowing tide of cyberwaves, broadcasting my story to the world here via this dynamic social media infrastructure in the off chance that some solitary sober someone may stumble out of the "ROOMS" and into my "WORDS," before I sound off for once on my own back where we both are bound to face my face, face-to-face, together. C'est à dire, « dans des SALLES!! » At which point, I will always end in saying, "Thank you for your acceptance. Thank you for listening. Next time, I'll be sure to bring some lil' smoked sausages to go with those NUTS!!" ;oP
Respectfully submitted,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
San Francisco, CA USA
[MDB2009.12.06@19:31]
My intention here is to be brave and bold in the broad casting of my courage, contentment, and collected wisdom through written narrative, while refining my eloquence through an evocative enunciation of the eternal conflict and reconciliation between external/internal beauty and ulteriorly ultimate, indomitable integrity inspired by such doomsday devastation as disease(s) and disfigurement(s).
In late 2007, I was living a very isolated, lonely life... addicted to crystal meth and ignoring the obvious signs of the deterioration of my health, when I acquired PCP pneumonia (but didn't know it!), fell unconscious (for what my doctors now believe was between ten to twelve days!) alone in my stark, sterile studio apartment. Laying face down on my pillow in bed, I allowed eminently dangerous bacteria to enter my mouth through the constant streaming of saliva and drool that dripped from the curl of my lips and cheek.
At some point during my apparent coma, I was infected by a poly-microbial bacterial infection similar to, but much more destructive, aggressive and incurable than, say, MRSA (staph infection) or Gangrene. This bacterial infection invaded my face and began necrotizing the flesh and bone of my upper jaw, mouth and nose.
On October 7, 2007, I was found less than a few vacant steps away from death, by the San Francisco Fire Department, who came and busted down my door. I remember being woken by their inexorably loud pounding, so I peeled myself out of my urine- & blood-soaked sheets, in the daze of dying, and stumbled to the hallway that directly faced my front door. I saw the door collapse, the fire fighters and my property manager standing there calling my name. Then I in turn collapsed, fainted, again unconscious and was rushed to the hospital, where I remained in medically induced coma for eight weeks.
During this time, my doctors attempted to cure a pervasive PCP pneumonia, as well as the ultimately incurable bacterial infection in my face. While they succeeded in curbing the affects of the pneumonia, the heavy, heavy doses of antibiotics that they were injecting into me had no significant affect on the bacterial infection, which kept eating away at my face. Tragically, during the third week of my hospitalization, while i was still unconscious, my doctors were forced to amputate my entire upper jaw & palette, my upper and left lower lips, my left nostril and septum.
Five weeks later, I woke form the coma and was presented a mirror by a terribly awkward and forcibly compassionate student doctor. He told me to take it into my hands, directed me to lift the mirror above my head and to bring it down slowly, with calm and reserve, so that I wouldn't be too terribly "terrified." So, I did what he said.
I gazed through the mirror, first at the top of my head, where wisps of hair stuck out in all directions, noticed that it was getting long...longer than I had remembered it to be, and that it was pretty awfully disheveled. I brought the mirror down to my eyes and stared intently into them, begging to know what I was about to see, and then I slowly dragged the mirror down the length of my nose.
Before I had any chance to gasp for breath, I saw the start of it: my nose had been cut in half at it's tip; I could see inside of it. Suddenly, I experienced an astounding jolt of excitement, awe and curiosity in such a way that I had never experienced before; so, without fear, i continued to pull the mirror down the length of my distorted, disfigured face, and I saw the rest of it. From the edge of where my nose had been cut off, a large gaping hole obliterated, obscured and obstructed what were once the familiar features of my beautiful face and awkward, crooked smile.
I could see through to the back of my throat, to my uvula. I could see my tongue flinching hesitantly, reluctantly, with reserve, itching the few bottom teeth that remained. I realized just then that I had never once noticed nor recognized how gargantuan my tongue is: just a testament to how big my mouth once was, and still was just then.
I hated what I saw. It certainly intrigued me, but it horrified me very much just the same. So much so that I remained expressionless: my eyes void of emotion, as I continued to stare. I felt so many diverse, painful emotions in that one single instance, that I could not even bear to cry; however, the student doctor was determined that I should. He grabbed my hand and held it tightly, with angst and force; although, I did not want him to touch me. He explained the trauma I had experienced and stressed stoically that with modern advancements in the science and practice of plastic surgery, my face could...would...be restored.
I wouldn't, couldn't find the grace and courage and hope within myself to believe him, so I pulled my hand out of his and tenderly touched it to my my teeth and tongue, trembling. As if, with a single touch, I could denounce and defy the reality of my destruction. He noticed that no tears were coming out, and his eyebrows slumped downward in obvious concern. He said that he wouldn't leave my side until I cried. Almost whimpering, with a quivering lip and trembling eyes, suffering himself the agony of the moment, he desperately cajoled me: "You are supposed to cry, Matthew. What has happened to you... It's devastating."
I realized just then that I hated that word: "devastating," but that from that moment onward, it would be one of the only few words I could ever find to describe the full magnanimous force of the mayhem and misery that had befallen me. I was angry. I was puzzled. I was horrified. I was immensely, terribly, devastatingly saddened by what I saw staring back at me in that mirror: a ghastly, grotesque, gruesome grimace gone awry. And, I was very frustrated with this man who was just sitting there, watching me suffer, urging my suffering on, expecting me... asking me... telling me... to "CRY!!"
So, to appease and abet a little the young student doctor's dutiful determination and perhaps, in one way or another, to see if his sympathy was sincere, I let a tear tarry a second on the tip of my lashes, then drip down my swollen, scarred, scarlet cheek to fall into the chasm at the center of my face. And Goddammit! Then, do you know what he did? He immediately swiped the mirror from my tight grip, stoop up, began shuffling backward towards the door and muttered, "So, I guess we're done here. I'll check in on you tomorrow. Don't let this get you down, Matthew. Try to smile!" TRY TO SMILE!! That's what he said to me. The bastard! Then, he walked away, and I never saw him again. To this day, I don't know if I have ever hated anyone in one moment more than I hated that student doctor then.
It's been almost two years since my eight-month hospitalization came to an end. I eventually returned home, again to be isolated, alone in my studio apartment, where I began the tedious, depressive struggle of trudging onward through five consecutive surgical reconstructions, so far. My face is a tattered tapestry of flesh and bone taken from my lower left leg and hanging from my forehead. I'm currently awaiting with great anticipation my next surgery: "a division & revision of the left nasal flap," scheduled for January 4, 2010. Reconstructions will continue well into 2011, progressing at a steady six week pace if, and only if, I remain sober.
