Waking Up with a Question....
Jul. 23rd, 2004 09:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrdreamjeansI had a conversation with a dear friend of 24 years on Tuesday night. I’ll not refer to him by name in this post in deference to his privacy. My friend doesn’t read or write on live journal, but I am pondering a situation that requires sensitivity on my part and I’d like some thoughts on how to handle it.
My friend and I started out with a torrid affair which evolved into a loving friendship. It has continued through the ups and downs of two decades worth of career, family and relationship challenges and adventures. There isn’t much we don’t know about each other and share. He means the world to me....
One of the challenges is my friend’s health. He’s been HIV for at least 15 years and for most of that time, he’s been pretty healthy. He’s been fortunate in his doctors and the regimens he’s been put on. The care and meds have been expensive, but for the most part effective, and his insurance has helped a great deal with the associated costs.
We talk often, but a couple of times I’ve been taken by surprise. I was working in Europe in 1991 when I got a letter from my friend. I opened it eagerly only to find out that I had nearly lost him to an HIV-related illness. Since then, he’s not had a medical crisis, but after our most recent conversation, the fear that something will happen to him and I won’t know till after the fact, has begun to haunt me.
My friend is currently single; he is an only child; his mom is in her 80s and in poor health. The friends in his hometown who I know, are in worse health than he. I found out earlier this week that my friend was ill for several days last week due to a new regimen of meds, a new cocktail, if you will. It has been very hard on his liver. However, he is doing much better with some fine-tuning and I don’t want to portray him as worse than he is. He’s a strong and vital man....
My friend tends to be stoic when it comes to feelings. My feelings are written on my face. He is stubborn when it comes to his independence. I say independence is fine, but there’s a line that can be crossed where independence becomes crippling. We know each other well enough that we can grump at each other and it doesn’t affect our friendship. I’ve told him that if he has another medical crisis, or if his mother should pass away, to call immediately. I’ll be there. He knows I mean it. But... what if he isn’t able to call........
Would I be overstepping the boundaries of a friendship to ask my friend to give my phone numbers to his doctors and nursing staff? I know I am hundreds of miles away, that I’m not a health care professional, but I can cook, clean, do laundry, run errands, look after his mom, if something would incapacitate him.
I awakened this morning with the fear that something would happen to him and I would never know. By no means is his death imminent; I don’t mean to paint a bleak picture. I'm sure he has many more years of productive, enriching life to live. But, I'm concerned about the unexpected surprise. What if no one knew to call me and suddenly one of my dearest friends simply disappeared from my life? As I opened my eyes this morning and looked at the ceiling, my first thought was how do I make sure this doesn’t ever happen. What would you do? An inquiring heart wants to know.
My friend and I started out with a torrid affair which evolved into a loving friendship. It has continued through the ups and downs of two decades worth of career, family and relationship challenges and adventures. There isn’t much we don’t know about each other and share. He means the world to me....
One of the challenges is my friend’s health. He’s been HIV for at least 15 years and for most of that time, he’s been pretty healthy. He’s been fortunate in his doctors and the regimens he’s been put on. The care and meds have been expensive, but for the most part effective, and his insurance has helped a great deal with the associated costs.
We talk often, but a couple of times I’ve been taken by surprise. I was working in Europe in 1991 when I got a letter from my friend. I opened it eagerly only to find out that I had nearly lost him to an HIV-related illness. Since then, he’s not had a medical crisis, but after our most recent conversation, the fear that something will happen to him and I won’t know till after the fact, has begun to haunt me.
My friend is currently single; he is an only child; his mom is in her 80s and in poor health. The friends in his hometown who I know, are in worse health than he. I found out earlier this week that my friend was ill for several days last week due to a new regimen of meds, a new cocktail, if you will. It has been very hard on his liver. However, he is doing much better with some fine-tuning and I don’t want to portray him as worse than he is. He’s a strong and vital man....
My friend tends to be stoic when it comes to feelings. My feelings are written on my face. He is stubborn when it comes to his independence. I say independence is fine, but there’s a line that can be crossed where independence becomes crippling. We know each other well enough that we can grump at each other and it doesn’t affect our friendship. I’ve told him that if he has another medical crisis, or if his mother should pass away, to call immediately. I’ll be there. He knows I mean it. But... what if he isn’t able to call........
Would I be overstepping the boundaries of a friendship to ask my friend to give my phone numbers to his doctors and nursing staff? I know I am hundreds of miles away, that I’m not a health care professional, but I can cook, clean, do laundry, run errands, look after his mom, if something would incapacitate him.
I awakened this morning with the fear that something would happen to him and I would never know. By no means is his death imminent; I don’t mean to paint a bleak picture. I'm sure he has many more years of productive, enriching life to live. But, I'm concerned about the unexpected surprise. What if no one knew to call me and suddenly one of my dearest friends simply disappeared from my life? As I opened my eyes this morning and looked at the ceiling, my first thought was how do I make sure this doesn’t ever happen. What would you do? An inquiring heart wants to know.
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Date: 2004-07-23 09:32 am (UTC)Similarly, my perhaps longest-standing best-friend type friend in the world, Ken, called me yesterday from his home in London: two of his closest friends just died, within a week of each other, one in London and one in New York (coincidentally reducing his "inner circle" substantially. He is feeling very vulnerable at the moment.) And, strangest of all, his friend James in NY (and I WILL dig out the NYT obituary for him -- James Williams is his name -- and post it soon) departed somewhat unexpectedly, and Ken is finding himself fielding phone calls from all over the world... and he is an ocean away, and without any legal instruments to deal with some of what he is finding thrust in his lap.
The moral is: it is ALWAYS better to ask these questions, if you have them, and do something about it, while you have that freedom. The fact that your friend has such a reliable and loving friend in you is something I am sure he appreciates -- whether he chooses to "put you on the team" or not. (And, if not, hopefully, he will take the cue to get everything lined up. If he has been living with HIV for this long, your concern and questions are surely not an unpremeditated or shocking idea.