As I mentioned in the piece before this one, I did want to write and post this piece tomorrow, World AIDS Day, Wednesday, December 1st, 2010 but that just isnt feasible with my current work schedule so I shall take the liberty of penning it now. Wow, 2010, more than 30 years after the first case of Hiv was even detected on this planet. I know I know, there are many out there who will harken back to this-n-that story about Hiv/AIDS being a part of the human experience many years before that but for me personally, it all began in 1980 or '81 when the first several cases surfaced here in North America. And while most folks still exclaim "Jesus Christ, you'd think they'd find a cure by now!" trust me, the world has come a long, long way from the early days of dealing with this horrible disease, a very long way. As selfish as it probaly sounds, I only wish we had in the mid-1980's even a quarter of the various treatment options and medical research inroads that they now have in 2010. Maybe, just maybe, the accumulated death tolls from the last 21 years since I was diagnosed would be totally different. Maybe, just maybe, I woulda had more time with my partner who never wanted to considered justa mere statistic. Of course, I'm not the only one out here on the frontlines who feels that way. There is so much to say about Hiv/AIDS on this important day of so many milestones; but, for each individual, what this days means can include a plethora of various thoughts and mixed emotions, as well as a giant grab-bag of hopes and fears. So many that I truly dont know where to begin, but rest assured there is much territory to be covered on the battlefront against AIDS.
The numbers are astounding, not just in the collective sense but in the individual account-by-individual account sense. Since the first documented cases of Hiv+ individuals and those afflicted with full-blown AIDS were detected in the early 1980's, I personally, including my deceased partner Jack, have lost a grand total of 1,527 people to the horrible, merciless disease that my generation and generations since have come to know, as well as despise, as AIDS. Yes, in the last 30 years I have personally known a little over a thousand and a half loved ones, family, friends, correspondents, you name it, who have died from this disease. I am only 45 years old yet like with many others of my generation and the generations since, I've had to get a new address book once a year for the last 25 years because page after page has had to be torn out and thrown away, as if the names, the locations and the faces connected to them didn't mean a hill of beans. Well, I got news for the world, each and every single one of those names and faces did matter. They still do matter. Some are immortalized in Names Project founder Cleve Jone's quilt project and some are not; but, either way, every single one of those individuals are immortalized safe-n-sound in my heart-n-soul, where no disease of any kind will ever ever be able to harm them again. The emotional and mental duress that is caused by knowing hundreds and hundreds of people who have died from the very same disease that is currently coursing through my veins is beyond overwhelming. It's practically unimaginable but it is the reality of many of us "Hiv'ers."
Yeah, it can literally scare the living shit outta you, dealing with all of this. It can literally make you physically tremble with fear - if you let it. Well, I personally refuse to let it and would you like to know why? Because AIDS has taken way too much from me and I refuse to allow it to take anymore away from me than it already has. Like the millions of fellow warriors out there who are my comrades, I'm not sacrificing anything of myself or my life anymore. I will continue to keep a tight reign of control over everything there is about me and I will only falter in this battle for my life when I know I have given it my best shot and nothing less. I'm pretty sure that's what they call "dying with dignity." But until those final moments arrive, I'm gonna keep fighting with all my might because aside from hope, sometimes the relentless determination to survive is all we have left when all is said and done at the end of each day.
A time to refocus as well as regroup our energies on the medical research, various drug therapies, patient care and improving the lives of those who are Hiv+ and/or have AIDS are some of the most important key issues that have been addressed on every World AIDS Day as well as will be addressed on this coming World AIDS Day, 2010. I feel each and every one of these key issues are extremely crucial for those of us who are Hiv+ as well as those who aren't, because a unified front in the war against AIDS is the only way we all will win complete victory against sucha killer as this. Sure, I could go into much greater detail on what my personal thoughts and reactions are to all of these topics but when you live it every single day, every single night, year in and year out, it's like with everything else in life. You wake up in the morning, you look in the mirror as you're brushing your teeth (or for those of us who still have hair, doing your hair..lol) and you pause and look into your eyes and say to yourself "Well, what's it gonna be today? Which battles should I take on today?" Granted, I'm more than certain that not every Hiv'er out there begins their day in the same fashion I do but that is one of the interesting things about World AIDS Day - it's not just about improving our plans of action on the battlefront and remembering those who have gone on before us, it's also a day of personal reflection and like any important anniversary in our lives, it's whatever you the individual chooses it to be.
Although I'm extremely happy for the Hiv'ers who will not have to endure even a quarter of the medical battles or side effects that those of us who have been around since the early years of the disease have experienced, I'm also kinda of envious that they wont experience many of the medical rollercoasters that those of us who tested Hiv+ from the late 1980's onward have experienced. That sounds almost obstinate or malicious in a way, perhaps even hateful, but I can't help it, it's the way I feel and I wont mask it either. I mean, dont people realize that the majority of the Hiv'ers here in the new milennuim are on new improved drug therapies that prevent the majority of such maladies as wasting away, neverending nausea, profuse vomiting, accute diarrhea and so on and so on from ever happening? Why compared to what us old-timers have gone through, these "newbies" as I prefer to call them, have literally got it made in the shade. True, a disease is a disease no matter how it affects each individual but the majority of the Hiv'ers and Hiv/AIDS activists of today truly have no concept of what it's like to live with Hiv/AIDS. They may think they're fooling themselves and the general masses, but they arent fooling me.
