Eric

Of Course my name is Eric. I am 33 years old; my birth date is March 16, 1973. I was born in a small town in Gastonia North Carolina. I have two brothers, both older than I am. I had wonderful parents and a great family so I can’t complain about that. I think I always knew that I was gay from a young age and had my first gay experience when I was 15. It was simple nothing fancy no feelings involved just sex. I went to a small high school named South Point in Belmont, NC my class was about 140 and the school was about 450. When I was 16 I found a gay youth support group in Charlotte. I started going there every week and watched the group grow and met a few guys there that I fooled around with but then I graduated high school and started a new part of my life. After high school I went to UNC-Chapel Hill and then I made a big decision to Come Out to my family and friends, they were not thrilled but they didn’t freak out either, and soon they were fine with it and accepted me for me. While in college I became a member of the gay students group and started fighting for gay students rights on campus. That was the time I also discovered AOL (America Online) and started chatting and then found a UNC M4M (men for men or a gay room) that is a room for gay male students who want to meet other gay male students to date or whatever. That is where I started chatting with a guy (his name is Brian) who I really liked we had the same things in common and he also was a pet lover. He was closeted and just beginning to face the fact that he was gay. Well after chatting a week or so we decided to meet in person. So we did. The night I heard a knock on my dorm room door and when I opened it I saw a very hot guy standing there and I knew right then that was the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Fast forward a few years, after college I went on to graduate school and got my Masters Degree in Clinical Social Work, Brian got a Masters in Business Administration. While I was in grad school my parents died. My mom died in her sleep of a massive heart attack in December of 95. My dad was already sick he was a double amputee he lost his legs due to diabetes, he also has renal failure (kidney) and was on dialysis. He died in March of 96, 90 days to the day that my mom died. I think he died of a broken heart. They had been married for over 45 years and although they didn’t say it much they loved each other deeply. I miss them deeply. Brian and I began a wonderful relationship and were like kids. Brian was offered a job in TN that he just could not turn down. The money, benefits, and it was a chance for us to begin our lives as partners. Time went on and I could tell you story after story but there are more important things I want to get to. While Brian started his job as the Chief Commutations Officer for a large bank I also started a new career as the Executive Director of a Gay Lesbian Youth Center. I love working with teens and I feel that is what God has called me to do. Years went on and things were great. In 1999 Brian and I started having little fights on a regular basis. None of them made any sense but what arguments do. I thought that maybe a few days apart would cool things down for us so I came home to see my best friend of 17 years (another story) so while I was here, I started having a pitty party for myself and decided to go have a few drinks at a local gay bar.While I was there I ran into a guy that was the very first guy I ever dated when I was just coming out, he happens to be a police officer in my hometown, I cant use his real name so I will call him John and I start talking and remembering old times and next thing I know he kissed me there in the bar and it was nice. So he asked me to go back to his apartment and I said yes. We got there and well one thing led to another and one kiss led to more kissing. Well I made a mistake that night. I was caught up in passion and I just wanted to feel needed and needed to feel wanted. John made me feel like I was the only person in the world that night and even though I know better I gave in to passion and we didn’t use a condom. I thought hell John is a cop he is the safest person in the world, I don’t need a condom.Well after that night, I called Brian the next the day and we made up so I headed back to Tennessee. For the next few months things were great, Brian and I traveled a lot. Then one afternoon I got a phone call from John I told him to go ahead, I was listening. He told me that he recently had his regular yearly test for HIV and it came back positive. He told me that he could have been positive during our encounter. I was scared, not only for him, but myself and then Brian. I came home from NC and Brian and I had make up sex and then made love often. Well I am usually a top (the giver) but the night with John I was a bottom (the receiver) which is a higher risk of contracting HIV. So I had to tell Brian so we could get tested. So we got tested right away and I was positive and he was negative. I was so thankful that I had not infected him. I was scared about my own health but so happy he was negative.FAST FORWARD January 2005.Brian and I were doing well and my job at the Gay Youth Center was the greatest thing in the world. I loved my job. My health was doing great. Then the night of January 14th came and it changed my