One redemptive aspect of my story: a "Saving Grace," per say, is that while my addiction resurfaced just after I returned home to isolation and to a $350.00USD baggy of crystal meth laying next to a dirty, used bulb-pipe at the center of my desk, I have fought long and hard to conquer this ulterior disease of drug dependency, ever since. As recent as July 14, 2009, I entered a ninety-day triple diagnoses residential rehabilitative recovery & transitional housing program called Ferguson Place, through Baker Places, Inc. of San Francisco.
Rehab was an immensely transformative, successful experience, and I have remained sober since graduating the program on October 11, 2009. I feel very secure in my recovery, thanks to my very strong support network, which includes doctors, surgeons, nurses, a psychiatrist, a therapist, a L.I.F.E. coach, a Care Navigator, a sponsor, friends, family and other sober members of my recovery community.
My concern during this tedious time of continuously tentative transformations, is the temptation that will doubtlessly seep through the walls of my studio apartment as I sit alone, day in and day out, in isolation. Isolation and inactivity can only lead to a progression of my disease(s). In fact, that is exactly what got me into the this predicament in the first place, I believe. Truth is: It's difficult for me to get up and get active, and to exercise with lots of strenuous motion, because I'm missing my left fibula.
The majority of the bone (save an inch & a half at either end, where the tendons and ligaments attach) was removed during my first extremely invasive, debilitating (although, quite successful!) maxillofacial reconstruction, only to be sawed, separated, screwed and secured to my face in an effort to recreate my upper jaw. So, I have a lot of trouble walking with stability and speed. I'm also only about five months clean and sober, as I alluded, previously.
For these reasons (and many more!), I am in need of the companionship and responsibility that comes with caring for a supportive service/assistance pet: in order to 1.) maintain sobriety, 2.) to get some exercise on a daily basis, and 3.) to venture out into the world, where I might encounter real people; instead of being always shut up at home.
The next two years of reconstructions are going to be long and arduous, but I maintain hope, determination and ambition. I'm looking forward to going back to school to get my Master's in Social Work (MSW), as well as either an NPA Professional Certificate (Non-Profit Administration) from U.C. Berkeley, or an only Master's in Nonprofit Management (MNM) from Regis University (based out of Boulder, Colorado). I intend to fully utilize all the various resources at my disposal as a resident of San Francisco, California, such as benefits I expect will be awarded to me by the Department of Rehabilitation: a state-run bureaucratic social services division that funds eduction and training for disabled peoples whom are aiming to return to work.
I am fully committed to positively impacting my community through expressions of compassion, courage, empathy & autobiography. I anticipate the moment when I am able and invited to share my story with the broader recovery community, to down my mask and recount the wretched horrifying lowdown depths to which addiction can thrust someone with utmost turbulence, and without the slightest pause in consideration of one's imminent trepidation and trauma.
For now, I practice my telling narrative nearer to the people, passed along via the ebbing, flowing tide of cyberwaves, broadcasting my story to the world here via this dynamic social media infrastructure in the off chance that some solitary sober someone may stumble out of the "ROOMS" and into my "WORDS," before I sound off for once on my own back where we both are bound to face my face, face-to-face, together. C'est à dire, « dans des SALLES!! » At which point, I will always end in saying, "Thank you for your acceptance. Thank you for listening. Next time, I'll be sure to bring some lil' smoked sausages to go with those NUTS!!" ;oP
Respectfully submitted,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
San Francisco, CA USA
[MDB2009.12.06@19:31]
11 September 2009
Sixty Days Sober, Sanity & Surgery
The Seventh Chakra: Sahasrara
Introducing my first foray into video-blogging!! I'd like to post the following video in honor of my 60th day of sobriety, September 11th (God bless the 2,993 lives lost on that infamous, tragic day eight years ago!), my sanity, my pearl & sapphire stone birthday celebration, my surgery (soon to come!) and my seventh chakra: Sahasrara – "The Thousand Petalled Lotus" – signifying supreme consciousness & connection to the cerebral, spiritual and concrete world.
I won't do much writing here, besides to say that I'm a lil' frustrated with my webcam movie maker, because its somehow configured only to record one 10 minute segment of video at a time (a requirement for YouTube uploads). Coincidentally, my minutes sped to an abrupt end right at the single second after I say in such a straightforward, matter of fact way, something of the sort: "I just have an ugly face." Period. And, then the screen stops and skips backward to the first frame for a replay.
I meant for that comment to be followed by a shrug of the shoulders and a sardonic slap to my screwy smile, so that single statement would not be taken so seriously. So, remember that, when watching!! I don't think I'm ugly, really. Really, I know I'm beautiful ... especially, where it counts: on the inside!! And, that I hope is demonstrated by my provocative video performance & storytelling. Here, just watch! ...
©2009 Matthew Blanchard | San Francisco, CA USA
This video was recorded using the HP MediaSmart Webcam & on my new HP Pavilion dv4-1435dx Entertainment Notebook PC. Please be aware that this video and all original photos, pictures, images, audio & video posted to this blog is legally copyrighted to the author; therefore, you are prohibited by law from copying, distributing, manipulating, rendering, altering, editing, selling, posting or making public all copyrighted works without explicit written permission from the author/owner. Thank you for respecting these terms of use. Please enjoy! And, be prepared for more to come...
I won't do much writing here, besides to say that I'm a lil' frustrated with my webcam movie maker, because its somehow configured only to record one 10 minute segment of video at a time (a requirement for YouTube uploads). Coincidentally, my minutes sped to an abrupt end right at the single second after I say in such a straightforward, matter of fact way, something of the sort: "I just have an ugly face." Period. And, then the screen stops and skips backward to the first frame for a replay.
I meant for that comment to be followed by a shrug of the shoulders and a sardonic slap to my screwy smile, so that single statement would not be taken so seriously. So, remember that, when watching!! I don't think I'm ugly, really. Really, I know I'm beautiful ... especially, where it counts: on the inside!! And, that I hope is demonstrated by my provocative video performance & storytelling. Here, just watch! ...
©2009 Matthew Blanchard | San Francisco, CA USA
This video was recorded using the HP MediaSmart Webcam & on my new HP Pavilion dv4-1435dx Entertainment Notebook PC. Please be aware that this video and all original photos, pictures, images, audio & video posted to this blog is legally copyrighted to the author; therefore, you are prohibited by law from copying, distributing, manipulating, rendering, altering, editing, selling, posting or making public all copyrighted works without explicit written permission from the author/owner. Thank you for respecting these terms of use. Please enjoy! And, be prepared for more to come...
THE SEVENTH CHAKRAWHEN KUNDALINI SHAKTI UNITES WITH SHIVA
AT HIS ABODE AT THE SAHASRARA,
THE THOUSAND PETALLED LOTUS UNFOLDS.
