Chemistry

PROTEIN MOLECULE

I have just emerged from six months of toxicity from one of the drugs I take to manage my 28-year-old HIV infection. These drugs are amazing and tricky. At the same time this particular drug was causing me to leave my bed for the bathroom every hour every night for that six months, my immunity was holding its own against the potentially deadly virus I carry. It took six months to figure out which of the dozen drugs and supplements I take for various medical conditions was causing my crippling sleep deprivation.

 

Now, after just 48 hours, I feel almost as I did six months ago before the toxicity. I have had a fairly good night's sleep. My muscles no longer feel like they are filled with hardening concrete. I can look forward to having a day without groaning with fatigue.

 

This experience of being chemistry comes with disease and modern medical intervention. I was a professional nurse for decades, but I never appreciated what it feels like to be a jumble of chemicals until I became ill. I also have a greater retrospective appreciation for the remarkable patients I served over the years.

 

We are animals, like many others in most ways, genetic and biochemical. We are also walking chemical plants. We produce and digest chemical compounds twenty-four hours a day. Our conscious brains, distracted by glorified images of being distinctively human, are actually unaware of their computing hormonal mixes that keep us alive.

 

A great deal of my particular daily practice is focused on the chemical interactions which keep me alive. Diet, exercise, rest and pharmaceuticals are important conscious concerns I must attend to. This has certainly impacted my identity formation over the past two decades. I also realize that this awareness, supplemented by education, meditation and reflection, has kept me relatively well, despite occasional threats to my life.

 

I accept life as it is. I realize how fortunate I have been to be living here in the United States at the time of the AIDS epidemic. Despite the struggles I and other HIV-infected people have had to endure to stay alive, we have benefited greatly from living in a society which still has the wisdom to elect leaders who have promoted greater general health care. Obamacare cannot be appreciated by the young and healthy. It cannot be appreciated by the wealthy. It can be appreciated by those of us who are aware that we are chemical beings who can be helped amazingly by science and social financial support.