life forever. I was walking out of the Teen Center and was locking the door, when the next thing I felt was a severe pain on the back of my head. I realized that I was being beaten by two teenagers. These teens were calling me fag, queer, fudge packer and a few other things. I noticed that there was a lot of blood on the ground from where they had hit me. I told the two boys that were beating the hell out of me that I was HIV+ and to be careful. Well that makes them freak out and they drop the bat and run away. They didn’t take a dime from me. They didn’t want my wallet, my car, or anything. What they did was just a plain ole Hate Crime. Well I did not know who the two teens were that was beating me so I wasn’t much help to the police. They did find the bat that was used to beat the hell out of me with. The bat had a bloody thumb print on it and the print came back to a 18 year old who had just got a DUI and underage drinking charge. When I got to the hospital ER it was found that those teens had broke 18 of my teeth broke my right arm and two ribs. Needless to say that I was pissed and angry at them, I didn’t know what to do. That attack also hurt my T-Cells which is a part of my HIV. I started getting sick more often. Then came time for me to face the teens that almost killed me. It was very hard for me and I prayed for days before the hearing. I felt that God was leading me to the decision that I made. I decided that I was going to ask the Asst. District Attorney not to ask the Judge for jail time but ask for compassion, and to send the kids to treatment. I told the ADA that no one was born to hate and that hate was taught. So I stood before the court and asked if the Judge would consider sending them to a one year treatment program, where they could get counseling and anger mgt help. The Judge sentenced them to two years suspended and ordered them to one year in treatment and if they violated the program or got kicked out, or dropped out then they would have to serve the full two years day for day. I felt good when it was over.Now just when I thought things were calming down, one of the kids mother’s came up to me and said sir, I don’t know what to say to you, I know my son hurt so much more than physically and yet you showed him forgiveness, I don’t know if I could have done the same thing. I told her that I had to give my anger to my God and let him take it way, and it took some time. I will be honest, my family and friends think I am nuts for doing this. They wanted them to get as much time as the law would allow. Then she turned to me and was crying and told me that two weeks she found out that she had inoperable Ovarian Cancer (Female Cancer) and that she had less than 6 months to live. She said if her son was in jail then she wouldn’t get to see him or spend anytime with her while she was sick. I told her then use that time that God has given her a gift and that was the gift of time. I told to use it to love each other and to learn to accept his Grace when it comes.Ok so that is now behind us. I still have 18 broken teeth and Brian and I fighting on and off about stupid things. It came to a point where we weren’t even sleeping in the same bed most of the time. I think that Brian was scared about my health. So finally I couldn’t take it anymore and I packed some things up and I came to NC to see my best friend( i run to her often in my time of troubles ) I thought that it would like before where I was here for a few days and then he would take me back. This time before he could take me back I got sick. I spiked a high fever and couldn’t stop throwing up. I was in a lot of pain and so I had to go to the ER. Well I got there and they admitted me. This was a small town hospital in Gastonia where they didn’t deal with HIV a lot. I was diagnosed with AIDS Related Pneumonia. This is now August of 2005 and I was getting sicker. I was alone except for my best friend and she had to take care of my God Kids. My parents are dead and I really had no other family. Brian was back in Tennessee and he couldn’t deal with me possibly dying. So the hospital doctors decide that I need specialized treatment and sent me to a Respiratory Hospital in Greensboro, NC. While I was there they inserted a special IV into my chest called a Porta-Cath. When the surgeon placed inside me, the tube was no sterile. Therefore it caused me to have Bone Marrow Infection and my White Blood Count Dropped to (2).I was rushed to Baptist Hospital where I had an emergency blood transfusion. I was given 3 units of blood and then I was given a Bone Marrow Biopsy, and it came back positive. Just when you think things couldn’t get worse my T-Cells dropped to a dangerous level (10). I was admitted to Baptist and given 14 days of Anti-Fungal Treatment for the Bone Marrow Fungus I developed.After the two weeks of treatment, I was discharged from Baptist, even thought I told them, I was still in pain and very weak. They discharged me to my cousin’s home Deborah without a referral to any follow up care such as an AIDS Care Facility to recover, or even home-health nurses, aides, or physical therapy. Well I wasn’t out of the hospital 36 hours when my temp went up to 104.1 and I was throwing up blood and couldn’t rest. My cousin rushed me to Forysth Medical Center, since Baptist didn’t do shit to help me. She thought maybe they