There are seven chakras, or vortices of energy, in the subtle body, located along the spine. Each of them has different functions and certain attributes assigned to them. The Sahasrara is the seventh chakra located at the crown of the head, depicted with a thousand petals. Its physical counterpart is the human brain.
The kundalini shakti, the creative life energy, lies dormant at the first plexus, the Muladhara, at the base of the spine. When she is awakened through meditation practices, she begins her journey up the spinal column, purifying and stabilizing all the chakras, until one day she reaches Lord Shiva, who resides at the Sahasrara.
With the Divine Union of Shiva and Shakti, the thousand petals bloom and rejoice. The yogi's samskaras (imprints and tendencies) are eliminated. He or she is liberated. Self-realization, the goal of all spiritual practices, is achieved. Nirvana consciousness becomes the yogi's permanent state.©2009 Chandi Devi | Sahasrara - The Seventh Chakra:
The Thousand Petalled Lotus | Suite101.com (2009.09.11)
30 May 2009
Forward: In The Direction of My Dreams!
The following text is copy of a letter I recently wrote to my dear friend and mentor, Steven Tierney, Ed.D, CAS, concerning our desired reconnection and a (re)embracing of our friendship. Let me precursor the text by explaining a bit the significant role Steven has played in my life during the past five to six years:
I first met Steven when I began to volunteer as the first-ever HIV+ youth advocate on the SFDPH's HIV Prevention Planning Council (HPPC), of which Steven was then (in 2003-2004) the co-Chairman or co-President. Steven immediately caught my attention with his rambunctious spirit, his good sense of humor, his astute intelligence and his compassion for & understanding of gay youth. He took a liking to me very quickly, as I too had a spunky personality during those early years when I had first settled into a San Francisco lifestyle and had begun my work as an HIV/AIDS advocate & activist.
In an organization dogged by its member's own often trite though terribly consequential misconceptions of youth, Steven's "pro-QHereKidzSF" spirit & personality shined brightly above all others. He himself was a staunch advocate for all youth infected & affected by HIV/AIDS, so I knew straight away that he would be someone that I would want to emulate & to mold myself after. Thus, he became my unspoken, unrecognized, though pleasingly purposed & positively presumed mentor, or something similar to it (for lack of a better word!).
My membership and participation in the HPPC was sadly suddenly interrupted in late 2004, when I fell ill with PCP Pneumonia, became AIDS-symptomatic and suffered from my six month schizo-delusional psychosis. I remember vaguely but surely Steven's visits with me in the hospital. I had few friends then, so few visitors, and anyone that I encountered while strapped to a gurney, waiting around aimlessly for miracles to befall me, figured directly into the complex loopholes of the unstable, psychotic storyline that my befuddled brain had concocted.
When Steven came to visit me in the hospital, I imagined him as a superior being: my Higher Power, my Protector, an archangel/alien being sent to guard me against all influences & preponderances of the "Evil Ones: The Night Nurses." After six months of such confounded curiosity, my mind eventually began to heal itself; thanks to a cocktail of antiretrovirals and psychotropic medications that I was prescribed.
In hindsight, thinking back on this experience together, Steven & I laugh about it today with witless wonder & amazement, befuddled still both of us by the outrageous neuroses that my mind had at once constructed and then deconstructed slowly (but, surely!).
Also, in early 2008, towards the end of my acute eight-month hospital rehabilitation, after my second tragic fall into the grip ... into the strangle hold ... of AIDS: another incapacitating pneumonia, but this time, Gangrene as well, or a severe necrotizing bacterial infection of the face, which lead to the amputation and still ongoing craniofacial reconstruction of half of my mouth and nose, and a good portion of my upper jaw, ... Steven came to visit me during my infirmity & seclusion.
I had merely the grotesque semblance of a face at the time: my mouth was really just a misshapen mound of leg flesh that curled into a drooling pustule at the upper right side of my still remaining lower lip. Steven came to my bed side to witness me in utter defeat, terribly scarred & wounded by my disease and by my addiction; he was not afraid to stare directly into my bare, full-frontal, frightening face still to express his love and support for me.
He showed such compassion, such sympathy, such remorse that I fell deeply into goodly, godly gratitude for having him in my life at the time, without judgment, with no thought of rejection. ... He showed only acceptance & understanding then.
After I left the hospital, towards the middle of 2008, Steven continued to visit me weekly in my home. Once I had enough courage to venture out into the world with a mask on, he would even accompany me to the movie theatre to catch some blockbuster releases, so as if to prove to me that I did have at least some semblance of a life still.
Steven Tierney hasn't left my side since he discovered what tragedy I had suffered through during the past two years; even though, when I left the hospital and returned home, I immediately found a little clear Ziploc baggy of Crystal Meth shards & powder, retrieved my old pipe from its hiding place and began an unrelenting spiral downward again into addiction. I began smoking Meth day in & day out, despite all the suffering I had lived through & all the terrifying lessons I should have learned (but didn't!).
You see, Steven is a recovering alcoholic/addict with more than thirteen years of clean time, and maintaining a relationship with some sad soul who was still suffering through active addiction & use has weighed heavily upon him.
I don't believe that Steven would object to my disclosure of his addictions. He is a very out & proud gay man in recovery. In fact, his professional concentration or specialization is the study of the mental health of drug addicts & alcoholics in recovery. Currently, he is the Professor & Program Director of the Community Mental Health Graduate Program at the California Institute for Integral Studies (CIIS), where he is pioneering new integrative, somatic curriculum for students of the mental health profession.
Even when he was Director of HIV Prevention for the SFDPH AIDS Office and co-chairman of the HPPC (or as a member of the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Public Health Foundation; CLICK HERE! for brief bio.), he often spoke very openly (and jokingly) about his recovery. So, I hope that instead of being angered by my mention of his addictions, he might come to appreciate the gesture of memorializing the profound impact he has had on my life with the presentation of this text here in my very own personal, public domain for free-thinking & pontification on the Web.
Recently, ... say, within that past two to three months ... Steven has buffered himself from the negative influences of ME, Matthew, Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF: the addict in active use; he has chosen to distance himself from me and suspend all communications. I wrote this letter, after weeks of struggling to implement my own strategies for recovery, in an attempt to get sober finally; for me, for him, for anyone I may ever touch with the telling of my tragic stories.
Steven had originally volunteered to accompany me to a MEDITATION & RECOVERY Meeting at the Zen Center - San Francisco every Monday night, but I fell out of the habit of going, because the "Twelve Step" approach wasn't working for me for a time. I wrote this letter tonight, after returning home from my first "Twelve Step" Meeting in three months: Saturday night CRYSTAL METH ANONYMOUS BEGINNERS' GROUP, from 8:30PM to 10:00PM, as a solemn gesture of extending the olive branch of PEACE & Reconciliation...Reconnection, etc. to Steven.
