Positive

The Damien Center had another positive test result today. He is in his mid-twenties. He was counseled immediately and compassionately, but when I had to leave he was sobbing in the parking lot in the arms of his friend.

When a counselor came down and knocked to be allowed in the testing office, I knew what it meant. Others waiting to be tested were ushered into a different room. The tester emerged after the counselor went in and was silent for a while. I asked him, "Does it ever get easier?"

He stared at the wall and his eyes began to tear. He shook his head and gave me a weak smile. He's seen it all, and still it shakes him up.

This young man's life changed irrevocably today. If he takes advantage of all that the Damien Center has to offer, he can live a relatively normal life and a normal lifespan. I hope to heaven he comes back.

Y'all be careful out there.

The Shirt Of Shirts

My friend and prolific fellow blogger Ur-Spo is a psychiatrist. When he isn't shrinking heads, one of his hobbies is making Hawaiian shirts. I can't remember how he got the idea, but he decided to ship one of his shirts to friends around the country (and out of it); and those who wear it and post a picture will get to choose one of four organizations to which he will donate a small sum of money. Is this a great idea or what?

The shirt Ur-Spo chose is an impeccably tailored pattern of Hawaiian shirts, thus earning the name The Shirt of Shirts. I'm thrilled to be on the list of recipients.

Each Monday, Sophie comes to work with me. She is the unofficial mascot of the church library volunteers, and we have lunch with them each week. Christine (center) can't stop herself from feeding Sophie from her lunch, so I've had to supply her with doggie kibble from home. Here's a shot of us with three of my friends from the church library: Rev. Ray, Christine, and Joe.

On Wednesdays I leave Sophie at home and go downtown to volunteer at the Damien Center, Indiana's premier HIV/AIDS support center. I posed with Wes, one of the testers, and Phil, a fellow volunteer. They are really sweet guys.

When my daughter saw my outfit, she asked why I was wearing scrubs.

For the charity to receive Spo's donation, I choose his local HIV/AIDS organization. Thank you, Spo, for the honor. Who's next?

Update: Buddy Bear, the previous recipient of The Shirt, has posted an exhaustive list—with links—of all who have worn it thus far. Warning: NSFW.

Update II: The Shirt of Shirts is on its way to Richmond, VA, and Kelly of Rambling Along in Life.

World AIDS Day: "Once, When We Were Heroes"

Please watch this poignant recollection of times past that gave us heroes who are still with us today.

Overheard: Words I Didn't Think I'd Ever Say

I was preparing demo supplies for this morning's talk on HIV 101.

"I have too many penises. What do I do with these?"

Today On Bilerico: Lubricants and HIV

Two preliminary studies were presented this past weekend that indicate some lubricants may increase the risk of HIV infection. Two lubes were labeled "problematic" and two were recommended as safest. Read about it here.

The Mind In Neutral

I was talking with “Father Tony” Adams the other day about his recent South Florida Gay News interview with Mark King, owner/operator of the blog "My Fabulous Disease.” The disease so described is HIV, for which Mark tested positive in 1985. (Check out Mark’s website, which is filled with information and links on HIV/AIDS with an unusual take: humor and gratitude. He pulls it off, too, with intelligent and hilarious commentary. It is refreshingly honest.)

Anyway. Tony repeated something very interesting from his interview with Mark that struck me and stayed in my head. Mark was talking about his years doing drugs and said, “My mind in a neutral state wants drugs.”

The mind in neutral: this is when there is nothing pulling on you but yourself, no outside influences until you pursue them. Where does it go? My mind today is in a totally different state than even a couple of years ago, but left to my own devices—as is often the case, much to my delight—I want to read. I want to know more. There isn’t enough time in the day when I’m reading.

The desire to know more sounds so, I don’t know, noble, doesn’t it? But it can create problems if you can’t get out of neutral. I don’t hear anyone or anything when I’m reading; it’s angered plenty of people who thought I was ignoring them. And my reading material vacillates from primarily nonfiction—science and religion—to trashy nonsense—no, I’m not telling. My mind in neutral can successfully keep me from interacting with my environment with astonishing ease, leaving my family and friends a distant second if I’m not vigilant.

Is the mind in neutral always a negative drive? I’m not certain. Sometimes I’ll put down the books and computer and go looking for a new experience, like the parks I discovered in my city last year. (But that was due to fellow bloggers’ writing, so I guess I’m back to square one.)

