My dear sweet Jake has passed away several months ago. I cried for days. He touched my life so completely. Jilly or Jill is not the dog of the house. Unusually for me, she is very small (<10#), but is perfect for this time of my life.
Jill, my new love
It's not just smaller portions.
“You are not going to make it to retirement,” said my cardiologist. This was terrifying news to hear. I knew that my health was declining and had been for some time. My work performance was suffering. I couldn’t focus or have the energy to perform as I have in the past. And I’ve done some pretty amazing things in my life. I did not want to accept that my time being a vital addition to my community was in decline for good. I’m only 52 years old.
But the truth was that my blood sugar (I developed diabetes 2 about 5 years ago) was not under control. I was beginning to experience neuropathy in my extremities. It hurts to walk. I ran a marathon in 2002 and now I can barely walk around the block. I began losing teeth. I discovered I had severe and life threatening sleep apnea. My A1C blood sugar tests were over 9. Out of control. I was hooked on coca cola and cigarettes.
People around me were afraid for my health. They were angry with me. I lost some friends and people lost faith in me. I had often been an inspiration to a lot of people and now some thought I was giving up on myself.
This is a big year for me. I am at the age my father was when he died of cancer and alcoholism. I’ve already had renal cancer. My life was in a spiral that felt out of control. Careening towards a death at a young age and wasting the gifts that I’ve been blessed with.
I consulting with many doctors about the best things for me to do. The key, all said, was to quit smoking and lose weight fast. Only about 5% of morbidly obese people lose significant weight and keep it off. A gastric bypass has a 85% chance of success. It could cure my diabetes. It could cure my sleep apnea. It could give me back my energy and drive.
There are risks to the surgery. Infections, death, all sorts of complications. But the chances are low.
I’ve been seeking spiritual guidance from Rabbis and Christian ministers. I’ve been studying the Buddha and mediation. And I’ve been working with a wonderful therapist. The team at the Bariatric Center is supportive and holistic.
This is not the right decision for everyone. The surgery gives you a tool to change your life. But it doesn’t fix your life.
I am having this surgery because I want a chance to live as full a life as I can. To contribute what I can. I hope to find love again. And I hope to find happiness in spirituality and the practice of healthful living.
I am so fortunate to have my life filled with loving friends and even readers and people who have followed my career and have shown so much compassion.
I commit myself to changing my life imperfectly. I commit to finding a path to peace for me and to making myself a tool for helping others. And one positive change already, my A1C blood work is now in the range of a non-diabetic. Of course that’s with medicine, but boy do I feel better.
Starting Saturday, two days before the surgery, my new diet begins. My new life begins. Surgery is at 7:30 AM on Monday morning, 21 May 2012. Keep me in your thoughts.
I remember watching this as a kid. So cliche to say, but this woman helped me as a gay man. I’m not even sure why. She’s just different and proud of it.
I’m taking a bit of time from work because a serious of related health issues are combining to make me less effective and just plain exhausted. I am rousing my medical team to help my confront these problems.
It seems that my health has rarely been good, but it has rarely left me so distraught. I’ve had cancer, ruptured Diverticulitis, and peritonitis, and that was all supposed to have killed me. Yet, like a gay hockey-masked monster, I return.
The best way to describe what is happening now is that my fatigue is nearly unbearable. There are a number of causes that all my medical team seems to agree upon, and upon which I must focus my energies in recuperation. They are:
So the plan is for the sleep test, followed by bariatric surgery. The surgery, besides the loss of weight is essentially the end of the diabetes (in the vast number of cases) and should reduce my hypertension. I am doing this because my doctor said I would die if I didn’t. It’s all very expensive and all very scary.
I’ll keep you up to date. And who knew sleep apnea could be so serious?
Sleep apnea affects not only adults but some children as well. [4] As stated by El-Ad, “patients complain about excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) and impaired alertness.”[4] In other words, common effects of sleep apnea include daytime fatigue, a slower reaction time, and vision problems. [4] Moreover, patients are examined using “standard test batteries” in order to further identify parts of the brain that are affected by sleep apnea.[4] Tests have shown that certain parts of the brain cause different effects. The “executive functioning” part of the brain affects the way the patient plans and initiates tasks.[4] Second, the part of the brain that deals with attention causes difficulty in paying attention, working effectively and processing information when in a waking state.[4] Thirdly, the part of the brain that uses memory and learning is also affected.[4] Due to the disruption in daytime cognitive state, behavioral effects are also present. [5] This includes moodiness, belligerence, as well as a decrease in attentiveness and drive.[5] These effects become very difficult to deal with, thus the development of depression may transpire.[6] Finally, because there are many factors that could lead to some of the effects previously listed, some patients are not aware that they suffer from sleep apnea and are either misdiagnosed, or just ignore the symptoms altogether.[4]
It was great to interview again with Matthew Bajko at the Bay Area Reporter in San Francisco. Matt’s one of the best out there. The subject of the story was whether pressure was increasing on the President’s position on same sex marriage. Here’s what I had to say, but go read the whole thing.