I plan on attending the Monday night MEDITATION & RECOVERY Meeting this week, for the first time in just as long a time; and there, I will give this letter to Steven, if he is attending. If not, then I will mail him the letter and hope that he gets it in short time.
More importantly, I hope that he is touched by my words...by my effort to explicate every bit of minutia that defines my current struggle to stay sober, and that he is moved to reconnect with me, continuing to support me on my journey toward recovery. Here, finally, I present to any random readers of my raucous, rambunctious ramblings copy of the text of my letter to a dear friend & mentor, Steven Tierney, Ed.D, CAS:
It's an awkward, difficult request to ask of someone, but Steven knows me to be someone who is often emboldened by chagrin & camaraderie, by enthusiasm & emotion, solemn sanctity & sensitivity to so-called "PC" talk or contrived to condemn the common, courteous, conventional parlance of the status quo with my own matter-of-fact twirling of the tongue ( ... in cheek! ).
I set out with this final page to write sincerely of the profound & lasting impact Steven Tierney has had on my life and in appreciation of our dear friendship. I did not intend to exaggerate; although, this final passage might come across as a little aloof, as a hopeless haranguing of what is otherwise the simple generosity of spirit that this my good man, mentor & friend constantly offers to me.
I hope that it doesn't come across as trite and condescending, but rather as uplifting and inspiring. I pray that it will (re)ignite in Steven a deep-seeded, serious desire to (re)connect with me: the "poor, unfortunate soul" that has found perhaps at last some sured, sound, stable footing along the treacherous, tumultuous path toward Recovery. I beg of my dear friend & mentor to exhibit a custodial degree of compassion and to serve as my compass point, guiding me in all directions due forward and keeping me on the oh so infamous "straight & narrow," as I've said before.
It is with great respect & admiration for this friend of mine and with equal shame as I might have pride in my struggle back and forth, toward and away from (and toward again!) sobriety, that I present the text of this, my recent letter to Steven Tierney, Ed.D, CAS: a man who has proved time and time again to be all things seemingly (or assuredly!) heroic!
I first met Steven when I began to volunteer as the first-ever HIV+ youth advocate on the SFDPH's HIV Prevention Planning Council (HPPC), of which Steven was then (in 2003-2004) the co-Chairman or co-President. Steven immediately caught my attention with his rambunctious spirit, his good sense of humor, his astute intelligence and his compassion for & understanding of gay youth. He took a liking to me very quickly, as I too had a spunky personality during those early years when I had first settled into a San Francisco lifestyle and had begun my work as an HIV/AIDS advocate & activist.
In an organization dogged by its member's own often trite though terribly consequential misconceptions of youth, Steven's "pro-QHereKidzSF" spirit & personality shined brightly above all others. He himself was a staunch advocate for all youth infected & affected by HIV/AIDS, so I knew straight away that he would be someone that I would want to emulate & to mold myself after. Thus, he became my unspoken, unrecognized, though pleasingly purposed & positively presumed mentor, or something similar to it (for lack of a better word!).
My membership and participation in the HPPC was sadly suddenly interrupted in late 2004, when I fell ill with PCP Pneumonia, became AIDS-symptomatic and suffered from my six month schizo-delusional psychosis. I remember vaguely but surely Steven's visits with me in the hospital. I had few friends then, so few visitors, and anyone that I encountered while strapped to a gurney, waiting around aimlessly for miracles to befall me, figured directly into the complex loopholes of the unstable, psychotic storyline that my befuddled brain had concocted.
When Steven came to visit me in the hospital, I imagined him as a superior being: my Higher Power, my Protector, an archangel/alien being sent to guard me against all influences & preponderances of the "Evil Ones: The Night Nurses." After six months of such confounded curiosity, my mind eventually began to heal itself; thanks to a cocktail of antiretrovirals and psychotropic medications that I was prescribed.
In hindsight, thinking back on this experience together, Steven & I laugh about it today with witless wonder & amazement, befuddled still both of us by the outrageous neuroses that my mind had at once constructed and then deconstructed slowly (but, surely!).
Also, in early 2008, towards the end of my acute eight-month hospital rehabilitation, after my second tragic fall into the grip ... into the strangle hold ... of AIDS: another incapacitating pneumonia, but this time, Gangrene as well, or a severe necrotizing bacterial infection of the face, which lead to the amputation and still ongoing craniofacial reconstruction of half of my mouth and nose, and a good portion of my upper jaw, ... Steven came to visit me during my infirmity & seclusion.
I had merely the grotesque semblance of a face at the time: my mouth was really just a misshapen mound of leg flesh that curled into a drooling pustule at the upper right side of my still remaining lower lip. Steven came to my bed side to witness me in utter defeat, terribly scarred & wounded by my disease and by my addiction; he was not afraid to stare directly into my bare, full-frontal, frightening face still to express his love and support for me.
He showed such compassion, such sympathy, such remorse that I fell deeply into goodly, godly gratitude for having him in my life at the time, without judgment, with no thought of rejection. ... He showed only acceptance & understanding then.
After I left the hospital, towards the middle of 2008, Steven continued to visit me weekly in my home. Once I had enough courage to venture out into the world with a mask on, he would even accompany me to the movie theatre to catch some blockbuster releases, so as if to prove to me that I did have at least some semblance of a life still.
Steven Tierney hasn't left my side since he discovered what tragedy I had suffered through during the past two years; even though, when I left the hospital and returned home, I immediately found a little clear Ziploc baggy of Crystal Meth shards & powder, retrieved my old pipe from its hiding place and began an unrelenting spiral downward again into addiction. I began smoking Meth day in & day out, despite all the suffering I had lived through & all the terrifying lessons I should have learned (but didn't!).
You see, Steven is a recovering alcoholic/addict with more than thirteen years of clean time, and maintaining a relationship with some sad soul who was still suffering through active addiction & use has weighed heavily upon him.
I don't believe that Steven would object to my disclosure of his addictions. He is a very out & proud gay man in recovery. In fact, his professional concentration or specialization is the study of the mental health of drug addicts & alcoholics in recovery. Currently, he is the Professor & Program Director of the Community Mental Health Graduate Program at the California Institute for Integral Studies (CIIS), where he is pioneering new integrative, somatic curriculum for students of the mental health profession.
Even when he was Director of HIV Prevention for the SFDPH AIDS Office and co-chairman of the HPPC (or as a member of the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Public Health Foundation; CLICK HERE! for brief bio.), he often spoke very openly (and jokingly) about his recovery. So, I hope that instead of being angered by my mention of his addictions, he might come to appreciate the gesture of memorializing the profound impact he has had on my life with the presentation of this text here in my very own personal, public domain for free-thinking & pontification on the Web.