This all makes me wonder. For those Hiv'ers out there who continuously glamorize being Hiv+ and/or having AIDS, you know, the fellow Hiv/AIDS activists of mine whom I have registered personal disgust and disdain with repeatedly in this blog, it makes me wonder just how their tunes would be changed if they had to experience even one-quarter of the opportunistic infections that those of us Hiv'ers and our partners ran up against in the 1st decade of battling this disease. It makes me wonder....how well would they be able to contend with the throngs of masses that they encounter at their glitterly-draped charity events, while at the same exact moment deal with uncontrollable vomiting or constant diarrhea that comes without warning? What about attending medical forum meetings and events on an oxygen tank because the pneumysistis carrinni is pushing you closer and closer to going on a permanent respirator for the remainder of what is left of your life? You see, it's things like these that the majority of the newer generations of Hiv'ers may never even have to entertain the thought of experiencing, which is a fantastic thing, dont get me wrong; but, they also happen to be the exact same things that many of my fellow Hiv/AIDS activists are NOT sharing with the younger Hiv+, as well as Hiv- generations. Oh they'll deliver the message that it's "cool to be Hiv+" because you never ever have to work another day in your life and every day and every night is one gala social function after another; but, they RARELY, VERY RARELY deliver the truth, the true message of what it's like to be Hiv+ - it sucks. It literally sucks. But, my fellow activists who are like this, who refuse to acknowledge, nor teach, all these cold harsh facts to the younger generations do so because they live in a never-never-land bubble where the horrible things that my generation experienced and lived through are not their reality. For people like that, it's like talking to a brick wall. So now you all know yet another reason why HivSpice exists - to get the the truth out there, to help others, to try to prevent more deaths and to try to prevent those numerical statistics from rising higher and higher each year.
You very rarely hear much about them, but there is another group of fighters on the AIDS battlefront. They fight by rolling up their sleeves and jumping right into the battlelines themselves. They truly are the "unsung heroes" of the AIDS battlefront. They are people who need to be acknowledged and appreciated on tomorrow's World AIDS Day and on every World AIDS Day from here on out. I know who I'm talking about and most of you do too. One simple yet very meaningful word describes them perfectly - Volunteers. They're the people who greet as well as comfort you at your local clinic or hospital when you're handed your life-sentence diagnosis of being Hiv+. They're the ones who with unselfish effort, every 20 minutes, hour after hour, spend time emptying your dying lover's bedpans, every day and night - without fail, without complaining once. They're the ones who hug you and hold onto you when the next not-so-good piece of medical news comes your way. And, they are the ones who are there for you when the person you loved most has just died in your arms and you are simply too distraught to give him up, to let him go, to let them take him away from you. Volunteers. Yes indeed. People who definitely are not required to do a damn thing to help out in the battle against AIDS but do so generously, unselfishly, with no strings attached whatsoever. They're the real heroes.
Volunteers. They are the real people who have more than earned the right to be patted on their backs for all they do as well as for being what they truly are - the real Masters of the Hiv/AIDS Universe. Definitely not some of the yahoos out there who literally scream out to anyone who will listen "OMG!!! Well, will you just look at ME???? OMG, I am sooooooo goddamn wonderful that I JUST CANNOT CONTAIN MYSELF!!!!!! Arent I just sooooooo FANTASTIC????? Arent I just sooooooooooooo ENIGMATIC?????? Dont you just wanna LOVE ME LOVE ME LOVE ME FOREVER and FOREVER????? OMG, dont you just find yourself wanting to TALK TO ME AND KNOW EVERYTHING THERE IS TO KNOW ABOUT ME BECAUSE I AM SOOOO FUCKEN WONDERFUL??? OMG, I'm just SO SO SOOOOOOOOOOOOO FULL OF MYSELF!!!!!! Please HUG ME WONT YOU???? Dont you just wanna HUG ME FOREVER AND FOREVER????" Of course you know me, with someone like that my response would either be something simple like "You really bother me, why dont you just go piss-off, okay?" or perhaps something more profound, such as "Oh would you please just leave the rest of us alone and go off to some corner to die all by yourself, perhaps followed by a whole mess of crickets jumping up-n-down on your sorry, no-good-for-nothing ass, please, oh pretty please???" I know, I know, I should be so ashamed of myself for being so crass but one of the little sonnuvabitches, uhm, I mean, one of my fellow Hiv/AIDS activists on my Facebook friends list is EXACTLY the SAME IDENTICAL AMOEBA that I just so poignantly described to you. Be that as it may, this post isnt about me releasing pent-up resentment towards schmendriks like that, it's about giving overdue credit to those who deserve to be put on as many pedastals as we possibly can find to put them on - Volunteers.
So before I close this piece I, HivSpice, would like to personally thank, from myself and on behalf of every Hiv'er and AIDS patient out there, all the guys-n-gals out there across America and all over the world who have volunteered and given generously of their time, their ears, their shoulders and their hearts in the battle against AIDS. I bow my head in honor, respect and gratitude towards each and every single one of you and would like to assure you most emphatically that without your help, without your efforts, both myself and many of my fellow warriors would not be here today if it werent for you guys-n-gals. Whether you believe in Heaven or not, if there truly are Angels here on Earth, it is you who would be their inspiration, not the other way around. And in this world of ordinary human beings, it is you Volunteers who are truly the extraordinary people of this world, and you only. Over the years, World AIDS Day has been designated as a special day set aside to remember how important it is for all of us to join forces in the battle against this relentless, ravaging disease; however, I feel it should also be a day to remember and appreciate those who continue to stand by our sides every single step of the way - Volunteers. From the bottom of my heart, I thank each and every one of you. Thank you for reading.
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