could help me, and it was close to her Condo.Once we got to the ER, I was rushed straight to the back. Well I am the World’s worst person to get an IV on anyway, so they finally got an IV in my foot and got me something for pain and throwing up and I got a little settled. The ER doctor said that he asked an HIV doctor to come see me. The HIV doctor that came to see me, well he pulled back the curtain and said well let me go get the paper work started to admit you. I said admit, you haven’t even checked me over. He said that he looked into my eyes and he knew I needed to be admitted and could do the exam later. It was that moment I knew that he was the best doctor I have ever had.Now, once I was admitted he found several things that were wrong with me. He found seven lesions in my left leg and two in my right. They need to be surgically removed. My T-Cells were critically low, the infection I had in my blood, along with pneumonia again and not to mention the Fungus in my Bone Marrow I still had, that Baptist didn’t cure, my doctor, Dr. Stan Link, MD told my family along with a social worker that he didn’t think that I would make it and they should start making arrangements.It was at that point I thought I wasn’t going to pull through and I needed to get my soul right with Christ. I looked in the phone book and got the phone number for the local MCC (Metropolitan Community Church) a international gay church and left a message on the voice mail of the pastor that I needed to talk to someone and that the doctors thought I was dying. Well I didn’t get a call back. Instead 13 hours after I left that message, a man showed up at my hospital room door and said Hi I am Rev. Mark Byrd.So he came in and we talked for hours, during our conversation I threw up many times and he just sat there beside me and rubbed my back. Here he was a man that I didn’t know and he didn’t know me. I wasn’t a member of his church, I never even had been to his church and yet he was there conforting me. This is what I thought of when I thought of Christ’s love. We prayed many times that visit. The last prayer he did before he left he took my hand, as he did every time we prayed. In this prayer he said to God that he knows he is going to heal me and that he knows that God has more plans for me and that my life and passion for helping others is God’s gift to me along with the gift of listening. It is one thing to just hear someone speak but it yet another to listen to them with your heart and not your ears. As he prayed that prayer my stomach settled down I wasn’t nauseated. The severe pain in my left leg where all the lesions were located stopped hurting. Pastor Mark went back to the church members and told them about me and asked them to pray for me and if they had time to come see me. The church is very close because we are mostly all gay or lesbian and that is a bond in itself. People were praying for me and sending me emails and cards before they even met me. I think that is a great part of my healing. The power of prayer is awesome. I don’t know how strong your faith is.I spent the next month and a half in the hospital healing and getting stronger. On December 23, 2005 I was discharged to an AIDS Care Facility in Carrboro, NC, there were no openings here at Holy Haven at the time. I was there for three months while I slowly got stronger. I was an hour or better away from my cousin and my doctor and now my new church. I also was alone and missed Brian so much. I missed being held and I missed being loved. So in March a room came open at Holy Haven in Winston Salem. I was very happy I was here close to my family, my doctor and my church. I was thrilled my T-Cells were going up and I was getting stronger.Then the day after Memorial Day I started feeling ill. My fever spiked again and I was rushed to the ER. I was admitted right away, my doctor called in orders to control my pain and nausea and fever. I spent the next 34 days in the hospital. Once again my T-Cells dropped to a dangerous level (33). My lungs we severely damaged this time and I had to be placed on oxygen 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I was in so much pain and once again they thought that there was a good chance I wouldn’t live 3 months. I was discharged back to Holy Haven and placed on Hospice. While I was in the hospital Pastor Mark and an army of Angels from the church came to see me, and the entire church started praying for me. The Hospice Team sent out a physical therapist to try to get me stronger and to get out of bed. I was so weak and in bed so much that I developed a bed sore on my ass, and I had to have a RN come and change the dressing each day. I slowly started healing each day, with the help of my healthcare team and the prayers from church. Well my T-Cells started to rise and I started to be able to walk again.Well it is now October and my body has been healed and my T-Cells went from 33 to 500 which is a normal level for a healthy HIV Negative person and my viral load is undectableNow I am strong enough to be moving out on my own again. I am thankful to the doctors, the medicine, and most of all the prayers and God’s Grace.UPDATE: Its Feb 2007 and I am a totally different person. I have over 540 TCells and I am still undectable. I have made some wonderful friends and look forward to the friends I have yet to make.