Recently, ... say, within that past two to three months ... Steven has buffered himself from the negative influences of ME, Matthew, Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF: the addict in active use; he has chosen to distance himself from me and suspend all communications. I wrote this letter, after weeks of struggling to implement my own strategies for recovery, in an attempt to get sober finally; for me, for him, for anyone I may ever touch with the telling of my tragic stories.
Steven had originally volunteered to accompany me to a MEDITATION & RECOVERY Meeting at the Zen Center - San Francisco every Monday night, but I fell out of the habit of going, because the "Twelve Step" approach wasn't working for me for a time. I wrote this letter tonight, after returning home from my first "Twelve Step" Meeting in three months: Saturday night CRYSTAL METH ANONYMOUS BEGINNERS' GROUP, from 8:30PM to 10:00PM, as a solemn gesture of extending the olive branch of PEACE & Reconciliation...Reconnection, etc. to Steven.
I plan on attending the Monday night MEDITATION & RECOVERY Meeting this week, for the first time in just as long a time; and there, I will give this letter to Steven, if he is attending. If not, then I will mail him the letter and hope that he gets it in short time.
More importantly, I hope that he is touched by my words...by my effort to explicate every bit of minutia that defines my current struggle to stay sober, and that he is moved to reconnect with me, continuing to support me on my journey toward recovery. Here, finally, I present to any random readers of my raucous, rambunctious ramblings copy of the text of my letter to a dear friend & mentor, Steven Tierney, Ed.D, CAS:
Dear Steven,I originally concluded the ten-page single-spaced hand-written letter on the ninth page with the text you see that is typed in initial capitals, normally; but feeling the need to share one small additional token of my movement forward and of my positive thinking, I continued the letter onto the back of the final page, with a full-page sermon of sorts, printed in "ALL CAPS," for emphasis & effect. I feel that the final closing of this letter is fitting and sincere: an honest, humble confession to and request of this amazing man, mentor & friend of mine to "CARRY ME WHEN I AM TOO WEAK TO STAND...," to be my Higher Power!!
Time & distance have gotten the better of us these past few months; I only hope that our friendship hasn't suffered because of this. Perhaps, it is a false assumption, but I can't help to imagine that the separation that has grown between us is something that you may have purposefully or subconsciously imposed for the sake of your own self-preservation and in keeping with your own personal journey of recovery.
I have been in a very unhealthy place for a while; at least, I WAS in such a place, suffering under the full scale strain & choke of active addiction. There was relapse after relapse. So often it would happen that I'd find myself using again only days afterI had once again tried to (re)commit myself to recovery, that there never really was any substantial interruption or end to my using. I had never really for the very first time committed myself to sobriety, so there's no need for me to talk of doing it again & again, over & over, (re)committing myself to anything.
So, I don't blame you for having wanted to keep your distance, if that is indeed what it is you've been trying to do. I would never want our friendship to be a burden or a bad influence on you—I only want us both to gain & benefit from our interactions together. This is why I myself have consciously tried to keep my own distance from you: because, I assumed that you would want nothing to do with me if I were still actively using, still moving backward in the wrong direction, opposite & away from sobriety. You only deserve to have a better version of me in your life, so that there's no risk of me bringing you down.
I did have good intentions when I decided not to go to Monday Night MEDITATION & RECOVERY at the Zen Center any more and stopped communicating with you. My aim was to settle into my own sobriety and to find my bearings, to progress a little down my own path toward recovery, to make sure that I was moving in a positive, forward direction, before reaching out to you again. In the meantime, during all of this distance « aux lèvres droits et fermés, » there has been progress in my life, indeed!
I have made progress, inching deeper & deeper into the better habits of the "straight & narrow." Truth is: for a while, I stopped going to Recovery Meetings all together, because either the meetings were in and of themselves intensely triggering for me or because I simply felt so out of touch, detached and isolated from the greater Recovery Community and believed that I did not / could not / would not ever share in their common experiences.
But, I've realized (slowly!) (in retrospect, ... after much concerted effort!) that I do share stories with many of the addicts & alcoholics that I encounter at Recovery Meetings, even if my own unique story took such a brutal, tragic turn for the worse that no other addict could ever presume to understand or sympathize with (or so I am stubbornly set on believing!).
Instead of committing to "Ninety in Ninety" and really consuming myself in Step Study or finding a sponsor—the traditional way—I said to myself, "Well, if the 'Twelve Steps' aren't working for me right now ... if tradition isn't proving effective and I can't seem to find my bearings steeped in it, ... then it's time that I sought out or pursued other avenues toward Recovery."
Once I decided to take some steps in another direction (not in the wrong direction; just in a different direction!), then I began to make progress. During the time that I have spent away from you, I have (YES, INDEED!) tripped in, out, in and out of active addiction again & again, but I have also begun to discover my own Recovery Community ... at NEW LEAF: Services for Our Community!! I started attending NEW LEAF HIV+ & METH ABSTINENCE RECOVERY SUPPORT GROUPS two times a week about two months ago, and I have really gained some solid footing by participating in these groups.
Only after a relatively short delay, I was finally assigned a therapist. Her name is Stacey Rodgers, MFT; she's this really cool femme dyke lesbian, complete with arms covered in tatts & hair cropped short like a pixie, who cites Eckhart Tolle during our regular meditations on spirituality!! YAY!! QHereKidzSF!! Not only am I truly gaining from my interactions with my new therapist, I have also begun to make a conscious effort to participate and to share in group. In fact, at the start of my very first NEW LEAF HIV+ RECOVERY SUPPORT GROUP, I immediately engaged myself and asked for "share time."
I waited until only 15 minutes remained in the session, making sure that I was indeed the last person to speak and that I had ample time to tell that which needed to be told. That's when I opened the flood gates and let the tears start to flow. I was sure that what I had to say would be a very, very unwelcome surprise for the other members of the group; but nonetheless, I went ahead and told my story.
Exasperated, practically hyper-ventilating, my skin boiling in anxiety, anticipation and angst, I painted my dark, dismal, death-defying portrait. I gutted myself from the inside, gushing forth sobs and sobs of anguish, so thankful that I finally had a platform, a soap box, a podium from which I could recount my harrowing saga ... thankful to have a small crowd of men surrounding me, forced (or perhaps willing!) to listen. During the final quarter hour of the group session, I speedily but succinctly explained in no weak or shallow terms what tragedy unspeakable I have lived though during the past two years.