While he was an Illinois state lawmaker, Obama indicated on a questionnaire from a Chicago gay newspaper that he backed marriage rights for same-sex couples. But during his presidential race in 2008 he backtracked on that position and, ever since, has said he supports civil unions but not marriage.
He did oppose Prop 8 that year as being discriminatory and spoke out against the need for a federal constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage. Instead, Obama counseled that the issue should be left to the states to decide.
Since entering the Oval Office Obama has grown closer toward full support of marriage equality. His administration, while still enforcing the federal Defense of Marriage Act, has refused to defend the discriminatory anti-gay law in several court proceedings.
“The president has been hinting for years that his thoughts are evolving. I have no doubt that he supports in his heart full equality for gays. He is stepping slowly toward full equality. But the community has to keep the pressure up and not let the administration avoid LGBT rights,” Thom Lynch, the former executive director of the LGBT Community Center in San Francisco, told the B.A.R.
Now the executive director of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles – Obama was there Wednesday for two campaign fundraising events – Lynch comments about politics on his personal blog and Facebook account. He said it is incumbent upon the LGBT community to continue to press the president on issues such as marriage.
“I believe it was pressure that eventually moved him on DADT and DOMA,” said Lynch, referring to repeal of the military’s anti-gay “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. “Gays have few alternatives if they care about LGBT rights. But they must push. Obama keeps saying ‘make me.’ Let’s make him.”
via The Bay Area Reporter Online | Political Notebook: LGBT expectations muted ahead of Obama visit.
Ouch!
First Mitt captures a victory in one of my many home states. Maine, how could you? And this attack on women’s contraceptive rights has got me worn to the bone. What is this 1900?
But mostly, I’ve had a bad blood sugar weekend. No energy whatsoever. I’m wiped. Going to an event tonight with the Chorus that I am looking forward to. But this has been a week of stress tests, IVs, high and low blood sugar, and I’m just tired of being pricked and prodded and I’m so angry with myself.
But the key to happiness is to love, and to forgive. Ourselves more than anyone else.
Video: This Is Dope: Dubai Fountains Synchronized With Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You”! (RIP Whitney) worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.p… #WSHH
— Thom Lynch (@thomlynch) February 13, 2012
Jim Nickoff
It’s been four years since my friend left this world. I miss him. Here’s a bit from his obituary. He was a quiet leader in the fight for equality. He never wanted to be in front, but god, he pushed everyone to do our best.
Mr. Nickoff was born and raised in Lansing, Mich. He attended Michigan State University and earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting in 1987, according to his friends. That was the same year he moved to San Francisco, said Thom Lynch, a close friend and former executive director of the San Francisco Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Community Center.
Lynch first met Mr. Nickoff in 1996 when the two worked at Project Open Hand, an organization that provides meals for people with HIV/AIDS.
Mr. Nickoff had a special sensitivity for social outsiders, Lynch said, and often that manifested in his adopting abandoned animals.
After Hurricane Katrina, Lynch and Mr. Nickoff visited Cuba, where many dogs were abandoned in the wake of the storm. Mr. Nickoff grew attached to one destitute street dog that the locals called “Sarna,” which is Spanish for scabies or mange.
“He grew attached to the dog, paid for veterinary care and then everybody started calling it ‘Elian,’ ” said Lynch, a reference to Elian Gonzalez, the young Cuban boy who became the center of an international custody battle that involved the U.S. and Cuban governments in 2000.
Mr. Nickoff was unable to bring the dog back to the United States from Cuba, but rescued two dogs while on a different trip to Australia, Lynch said.
In addition to the gay rights work – including financial positions with the National Task Force on AIDS Prevention, the Federation of Gay Games and the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club – Mr. Nickoff served as treasurer or in other financial capacities on the election campaigns of politicians including Sen. Barbara Boxer, former Supervisor Angela Alioto and Assemblyman Mark Leno, those close to him said.
via Jim Nickoff – helped gay rights groups keep finances in order.
Dahlia Lithwick of Slate lays out what ultimately is the absolute problem that anti-same-sex marriage supporters have: a lack of any supporting evidence or rational reason.
I’ve long believed, as many of you have that the two pillars of Prop 8 supporters, religion and tradition, were weak indeed. There is no logical reason, aside from a belief in a certain view of God and history, that civil marriage excludes gay people. When given the chance to give any evidence, any at all, the Prop 8 legal team came up empty. They had two witnesses, one of whom was found unreliable. The closing summation amounted to “it’s wrong because it’s wrong.”
Read Dahlia’s complete article about the dissenting opinion. It demonstrates that the end of the line is coming on this particular bigotry. There’s just nothing there to say otherwise.
That is not legal argument or empirical evidence. It is the death rattle of a movement that has no legal argument or empirical evidence. Nobody disputes the fact that Americans opposed to gay marriage believe passionately in their ideas and arguments. But that doesn’t necessarily mean those arguments should win in a court. The best thing that could have happened in the Prop 8 case just happened. The dissent has no clothes.
via Why the Proponents of a Gay Marriage Ban Will Soon Be Speechless – Slate Magazine.