What about you? No one’s around, you have no immediate needs to meet, your mind goes into neutral. What do you do?

Image from somewhere on TED.com.

Update: Look what I found.

It's Not Who You Are, It's What You Do

That's the crux of the course from the American Red Cross on HIV Education and Prevention. I finished the two-day course on training certification today.

Most of the information was not new to me, but a lot of what I knew was anecdotal. It's gratifying to know that information floating about is mostly correct (although there are some real doozies as well).

What I needed was training on how to present the information in a way that it will be received by my audience. We practiced with scenarios, pretending to have audiences of various ages and situations that had varied requirements. My practice session was to teach basics to high school students without mentioning condoms, per school request—which is not uncommon in Indiana, where it is illegal to offer condoms in schools. What's more, I had to do it without rolling my eyes. I really have to work on that particular angle, especially since I'll be offering my services to my son's high school. What are the odds that he'll crawl under his desk or disappear that day?

Red Ribbon

Today is World AIDS Day. I have been looking for something special to say about this day, but I don’t have the words. Just about every day is AIDS Day for me. I have friends who are living with HIV and I see them almost every Wednesday at the Damien Center. Once in a while they’re too sick to do their volunteer work. But most often they arrive with big grins and tight hugs, chatting about this and that as they zip past my desk.

I take the calls. Most are asking for someone, and usually I can connect them. Some want information and an appointment for a test. I am careful to make it easy to come in, because just picking up that phone to call could have taken them weeks.

Last week, someone called to talk. He sounded anxious and confessed to me that he was “new to all this” and had just “become active” a couple of months ago.

“Sweetheart, do you need to be tested?”

“Are you someone I can talk to?” he asked. He sounded near tears.

Oh God. “Yes, I am, but I’m just the receptionist. Let me find you someone better qualified.”

I turned to a nearby employee quietly to ask where to refer the call, and he took the phone. But the caller had hung up.

The torrent of “what ifs” and “should haves” is beginning to subside. I pray for the man who called, that he found someone to talk to. I am well aware of what this season brings to those vulnerable people who feel they have no one.

“Awareness” calls for so many things. On this day, I would ask you to be aware of those living with HIV. Bring it up in conversation so that our culture is no longer one of shame. I believe awareness can bring about a culture of compassion, so that picking up the phone is not nearly so hard.

Today on Bilerico: "If S/he Were Positive, Would You Stay?"

Found this week on PostSecret, posted to Bilerico.

We Had A Ball

Saturday night the Damien Center of Indianapolis held their 22nd annual Grande Masquerade, the premier fundraising event for the city’s primary HIV/AIDS support center. I was privileged to be one of many volunteers to help this event run smoothly, and it was great. For two years in a row the Grande Masquerade has been awarded the ISES (International Special Events Society, Indiana Chapter) PACE Award as the “Best Not-for-Profit Event with a Legacy.”

Image courtesy of the Damien Center

Prior to the start of entertainment, a very brief presentation recognized that this year the Grande Masquerade garnered more corporate sponsors and more auction donations than any year in history. This is especially heartening at a time when individual donations are down and funding from state and federal agencies has been severely curtailed. A sobering fact was revealed about Indiana HIV statistics: in the past year, 37% of people with positive test results for HIV were diagnosed with AIDS at the time of the test. This speaks volumes for the need to be tested early. Events like this ball are necessary for the funding to get the word out.

Since I was behind the scenes helping process the registrations and silent auction bids, I didn’t get a chance to watch most of the evening’s entertainment. However, I did get to see the Indy Pride Bag Ladies do their thing. This ragtag band of men in drag danced and lip-synced their way down the center of the room, bold and sassy and full of fun. They have offered their special talents at a number of venues over the years, and I understand that this year they exceeded one million dollars in total lifetime donations towards organizations dealing with AIDS. That is amazing and a wonderful example of how grass roots efforts can have a strong positive effect.

Image courtesy of Indy Pride Photo Guy

The evening ended with a surprise for me. I love any excuse to put on a costume, and this year I had a very special one, with the help of a good friend and excellent seamstress. I gained her assistance in making the iconic “curtain dress” worn by Carol Burnett as Starlet O’Hara in her “Went With the Wind” sketch. The moment that Burnett stepped onstage in that dress is one of the finest entrances in television history.