I made sure that in telling my story, I emphasized the detachment and isolation that I had been feeling as a disjointed member of the Recovery Community, telling of how I had repeatedly ... time & time again ... failed to make any connections with people at "Twelve Step" Meetings ... how I felt so ignored and shunned by others who never made a single effort to initiate conversation with me, because I stand out like a sore thumb wearing my mask and often have shut myself up in silence and in shame, as if no one wanted anything to do with me. By this point in my diatribe, I was sobbing at full force, and my mask was drenched with tears. I must have been an utterly pathetic sight to see!!
But, my befuddled, melancholic moaning worked!! Well, let's just say that most of the men in group sat in silence, blankly staring into the empty space before them, avoiding my grasping, gloomy glances in response to my story, while another smaller number of my audience at the time were moved to stand up from their chairs, gather around me and offer, one by one, their tight, squeezing, sincere embraces.
Six men out of ten others introduced themselves to me, and they all offered to accompany me to my next "Twelve Step" Meeting, whenever I felt up to going again. Three of the guys in the group even gave me their phone numbers and emphatically begged me to call them whenever I need to talk.
One man patted me on the back as we were leaving and said, "No matter what anyone tells you to the contrary, you can rest assured that you are doing very well; all things considered! You're a very strong person." I politely thanked him for his support and left the group to walk home alone down Polk Street.
The group adjourned at half past one in the afternoon, after an hour and a half of honest, open, committed, willing discussion, and I walked away feeling as if I had achieved a very profound reckoning with my own doomsday, pitiful perspective. I felt satisfied, accomplished, appreciated, listened to, heard; but most importantly, understood! I had experienced a milestone. I disclosed more than just my serostatus & my addiction; I told my story of tragedy and terror in an intimate, confined setting to open, attentive, sympathetic ears. Thus was born my sounding board, my podium, my community!
Sadly, (I have no earthly idea why or what triggered it!!) I immediately fell into the habit of using again after that very successful first meeting at NEW LEAF, sabotaging any degree of progress or any forward steps I may have made that day, and I continued to use ... not stopping ... until I forced myself to return to NEW LEAF after two weeks of absence. I suppose that I had convinced myself that any positive foothold I may have gained after recounting my story during my very first group session had been a fluke, a chance error in common human nature.
I wasn't expecting to encounter such good will, empathy & caring in a group of anonymous strangers; on the contrary, I was expecting to be shunned (as I had been by many a "Twelve Stepper" before!) and rejected, so that is exactly what I convinced myself had happened, until I allowed myself to hunker down into this new reality and buck up a little, dragging myself reluctantly back to the group again; this time, for a second try; just to see whether or not I had been hoodwinked by my own wanting desire to be accepted and appreciated.
I didn't ask for "share time" at the start of my second group session, not wanting to monopolize on all the sympathy that seemed so forthcoming during my first group, but I did participate, adding my own two cents in at the close of any open-ended comment and only when people had asked for feedback. The session was marked by some very engaging conversation. The focus of this, my second group, was "MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR VISIT WITH YOUR DOCTOR."
Someone shared a rather intimate account of his struggle to decide whether or not to begin a cocktail of medications; now that it was summer time, and he could handle any degree of adjustment to his prescriptions that might have to suffer through. I was able to respond to this discussion with more of a telling of my own story, sharing only that which I thought directly related.
I kindly explained how the Harvard-trained AIDS specialist who had first examined my initial blood work after I seroconverted in 2002 calculated my life's expectancy with a little modular sliding scale cardboard calculator and told me that I'd only have six to ten years to live before I developed AIDS and died from the disease. That's to say: if I didn't start taking medication right away. "She said it as if it were so matter of fact; I was shocked ... appalled!!" I said.
I went on to explain how I couldn't start meds right away, because I was scheduled to depart to Italy for a year of study within the following three months, and I didn't have any American or Italian health insurance to pay for my monthly cocktail while I was abroad. So I waited until well after I had returned and settled into my new life in San Francisco before ever considering going on medication.
And, the reason why I went on a cocktail in the first place, I told the group, was because only two short years after I had been diagnosed HIV+, I developed PCP Pneumonia and a schizo-delusional psychosis. After only two years ... just two years! ...I was already AIDS symptomatic.
Finally, I told the group how I eventually went on a cocktail and how immediately everything dramatically improved. But, I said, "That only lasted two more years; during which time, I became heavily addicted to Crystal Meth, got fired from my really awesome job and stopped taking my medications." I told the guy who had originally shared, two important things:
1.) ANTIRETROVIRALS & NARCOTICS DON"T MIX!
(The whole group applauded that statement resoundingly...)
2.) IF YOU'RE GOING TO START A COCKTAIL, BE READY TO COMMIT; DON'T PLAN ON SKIPPING DOSES OR GOING OFF THE MEDICATIONS COMPLETELY; AND IF YOU DO TAKE A VACATION FROM YOUR COCKTAIL, MAKE SURE YOU'RE NOT OFF YOUR MEDICATION FOR MORE THAN SIX MONTHS!! If you wait any longer than six months to restart your cocktail, I explained, then the virus will begin to take hold of you and will have a much more worse impact on your immune system than it ever had before.
I told him all of this speaking from personal experience, and I explained that this was exactly what had happened to me—what led up to my terrible illness, my three-time foray with death and my disfigurement—I was off my meds for more than a year; and to make matters worse, I was heavily addicted to Meth: A TERRIBLE, DEADLY COMBO!
"BEWARE! Watch yourself! Make the commitment, and don't stop! Learn from my lessons, and don't make the same mistakes that I made, 'cause it will definitely come around behind you and bite you in the ass!" I promised him decidedly. "Hell, it will take a chomp out of the whole left side of you, if you give it the chance!!" And that's where I ended my sharing, only to be reaffirmed by nearly everyone else in the group by then, until the moderator chose to close the discussion and move on to "final thoughts" and meditation.
The reason why I am going to such length describing my experiences at NEW LEAF to you, is because I would like to impress upon you the profound, acute degree of my effort toward Recovery. The steps have been small & seldom, so far, ... but I have achieved some very important milestones.
I have made progress!! I want you to know the details of my experience in Recovery, so that you can appreciate this progress and to garner or gain some reassurances that I am moving in a positive direction and am ready to recommit to and reaffirm our friendship without pressuring you or negatively impacting your longterm, successful history of sobriety. I hope that you will find in all that I am telling you now reason enough as well to reenter my life with due confidence in the changes that I am making.
That second NEW LEAF HIV+ RECOVERY SUPPORT GROUP I went to was only just this past week; but as I've told you already, I marked that meeting with a milestone of concerted movement forward: conscious effort to reach out and connect with those few new friends I have made there. At the end of that group session, I dashed quickly over to one of the guys who had given me his phone number after having heard my story during my first meeting.
