Does IT Get Better!? "A Brighter Day Is Going To Come"

"HIV is something you Live with every day for The Rest of your Life.

You may never die Of HIV/AIDS, but you will always die with It..."

This video made me really stop & think about it & the last almost 21 years of my life... Does IT Get Better, really!? IMHO, there ...are actually 3 answers; YES, Maybe & NO. Yes, because I've seen & experienced it. Maybe, because it depends on changing Attitudes, Behaviors, Hearts & Minds. NO, in my case because I don't see the Maybe's happening before I reach the End of My Journey. So why do I do what I do!? It's in gratitude for the time, energy & resources I've been given "To use the Rest of My Life the best I can so that the people and places through which My Journey leads me will remain a little bit Better for Me having passed their way..."
Ultimately; this has come down to trying to do the things that our established Agencies, Non-profits, Organizations, etc Can't, Don't or Won't.

HIV/AIDS, primarily because of others fear, ignorance, indifference & hate; has robbed me of my ability to work as demonstrated by "Perkins", has placed me in the ranks of the fixed low-income poor, and has left me open to the additional ignorance, indifference and hate heaped on this class of Americans...

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

“A Life lived in Fear, Is a Life Half-Lived…”

Independence Weekend and Equinox (Greater) Cincinnati’s GLBT PRIDE Event's return to the Region/City’s Living Room has come and gone…

I wanted to share my thoughts on the Equinox Experience and its impact on the Concept & Vision for Our Northern Kentucky PRIDE Event to be held in conjunction with The Human Rights Campaign’s “National Coming OUT Day” on October 11th. I want to commend the work & Vision of the organizing group of Volunteers, Patrons and Board Members, especially the concept of Piggybacking with a National Day of Recognition. As you may be aware, October has also been HIV Awareness Month in the relics of our ACTUP past and this year will mark my 19^th year Living with HIV and aids.

"Outside show is a poor substitute for inner worth." –Aesop

Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got. - Janis Joplin

Somedays, Life in The HIVe's a Bitch!!!

For the POZ CommUNITY At Large on The South Bank; a HIVe of support, education, information, abundant in shared experiences aglow with the warmth of acceptance for all who shall seek us out... WELCOME!!!

My Stories - 1991 thru 2002

All the Colors, in all the Flags and the Faces of All the Nations, Causes, Countries, Cities, Counties, Corporations, Denominations, Monarchies, Municipalities, Papacys, Religions, Republics, States, Territories can only be found in one place on the Globe...

Greetings!

I logged these thoughts shortly before departing Wallace Woods and "The Holiday House"!

In the article "2002 for beginners - Start the New Year with 8 Resolutions You Can Make and Keep", Timothy Murphy advises:

"#8 - FREE YOUR HEART, FEED YOUR SOUL: Not to get all Oprah on you, but if you're going into 2002 with old resentments - against an ex, family or fallen-out friend - either patch things up or let the anger go. According to Everett Worthington, a psychologist who studies the health effects of forgiveness, "by giving an unwarranted gift to someone who doesn't deserve it, we find paradoxically that it is we ourselves who are freed from that bondage." That can mean lower levels of stress, depression, blood pressure - all coups for HIVers.

So that leaves just you and the universe. How do you talk to each other? Whether it's through an organized house of worship, some form of meditation or prayer, volunteering your time to others or even just a conscious gratitude that every day is a gift, reaching out to something bigger than yourself may greatly enhance all those pills, powders, and protein shakes. (Studies correlate more prayer with more CD4 cells - honest!) And keep in mind these words from HIVer Mark V.: Any experience - be it sex, nature, art or hilarity - can be spiritual if you are present for it."." From the January issue of POZ

This struck me because I consider Oprah one of my mentors and try to practice forgiveness as she once defined it: "Forgiveness is giving up the Hope that the past could be different". It also struck me because over the last ten years, I have come to learn that by giving an unwarranted gift to those who don't deserve it, it is I who is freed from that bondage of anger.

I had read this article weeks ago and set it aside in my commentary file. I was reminded of it as I watched Tom Hanks' stunning performance in "Philadelphia" again last night. I was watching for two reasons - to remind myself of how it still really is out there, and to write down this passage

The Precedent: "The Federal Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as a reference for this Supreme Court decision: "Subsequent decisions have held that AIDS is protected as a handicap under law not only because of the physical limitations it imposes, but because the prejudice surrounding AIDS exacts a social death which precedes the actual physical one.

This is the essence of discrimination - formulating opinions about others not based on their individual merits but rather on their membership in a group with assumed characteristics."

