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One day: A girlfriend of mine from the ranch couldn't make it out to go horseback riding with me, so after asking my permission, she sent a male friend of hers over. The second I saw him I was blown away by how handsome he looked and I was kind of nervous. I didn't know what to say! So I treated him sort of like a cross between a horseback riding student and a classmate. I got the horses saddled and we rode around the arena while I prattled along at a million miles per hour. I still had a lot of spirit and charisma back then. I had processed Lee and become accustomed to ignoring how sick I was most of the time. I was good at covering up how sick I was too. I acted like everyone else unless I was too feverish, coughing too much or stuck with fluid in my lungs. However, I wasn't sick for this occasion. I didn't know it at the time, but Jim was extremely taken with me. I guess I was a lot more of everything desirable than he had bargained for and I came from a rich family too. I didn't know it at the time, but Jim was blown away by what my parents had. The house, the cars, the men hired to come and professionally polish the cars, the property, the Arabian horses. To me everyone I knew had these things. I understood that a lot of people didn't have so much wealth, but I didn't realize how many of those people viewed it all. Jim came from a poor family. Jim asked me if he could come out and go riding again and I said yes. I'd had a lot of fun visiting with Jim. He was sweet and witty and intelligent. What proceeded between Jim and I was basically a whirlwind romance. I had boundless energy and never tired of riding, hiking, etc. with Jim in tow. I had learned how to push away the boundaries of my limited physical abilities when I was 19 and first getting better. I had perfected this art form to a destructive level through the past years. It was NOT OK to be sick, people thought you were no good when you were sick too much. Jim and I fell in love and Jim was such a good, honest, stable Christian man. He had a steady job and a house; he was stable in life. Jim was reliable and traditional. He was kind and predictable and he wanted to marry me and I agreed! I approached my father about the education issue and after some standing my ground he agreed to continue funding my education if I married Jim. Despite how wonderful Jim was we knew that he couldn't afford to pay for my education. The restraints were off! My father really liked Jim because Jim was in the same professional field, albeit at a lower level, as my father had been. My sisters thought Jim was the greatest guy in the world for me. Everyone thought Jim was pretty fantastic. I'd been viewing my graveyard shift job negatively for awhile now and I was coming to the conclusion that I really needed to quit. I was getting sicker all the time. My educational plans were finally solid. I was in the University. Jim was good and kind and wise and he wouldn't think that I was no good if I quit my job. I became concerned about the reality of my health. What kind of wife would I be if I was sick all the time? I talked to Jim about wanting to quit my job and he was all for it. It was really too hard to work a graveyard shift job and then go to school during the day. I didn't describe all my medical problems to Jim because I didn't have the neat paper with a diagnosis on it. I was a mystery illness victim that wanted to pretend that I wasn't sick, but I was sick anyway. I had too many opportunistic infections now. I had an old book that another fellow I'd known for only a short time had given me about a specific kind of opportunistic infection. I finally picked up the book one day, in part because there wasn't anything else to read, and I flipped through it. One of my consistent opportunistic infections matched exactly what the book described. I was amazed and shocked and a little worrier, but I also had a disease name. So I did some research on which doctor I should see and I made an appointment with a top doctor in this specific field. I went to see this physician and I told him what the problem was and what blood test I wanted and then what medication I wanted. I wanted to follow the advice of the book I'd read. The doctor looked at me like I was the biggest idiot that he had ever seen in his office. Then he said, quite literally, "I guarantee you that you don't have that problem." He then went on to explain the many rational medical reasons why I couldn't possibly have that kind of opportunistic infection in my blood. It was impossible for me to have that infection. His explanations would have been perfectly logical except I knew my history and he didn't because histories like mine don't happen. I was paying for this consultation out of my own pocket, as far as I was concerned he was then working for me and that made me the boss. That attitude annoyed this doctor and he looked at me somewhat stunned. This was an unpleasant consultation for him. To him I was insolent and probably crazy too. He thought that I very being a very BAD patient, I was not cooperating. I stood my ground and he finally gave in after telling me I did NOT have that problem again. He drew blood to test me for both what he knew was wrong with me and what I incorrectly stated was wrong with me. I asked him if he could go ahead and prescribe the medication I wanted too, but that was going too far! He refused. In his mind I did not have the problem I thought I had. Case closed. Only an AIDS patient or a patient with other severe diagnosed medical problems could ever have the problem that I so crazily insisted I had. A person would basically have to have no immune system to have this blood infection and I looked far too chipper and energetic! Moreover, the one thing I did have on a nice neat piece of paper was a NEGATIVE AIDS test. |
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