I grabbed him by the elbow to ask him if he'd be willing to accompany me to a CRYSTAL METH ANONYMOUS Meeting during the next week. He smiled and said, "Sure! Just give me a call..." So, two days later (yesterday!), I called him, and he invited me to this evening's (Saturday!) CMA BEGINNERS' GROUP in the Mission District. He even volunteered to pick me up from my apartment and drive me there in his partner's car.
So that's what I did tonight: CMA BEGINNERS' GROUP, and it went swimmingly well!! I had a buddy to accompany me there and to introduce me to people ... to chat with me during awkward moments of silence. He made me feel very comfortable and welcome; so much so that I even began to interact with people on my own when he left me alone to go to the bathroom or to get coffee. I gained a lot from this group tonight, and I intend to return next weekend to the group with or without my NEW LEAF friend.
In fact, now that I've begun to tiptoe ankle deep into the pebbled, strolling stream of scheduled sobriety meetings, I see no use in hesitating reluctantly any longer, putting off NA/CMA as if it were something to be avoided. Actually, as a matter of fact, I want to use the headway that I have gained with this first attempt again at Recovery as a jumping board by which to dive deep into the head-high waters of wellness!!
I've already developed a schedule of daily Recovery Meetings to attend to, and I plan on continuing this positive movement forward with another CMA Meeting sometime midday or evening tomorrow. Then, Monday night, I'll be sure to go to MEDITATION & RECOVERY at the Zen Center, where I hope to run into you and to give you this letter—if you are there!! If you're not there (WHO KNOWS! YOU MIGHT BE IN AFRICA!), then I will just mail you this letter. I suppose that I could always just call you tomorrow (Sunday!) or on Monday afternoon to see if you'd like to rendez-vous before the meeting, but I think that I'd rather prefer having the pleasure of surprising you. HOW PLEASED YOU MIGHT BE TO SEE ME, I HOPE!! We'll see!
Then, on Tuesday, I plan on continuing this streak of inspiration, commitment and open, willing participation in Recovery by attending the weekly HIV/HepC CMA RECOVERY SUPPORT GROUP at the Castro Country Club that I have already attended numerous times before.
It will be good to see if I recognize anyone who's there; and in keeping with my determined desire to be outgoing and to introduce myself to and interact with others, I will be sure to do just that there, on Tuesday evening, so that I can continue to build my own Recovery Community ... to make more friends. It will only get easier with each new time I make a conscious effort to participate in/with the groups.
On Wednesday, I'll have the first of two weekly NEW LEAF RECOVERY SUPPORT GROUPS: the one I've already attended twice to much avail!! Then, on Thursday, there is a CMA STEP STUDY GROUP at CPMC Davies that I used to frequent, back when I first made the attempt to follow the traditional "Twelve Step" path toward Recovery, and I plan on putting that meeting back on my schedule and on committing to attend each week from now on.
Fridays round off the cyclic schedule of the Recovery Calendar for me with my second of two weekly NEW LEAF RECOVERY SUPPORT GROUPS: METH AB. SUPPORT, which I haven't yet felt well enough to attend. I will start this week! OH! AND I ALMOST FORGOT: Tuesdays, I'll have a double dose of Recovery Support, because it's at 1:00PM in the afternoon on these days that I have my standing appointment with my new therapist: Stacey Rodgers, MFT!!
I'll try my damnedest no to let therapy in the afternoon give me the excuse not to go to CMA in the evenings on Tuesdays. I'll just have to write Tuesdays off as a full day of Recovery Work and nothing else. Sounds like a plan; doesn't it? What do you think of all of this?
It's a lot to throw at you all of a sudden; I realize that, but try not to doubt my ability to follow through. All this energy and seemingly renewed commitment to pursue a path toward Recovery that involves "Twelve Step" study & meetings, finding a sponsor, connecting with my Recovery Community, etc. is born out of a sincere desire to follow through along forward with my recent milestones and progress.
I don't want to lose the rhythm that I have gotten myself into; not now, not yet, not ever!! This new beginning has started off so well; I'd like to see myself continue to move forward in a positive direction toward sobriety.
THERE! I've given you the full run down of my recent experiences and plans for the immediate future. These are just small steps, but I hope that they are large enough for me to gain your confidence again. Now that I have these plans cemented into a weekly schedule, then you can expect to see me from now on every Monday night at the Zen Center for MEDITATION & RECOVERY.
And, I'd hope that you'd also consider, if you trust in my good intentions and in my ability to follow through, spending more time with me each week, so that I might once again truly begin and be able to prosper from your guidance and support: from our friendship! I also dearly hope to have a positive impact on your life this next time around; so much so that we don't risk falling out of communication with each other once again.
You've been such a true, caring friend for so long, Steven. You've seen me through the thick and the thin; the weak and the strong; the poor and the rich of spirit ... I MISS YOU, GOOD OL'FRIEND!! And I hope that I can continue to count on you for guidance, support and understanding! I mean the best ... Don't you, too?!!
Your friend always,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
San Francisco, CA 94109-7821
[MDB2009.05.30@23:47PST]
BY THE WAY, THIS MAY SEEM LIKE I'M JUMPING THE GUN A LITTLE BIT, BUT I WANTED TO TELL YOU ANWAY: TONIGHT AT CMA BEGINNERS' GROUP, WHILE I WAS LISTENING TO THE SPEAKER, I COULDN'T HELP MYSELF BUT TO IMAGINE THE DAY MANY MONTHS DOWN MY PATH TOWARD RECOVERY, WHEN IT IS MY TURN TO STAND BEFORE A GROUP TO TELL MY STORY.
I THOUGHT, "WHAT A STORY I'VE GOT TO TELL!" PEOPLE WILL MOST DEFINITELY BE BULLED OVER (or, in French, as they say: « boulversés ») BY MY STORY: SHOCKED, TERRORIZED, FLABBERGASTED!
FOR A BRIEF MOMENT, I FEARED THE DAY WHEN MY TURN MIGHT COME, BUT THEN I CALMED MY NERVES WITH A PRAYER: "SHOULD MY STORY HAVE EVEN HALF THE AFFECT IT HAD ON MY NEW LEAF RECOVERY SUPPORT GROUP, THEN I'LL BE BLESSED TO BE ABLE TO TRULY TOUCH PEOPLE'S HEARTS & TO CHANGE THEIR LIVES ONE DAY IN THE NEAR FUTURE!! AMEN." MY STORY IS ACHING TO BE TOLD. THERE'S SO MUCH FOR PEOPLE TO LEARN FROM IT, EVEN IF IT IS HORRIFYING & TRAGIC.