In many ways, I consider that I died and have been a dead man walking since October 3, 1991. Most assuredly since October 10th, when Perkins learned my status and "constructively discharged" me.

My mission is to continue reaching out to something bigger than myself so that I may enhance all those pills, powders, and protein shakes; to live to tell as long as I am able and to share my experiences with any one who may benefit from what I've learned.

---

"He who conceals his disease cannot expect to be cured."
... an Ethiopian Proverb

"Community in Search of an Identity" By Mary Fisher

Flying back to New England yesterday was interesting. I've always loved this part of the country and have enjoyed splendid times here. My husband, Brian, and I met and lived in New York. Brian died in 1993 and is buried in New England. It was in New England that I first met Larry Kramer, the founder of ACT-UP, who has since become a great friend. Larry is one of the nation's finest playwrights, and he never fails to make me laugh. I was standing on a stage in New England, substituting for Arthur Ashe who wasn't feeling well, when the announcement came that Arthur had died. I let my mind review all those moments yesterday, flying from Florida where my sons and I moved recently to be nearer family. New England is important territory to me, and you're important people.

I want to talk this morning about what it takes to create a community, because I believe the idea of an "AIDS community" is mostly a myth. There is no such beast. Some of us have AIDS; some of us enjoy community. But we'd be hard-pressed to give any kind of definition or meaning to the idea of an "AIDS community." And it's too bad this is true. If ever there was a group in need of community, it's the group represented here this morning: people with AIDS and those who care about us. We would be a community full of suffering and stigma, but also a community full of humor and power. We could be an international community, because the virus has made us so; we could be a supportive community... if we would make us so. The virus has done a marvelous job of finding those who are Black and White, gay and straight, young and old, male and female, African and American. But we've not yet learned to imitate the virus's ability to enroll everyone in a single community...

http://www.hivcouncil.org/mary_fisher.htm

---

Hello... I live in Maryland and am a foster/adoptive mother.
I have one son now whom my husband and I are in the process of adopting.
We are taking a baby next week who is 2 months old. His mother is HIV positive and the last HIV test they did on the baby was also positive. The hospital says it could be a false positive and that the neg or pos status isnt for sure until the baby is at least a year old.
I am fairly new to the world of HIV and I need to educate myself.
I had a friend die earlier this year of AIDS and it was the most heart wrenching thing I have ever gone through. I guess what I need is resources and advice or the risks of having my 8 month old son and this new baby together. I know how you can and cannot get HIV but I have a very close minded family and my mom is freaking out telling me how I am putting my 8 month old son at risk and how can I do this..so on and so forth. I also need to know health wise what I need to look for with the new baby. He was a preemie born at 27 weeks and is coming home on oxygen and only weighing 4.8 pounds.
I want this baby to have a family and to know love. No other family contacted about his baby wanted him except us. And this baby deserves a chance I think.
I am sorry this is so long. I just need some support and help. Everyone except my husband thinks I am nuts for taking an HIV baby.
Once you find out you are positive you have one of two choices, either get busy dying or get busy living, which would you chose? [hiv-aids-support] @ Yahoo Groups

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hiv-aids-support

---

U.S. Warned Against AIDS ComplacencySun Jul 7, 2002By EMMA ROSS, AP Medical Writer
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) - The United States must revive the passion it once had for tackling the AIDS epidemic, otherwise infection rates could start climbing again, the U.S. AIDS prevention chief said Sunday.

