It’s A Hard Blog Life

by | Jun 6, 2006 | Blog, HIV/AIDS

Welcome to my blog, positoids and negatoids!

I’m Shawn Decker, and I was diagnosed with HIV in 1987. Back in the day I was given two years to live, but I’m still here. Still watching pro wrestling and being my snarky self. It wasn’t until 1999 that I got really sick, and I’ve been on meds, for better or worse, for the last seven years.

But I’ll write more about meds soon… right now, I’m feeling nostalgic… it’s been 25 years since AIDS was reported in the media, huh? Wow. I remember the first time I heard about the topic, it was all over the news and I must have been in the fourth grade (1984). A friend of mine busted out with an AIDS joke just before class started.

“What do you call Rock Hudson on a skateboard?” (Confused expressions abound.) “Roll-AIDS!”

I thought, “AIDS is medical condition,” and that I wouldn’t have to deal with it because I have hemophilia. It’s funny that, over twenty years later many people still consider themselves safe from HIV. That it’s some other person– or country’s– issue.

I really admire Regan, the new editor-in-chief of POZ, for coming out with her status, and I understand why people stay silent, because I’ve been there. So much of not disclosing has less to do with denial, and more of a grasp of reality, the innate knowledge that it’s the dealing with of other people’s issues that is the problem one tries to avoid by keeping a muzzle on their own pet viruses.

Ten years ago I put up my first blog after a decade of silence, and I haven’t stopped writing or speaking about HIV since. POZ Magazine has been such an important part of my “coming out with HIV” experience (see this old article for details), and I’m looking forward to contributing to their nice little family of bloggers.

I hope that, by putting up my first new entry on 6.06.06, I do not fall victim to a bad omen, and that you will enjoy reading my thoughts and experiences. Even if they get a little snarky.

Your Pet Blogger,
Shawn

NOTE: This blog entry first appeared on AIDSmeds.com, not on Shawnandgwenn.com, which will make sense in subsequent entries.