Dreading the Miracle

I never expected to grow old.

In 1991 I was diagnosed HIV-positive. That diagnosis was spelled “AIDS” which at that time was also spelled “dead.” I was in my early 40s, fighting the odds, hoping for more birthdays, wondering if I might make it as far as 50.

Then a miracle happened. Anti-retroviral drugs arrived about five years after my diagnosis and AIDS became, in the U.S., mostly a treatable disease. No cure, but stay-alive treatments if you can make them work. About fifteen years later I fought off a tough case of cancer, again stretching my life farther than I’d imagined….