From "The NAMES Project Foundation":
AIDS Is NOT OverDear Media Member:
As representatives of the foremost U.S. AIDS service organizations, we urge you to consider carefully the following key points regarding the AIDS epidemic in 1997.
The past year has brought the most exciting advances in the treatment of HIV and AIDS since the epidemic began in 1981. As you know, dramatic improvements in drug therapies have translated directly into prolonged life spans for many people with HIV and AIDS. For the first time, deaths from AIDS in the United States dropped 13% across the country over the first half of last year. Indeed, new drug therapies such as the protease inhibitors have enabled many people with AIDS who once were wasting and bedridden to reclaim their lives, regain their health, and re-enter the workforce.
However, the hope felt by those of us battling AIDS is countered by new challenges. While effective combinations of protease inhibitors have thrown a lifeboat to many people with AIDS, we are still navigating through rough waters. The drugs' effectiveness and tolerability vary widely among people, and their extreme expense puts them out of reach for the vast majority of people with HIV. In fact, it is estimated that a mere 5% of all people with HIV have access to them. Even more importantly, protease inhibitors do not prevent a single HIV infection, and media messages hailing the imminent end of AIDS may actually be undermining some HIV prevention efforts. The end of AIDS will come only when an effective AIDS vaccine is developed, and the slow rate of progress in this difficult area of research will not bear fruit until well into the next century.
As representatives of the foremost U.S. AIDS service organizations, we urge you to consider carefully the following key points regarding the AIDS epidemic in 1997.
Access to the new drug therapies is the basic problem for many people with HIV. To be truly effective, protease inhibitors must be used in combination with at least two other anti-HIV drugs. Annual costs for this treatment average about $15,000 per person. Without private health insurance, Americans must rely on public programs such as the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), a federally funded initiative to provide AIDS-related drugs to people with HIV. Most ADAPs (which are administered by states) currently are so strapped for cash that they're being forced to ration the drugs among their applicants. Inadequate federal funding of these programs is financially illogical, as the new drug therapies have been scientifically proven to reduce healthcare costs and hospitalizations among people with HIV.
When HIV-positive people actually get their hands on these therapies, a new set of concerns arises. First, will they be effective? Experts estimate that up to 30% of patients will not respond to treatment. After years of treatment with older anti-HIV drugs, their viruses may have resistant mutations that render the newer drugs useless. Second, if they do actually reduce the amount of virus in the patient's bloodstream, will he or she be able to weather the drug's sometimes crippling side effects? Protease inhibitors, for many people, are intolerable because of nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, headache, kidney stones and serious drug interactions with other medications. In fact, anywhere from 1 in 100 to 1 in 1000 patients taking protease inhibitors may be at risk for developing diabetes or hyperglycemia from treatment with these drugs, according to an advisory released by the Food and Drug Administration on June 11, 1997.
A final problem with these new treatments is understanding the best way to use them. Four protease inhibitors join seven other antiviral drugs to stock our arsenal against HIV. These therapies must be used in combination to be truly effective and to avoid drug resistance. With so many permutations at our fingertips, we don't yet understand which combination is the best, or when that combination should be initiated in the course of someone's disease. These uncertainties will only be ironed out by further clinical trials. Enlisting a physician who's informed of the latest research in this area is a life-and-death matter for people with HIV.
HIV-positive individuals who had a doctor experienced in the nuances of HIV treatments had a 31% lower risk of death than patients whose physicians were the least AIDS-experienced, according to a 1996 University of Washington study.
Protease inhibitors do not prevent new HIV infections.
Despite the exciting advances in treatments, new HIV infections remain relatively steady at 40,000-50,000 Americans per year, according to estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, the epidemic is losing its gay, white male face more and more every year. Increasingly, the faces are those of women, youth and people of color, and unfortunately it is these groups of people that have the least access to quality medical care. These changing demographic trends demand that we tailor new HIV prevention programs to better serve groups at increased risk. Some of the facts on where the epidemic is moving:
*AIDS is now the leading cause of death among African Americans. Black men are almost six times more likely to get infected compared to white men, and black women are 16 times more likely to get infected than white women.
*Fifty-two percent of AIDS cases occurred among African Americans and Latinos, yet these two population groups represent an estimated 13% and 10%, respectfully, of the total U.S. population.
*Half of all HIV infections happen among individuals who are 25 or younger, and one in four happen among individuals 20 or younger.
*HIV is spreading almost six times as quickly among women as among men.
*Elsewhere in the world, the situation is far worse. Last year, almost 3 million people around the world were infected with HIV. Most of them were under age 25, and half of them were women. 400,000 new HIV infections occurred among children.
*Protease inhibitors are doing nothing to curb this rising tide of new HIV infections. In fact, these new therapies may be exacerbating the situation. Media reports of AIDS becoming a chronic manageable illness, and whispers of possible viral eradication, may lead some people to become less vigilant with safer sex and safer injection practices. Some liken protease inhibitors to the "morning after pill." Indeed, San Francisco has become the first city in the United States to offer a controversial "post-exposure HIV clinic," in which patients who've had unprotected sex or shared needles to inject drugs will receive immediate antiviral therapy in an attempt to prevent HIV from "taking hold" in the body during these first few critical hours of HIV infection. It is yet to be seen what the consequences of this program will have on the behavior of individuals in the community.
*As an example, through its National High School Quilt Program, in 1997 the NAMES Project Foundation is taking the AIDS Memorial Quilt to three high schools in every U.S. state. The Quilt serves as the centerpiece of a week of HIV prevention activities for high school-aged youth, and serves as a catalyst for discussion of AIDS and its related issues. Nearly 90% of students surveyed said they would take steps to avoid HIV infection as a result of seeing the Quilt.
*To meet the needs of women with HIV-and help head off the spread of HIV among women-New York City's Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) in late 1996 launched its Department of Women's Education Services. In addition to safer-sex workshops for women previously sponsored by GMHC, the department also will hold a series of community forums, collaborate with other community-based organizations in the creation of new support groups, and coordinate agency-wide services for women to better serve its female clients.
*With HIV infection rates on the rise among youth ages 14-20 in the Seattle/King County, Washington area, the Northwest AIDS Foundation has launched Project ACTION to address this disturbing trend. The program works with local business to install low-cost condom vending machines in locations frequented by youth. In addition to condom vending, the project also focuses on community mobilization, media and peer education. The goals of Project ACTION are to make condoms readily accessible to sexually active youth, create a strong health promotion message, and train youth to conduct workshops that teach HIV prevention, abstinence and gotiation and refusal skills to delay the onset of sexual activity.
..."

