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jerry7171
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Name: Jerry
Country: United States
State: South Dakota
Metro: Sioux Falls
Birthday: 7/1/1971
Gender: Male
Interests: Right now, its mainly digital photography, especially creating panoramas. History in general (Hellenistic Greece, Ancient Egypt, Europe since 1815), geology (volcanoes, earthquakes), Greek Mythology, Playing around with my Mac, Foreign movies. I collect older stuff about the Statue of Liberty (mainly models and books), and spending myself into spiraling debt at eBay.
Expertise: Spending too much money too quickly on unnecessary things (but it feels good doesn't it?). ;-)
Occupation: Customer service/support
Industry: Hospitality
Message: message meEmail: email me
AIM:  jerryfisher1971
Yahoo:  jerry7171
Member Since:
1/26/2004
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| It has been a week since I got the call about John passing away and I'm finally just beginning to get to the point where I don't tear up spontaneously now. Some of my anguish has been replaced by a bit of confusion and anger. There is the confusion over what could have possibly been going on in his head to cause him to give up so many months ago on the fledgling regime which had shown promise. I know he was depressed over the loss of his mother at the time, but he had a lot of support, but maybe not enough in retrospect.
Then there is my anger that although he was an adult who made a decision, he seemed to not take into account how much it was going to affect and hurt people around him when he died. He died of an entirely treatable, chronic condition. If he had only started the meds early on when the docs had been urging him to, he'd still be hale and healthy, working and living today, undoubtedly complaining about the pill burden much like I do (I absolutely HATE my pills as there are so many of them and there is such a harsh side effect that comes with them). The point is I get a good trade off -- I'll live out a long normal life in exchange for some daily discomfort. I know, some of you might think that isn't much of a trade, but it is worth it to me and with time, the drugs will get better down the road where I won't have to take as many and the side effects might not be so pronounced. It's just that with John, I can't believe that it was too much for him to see him through.
At the wake this past Wednesday evening, there were collages of John from the time he was a baby on through his life on poster board grouped around the small green marble box that had his ashes. He looked wonderful, so full of life and vigor in most of the pictures. As always, he had his baseball cap firmly on his head. The last thing I saw before I left the funeral home was his baseball cap sitting by the green marble box. Somehow it seemed right to have it sitting there, waiting for John to come along and pick it up again.
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| This afternoon, John sluggishly became lucid and signed the paperwork that freed him from the hospital so he could go home to his apartment, which was where he wanted to be all along. With another friend and his partner at his side, within a short time of getting comfortable at home, he slipped away for good and died.
John, I'll miss you & remember you always. I love ya.
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| Yesterday evening I was shedding quiet tears of anguish for a man that I've known casually for over a decade.
John has mostly been in self-denial about having AIDS until the disease took such a toll on his health that he couldn't deny it any longer, but then he took a new self destructive path by refusing treatment complaining about the amount of pills daily or the side effects. It simply infuriated me at the time--those are things that we all deal with as grown-ups and get over and John seemed rather childish and hellbent on self-destruction. He steadily grew weaker and sicker over the past couple of years. Terrible infections that ravaged him and made him so uncomfortable that he couldn't leave his apt anymore. He had so much pride that had to be overcome with offers of visits to the grocery store for him and drop-offs of food. Finally as of late John had started wasting away and weakening dramatically. We still had hope for him up till he ended up in the hospital and I took to visiting him daily.
He seemed appreciative but made it clear that he was tired and nearing his end. Of course I had to be a damn cheerleader and tell him nonsense, to carry on, that people have been in as bad a shape as him and clawed their was back (which is true and I know a few of them) but deep down I knew better with John. Never mind that poor John looked like an Egyptian mummy at this point, the poor damn man.
Yesterday I came up to see him and was alarmed as the first thing I saw was a worksheet on the table outside his door indicating John had been the victim of an early morning fall the day before yesterday. There was a stretcher type body board standing outside his room as well. I quickly sterilized my hands as required then hurried into Johns room to see how he was doing and was taken aback.
A merely 42-year old man that John had been had been replaced by a grimacing, emaciated, lost-looking man--hardly the John of just 24-hours earlier. He would suck in a small breath then let out a low, hoarse moan. He didn't seem to know I was there. At first I wrung my hands like a damned fool with tears forming in my eyes, then it occurred to me, just talk to him you idiot. Where ever he was, he could probably still hear me. I composed myself, took one of his hands and started talking to him. I told him that he was loved and would always be remembered and that it was OK to go now and be comfortable. His head turned ever so slightly in my direction as I talked to him but that was all the reaction I got out of him. I brushed what little remained of his once thick hair out of his half open eyes and touched his cheeks. He merely moaned again and sucking in another breath.
As I sit here typing this out this morning, unable to sleep, my eyes filling up with tears anew, I am praying that John finally goes and quickly. | | |
| Let the unlocking begin!
With the release of ultrasn0w I was finally able to upgrade my iPhone to 3.0 and enjoy the new goodies that came with it.
But, and there is always a but, one thing has flummoxed me so far... MMS. This feature was crippled upon release for US domestic release since the official carrier of choice is AT&T and for its own unfathomably stupid reasons won't support MMS until "later this summer."
So the MMS is crippled until an update comes down the pipe or a work-around is figured out. Oh there are work-arounds galore, but they are all for T-Mobile or AT&T unfortunately. I have a regional carrier who is gracious enough to allow me to use the iPhone on their network, but knows very little about how to support it. They aren't able to help me overcome the MMS limitation at this time.
Oh well. The phone works and does everything else I wanted it to do. I'll just have to wait for the update and apply it and cross my fingers that it works (after all I am in essence performing a bit of electronic voodoo here).
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| After many initial mishaps, I finally arrived... in Seattle that is. Buses with malfunctioning brakes, broken bathrooms, late starts and endless attempts at catching up to the schedule left a lot of people in varying stages of short tempers. In spite of the awful food, the difficulty of sleeping while sitting mostly upright and the endless creaks and groans of the bus throughout the night (and the rude, bright lights of the people who thought nothing of reading all night long in spite of everyone else trying to sleep) I'd do it again. What other way could I have seen so much of the country at such a pace that gave me an opportunity to enjoy and photograph it?
Now I'm staying at a hostel (for the first time in my life). I'm surrounded by numerous foreign languages, the sounds of the big city coming in through the open windows of the lobby with the cooling breezes (no air-conditioning here at the Green Tortoise). I love it.
I think this is going to be a trip that will be treasured by me for years to come.
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