I'VE LET CRYSTAL METH & HIV/AIDS DESTROY MY LIFE MORE THAN ONCE. I CAN'T CHANCE LETTING THAT HAPPEN AGAIN! I HAVE SURVIVED FOR ONE REASON AND ONE REASON ONLY: TO TEACH, TO TELL, TO SHARE MY STORY FOR THE SAKE OF SALVATION & REDEMPTION OF MYSELF & OF ALL OTHER ADDICTS THAT I MAY ENCOUNTER ONE DAY OR WHO MAY HEAR MY STORY THROUGH THE WHISPER OF AN ECHO.
I'VE BEEN BLESSED BY GOD, TOUCHED BY HIM, ... SCARRED & MANGLED BY HIM, ... BUT i STILL AM HAPPY TO HAVE EVEN HALF A SMILE ... A LAUGH AND A SPIRIT ... THAT COULD MOVE AS MANY AS A MILLION SOULS TOWARD SAVING GRACE. I HOPE BEYOND HOPE THAT YOU WILL STAND WITH ME ON THAT DAY WHEN MY TURN COMES TO SHARE.
I HOPE THAT YOU WILL CONTINUE TO STAY STALWARTLY PLANTED AT MY SIDE, AS I MOVE ALONG FORWARD, IN THE DIRECTION OF MY DREAMS. THAT IS TO SAY: MY RECOVERY, SOBRIETY, CONTRIBUTION, COMMITMENT, LOVE, SHARING & CHANGE!!
WILL YOU CARRY ME ALONG THE EBBING TIDE OF MY DAILY STRUGGLES AND LEAVE THE SOLITARY FOOTPRINTS OF YOUR SPIRIT ALONG MY SEA-SHORED STORY LINE? WHO SAYS THAT FRIENDS & BRETHREN CANNOT EMBODY THE REVEREND STRENGTH & ALMIGHTY SPIRIT OF THE ULTIMATELY SYMPATHETIC SOUL: A HIGHER POWER?
WILL YOU JOIN ME ON MY JOURNEY? WILL YOU CARRY ME WHEN I AM TOO WEAK TO STAND AND TO WALK ALONE? I ASK HUMBLY, FRIEND: WILL YOU BE MY HIGHER POWER?
It's an awkward, difficult request to ask of someone, but Steven knows me to be someone who is often emboldened by chagrin & camaraderie, by enthusiasm & emotion, solemn sanctity & sensitivity to so-called "PC" talk or contrived to condemn the common, courteous, conventional parlance of the status quo with my own matter-of-fact twirling of the tongue ( ... in cheek! ).
I set out with this final page to write sincerely of the profound & lasting impact Steven Tierney has had on my life and in appreciation of our dear friendship. I did not intend to exaggerate; although, this final passage might come across as a little aloof, as a hopeless haranguing of what is otherwise the simple generosity of spirit that this my good man, mentor & friend constantly offers to me.
I hope that it doesn't come across as trite and condescending, but rather as uplifting and inspiring. I pray that it will (re)ignite in Steven a deep-seeded, serious desire to (re)connect with me: the "poor, unfortunate soul" that has found perhaps at last some sured, sound, stable footing along the treacherous, tumultuous path toward Recovery. I beg of my dear friend & mentor to exhibit a custodial degree of compassion and to serve as my compass point, guiding me in all directions due forward and keeping me on the oh so infamous "straight & narrow," as I've said before.
It is with great respect & admiration for this friend of mine and with equal shame as I might have pride in my struggle back and forth, toward and away from (and toward again!) sobriety, that I present the text of this, my recent letter to Steven Tierney, Ed.D, CAS: a man who has proved time and time again to be all things seemingly (or assuredly!) heroic!
Thank you for reading all of this lengthy, exhaustive text (whoever you unfathomable, phantom few followers may be!), and thank you for sharing with me your thoughts & comments on the situations & experiences discussed herein. I envy & beg for the interactions & feedback of my followers; however feeble, however few! R.S.V.P. : Respond, if it pleases you! Comment, if it comes naturally!
Feed back to me the enthusiasm & energy & emotion with which I have presented now my discourse & diatribe! Share at once both your singularly superficial, scathingly sarcastic & sardonic or cynical criticisms, and feed back to me likewise your very truthful, touching, tender two cents on these matters, so that I might at once both habitualize the cycle of critique & comment, and begin to learn to hone the implacably high standards of my exposé technique.
Thank you for feeding back to me a few kind words for once! Until next time... May you find peace & serenity of spirit in the sobering sanctity of our souls' solemn, so-longed-for salvation! May you be compelled to comment, too! Thank you! Salut. Au revoir. À tout à l'heure... And NAMASTE!
Again, most sincerely...
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
San Francisco, CA 94109-7821
@QHereKidSF
http://twitter.com/QHereKidSF
http://profile.to/matthewblanchard
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[MDB2009.05.31@01:27PST]
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IF ONE ADVANCES CONFIDENTLY IN THE DIRECTION
OF HIS DREAMS, AND ENDEAVORS TO LIVE THE LIFE
HE HAS IMAGINED, HE WILL MEET WITH A SUCCESS
UNEXPECTED IN COMMON HOURS.
— Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
MY RELIGION CONSISTS OF A HUMBLE ADMIRATION
OF THE ILLIMITABLE SUPERIOR SPIRIT WHO REVEALS
HIMSELF IN THE SLIGHT DETAILS WE ARE ABLE TO
PERCEIVE WITH OUR FRAIL AND FEEBLE MIND.
— Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
IF YOU CAN'T HAVE FAITH IN WHAT IS HELD UP
TO YOU FOR FAITH, YOU MUST FIND THINGS TO
BELIEVE IN YOURSELF, FOR A LIFE WITHOUT FAITH
IN SOMETHING IS TOO NARROW A SPACE TO LIVE.
— George E. Woodberry
EVERYBODY LIKES TO GO THEIR OWN WAY —
TO CHOOSE THEIR OWN TIME
AND MANNER OF DEVOTION.
— Jane Austen (1775-1817), Mansfield Park
HOLD FAITHFULNESS & SINCERITY
AS FIRST PRINCIPLES.
— Confucius (551B.C.-479B.C.), The Confucian Analects
FAITH IS, AT ONE AND THE SAME TIME,
ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY AND
ALTOGETHER IMPOSSIBLE.
— Stanislaw Lem (1921-2006)
DESIRE, ASK, BELIEVE, RECEIVE...
— Stella Terrill Mann
AIDS: A PERVASIVE PANDEMIC THAT BLEEDS THRU
THE LINES OF COLOR, CREED & CAPITULATES TO
NO ONE BUT THE POSITIVELY AWARE AND
THE PREVENTION-MINDED SURVIVORS.
— Matthew Blanchard (b.1979, HIV+ '02 / AIDS+ '04/'07)
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