U.S. AIDS cases and HIV infections have remained fairly stable since 1998 at
about 10,000 new infections every three months, but that overall stability may
mask reported increases in HIV infections among heterosexuals, said Dr. Ronald
Valdiserri, deputy director of the National Center for HIV, STD and TB
Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

About 1 million Americans are infected with HIV, which causes AIDS.

The lack of additional progress against the virus likely stems from several
factors, including the large number of infected people who either do not know
they have the virus or are not getting treatment.

"Today's epidemic is very different from the one we faced a decade ago. The
populations at risk, the attitudes about infection and the science of HIV have
all changed. And so must our prevention efforts," said Valdiserri, who
presented new research at the International AIDS Conference in Barcelona.

More than 15,000 people from around the world have gathered here for the
weeklong 14th International AIDS Conference, looking for solutions to an
epidemic infecting 40 million people worldwide, more than half of them in
Africa.

Dr. Peter Piot, executive director of the U.N. AIDS program, said Sunday there
was no indication the epidemic is leveling off worldwide, and strategies known
to prevent its spread still are grossly underused.

Scientific discoveries in HIV and AIDS also seem to be merely incremental,
experts said. New drugs that do the same thing — but slightly better — are
emerging, but there's no vaccine or blockbuster treatment around the corner.

Making more progress against HIV will require getting more people tested and
treated early in their infection, and developing drugs that work better and are
simpler to take, Valdiserri and other experts said.

However, the ultimate goal is to prevent infections from occurring in the first
place.

Valdiserri presented research on new HIV infections in 25 states to provide a
snapshot of the situation in the United States. There is no national HIV
surveillance program, so complete nationwide figures do not exist.

The 25 states exclude California, New York and Florida and account for only one
quarter of the HIV infections nationwide, he said.

Because 13- to 24-year-olds are more likely to have been recently infected,
trends in this age group are a more accurate indicator of recent HIV infection
patterns, Valdiserri said. Diagnoses among that group remained somewhat stable throughout 1994 to 2000.

"This seeming stability may not tell the whole story," Valdiserri said.

When the researchers examined the statistics by risk group instead of age
group, a different picture emerged.

"There have been slow but steady increases among heterosexuals, with diagnoses
increasing 10 percent between 1998 and 2000," he said.

The majority of those infections — 75 percent — were in black Americans, with
black women accounting for almost half the cases among heterosexuals between
1994 and 2000.

While Latin Americans account for a low proportion of HIV cases in the 25
states studied, at a national level they are disproportionately affected.

The first step to making progress now is to recognize that the HIV epidemic is
different today than it used to be, Valdiserri said.

There is a growing group of people infected with HIV who face a lifetime of
maintaining safe sexual practices. Those people are living longer, healthier
lives thanks to new treatments, and they continue having sex.

Valdiserri said research suggests that almost 70 percent of people recently
diagnosed with HIV report being sexually active within the last year. Between
57 and 75 percent said they used a condom the last time they had sex.

For those without the disease, the growing pool of HIV infections means a
greater chance of becoming infected and an even greater need to protect
themselves, Valdiserri said.

"Americans ... don't have the same sense of urgency or crisis which
characterized the early years of the epidemic," Valdiserri said. "Some are
becoming bored with HIV after 20 years, some are simply tired of the messages
and behavior change. And many didn't realize they were signing on for a
lifetime of condom use."

Many people speak of complacency now that HIV is treatable, and some even are
skeptical that further progress can be made in the United States, Valdiserri
said.

"We can't sit back and wait for a vaccine. Instead, we must renew HIV
prevention in the United States," he said.

"We must revive the passion with which the U.S. once faced the HIV epidemic,
with a strong and pre-eminent focus on preventing the spread of the virus."

---