No one had the costume to rent, so my friend and I made the drapes and hat; I rented the dress and wig. I was a little concerned that the crowd might skew young and not get it, but all through the evening I was asked to pose for photos, alone and with fellow revelers. The real treat came during the costume contest, which—to my amazement—I won. The fact that I won in a room filled with men in extraordinary costumes, glorious wigs and better makeup than I will ever wear was not lost on me at all. I was stunned. The best compliment came as the evening came to a close. An admirer congratulated me and I expressed my astonishment. He said, “Honey, in this room full of gays, tonight you were f***in' Madonna.”

So for a brief shining moment, I wasn't Elton John; I was f***in' Madonna. Wow.

Update: Here are the runners up

and some finalists in the contest.

To The Barebackers

An online conversation about unprotected sex began with the publication of Father Tony’s recent column in the South Florida Blade. Other bloggers have responded with essays of their own, The Milkman's being especially eloquent. I offer here a different point of view.

You who continue to have unprotected sex:

You think this is only about your right to choose. You think that you should have carte blanche on how you live and whether you die young or not.

Let me tell you from terrible experience: this isn’t all about you.

If you contract HIV, your quality of life will be irrevocably altered. If you have good insurance, you will still have to deal with reactions to harsh and costly medications. If you do not have insurance, you will likely lose your job because of the hours you will spend in clinics and the emergency room.

In the end, though, it comes down to this: do you have anyone who loves you? Anyone at all? When money, health and time run out, when that end of life comes, the people who love you will have to watch you die.

Those who love you will try to help you keep a sense of “normal,” taking you to the store for food which you cannot eat, keeping watch on you so that you don’t wander away, and hurrying you through the line before you soil yourself in public.

They will have to stand by helplessly while you slowly starve on a diet of up to 4000 calories a day, because the simple yeast infection which ravages your digestive system won’t let the food stay in your body long enough for the nutrients to be absorbed.

Those who haven’t seen you in a long time will try to hide with forced smiles their shock at your appearance when they first see you, looking for all the world like an aging prisoner of a concentration camp, with joints bigger than your limbs, sunken eyes, bleeding gums.

The people who love you will push you to the TV room in a wheelchair in which you are strapped with a belt across your slender chest because you will be too weak to sit upright. Before you are bedridden and hooked to IVs, they will watch the hospice nurses carry you in their arms to set you down in the living room to talk about things that don’t matter at all.

Those who love you will agonize over what to do when you hallucinate that there are insects crawling all over you, helping you to brush them off so that your panic will subside.

They will try to stop their tears when you have no idea who they are or that they have traveled hundreds of miles to make sure you know they love you.

One who loves you will hold you as you struggle to stay in this life, giving you permission to leave; and, with a final whispery sigh, you will go.

The people who love you will ultimately be grateful for the peace—yours and theirs—that your death will bring, even though they will always be haunted by the images of your slow and excruciating demise.

Those who love you will most likely go through this in silence, for even today no one wants to talk about it.

You who have unprotected sex do in fact have the right to choose. My brother and those many thousands who were decimated by this cruel disease did not have what you do today: a sort of informed consent. You know how to stop HIV from spreading.

Image courtesy of Tony Adams

The greatest enemy of autonomy is self-destruction. Police yourselves. Claim the brotherhood you share by honoring the deaths of those who came before you. Choose love. Choose life.

Today On Bilerico: David

Well, ladies and gents, I have news. I have been asked to become a regular contributor on The Bilerico Project, one of two straight writers now on board. The editor-in-chief said, "Welcome to minority status."

My first official column posted today and you can find it here:

"David: A Story of Hope, Faith, and Love."

The Sting

Today I saw a young man who believes he saw the face of death, and it was in the mirror. He doesn’t realize yet that a positive HIV result is not the quick death sentence that it used to be. But it will absolutely change his quality of life and shorten it. He looked about twenty years old.

His boyfriend paced just outside the entrance with a cigarette, waiting for his turn in the clinic. He looked at the floor when he walked by the desk at the AIDS support center. I didn’t see either of them leave, but my heart and prayers went with them. Life has changed irrevocably for them both.

If this doesn’t apply to you, it does apply to someone you know:

HIV is still out there, and it continues to spread at an alarming rate in both hetero- and homosexual communities. It comes down to this: don’t even ask a potential partner their sero status; just assume every time the answer is positive. The best answer they can give you is the result of the last test they had, and it may have changed since then. They may honestly not know. It is not worth the risk to trust the answer “No, I’m negative.”

Always, always, always use a condom. Always. And understand that there is still a possibility, however small, of transmission. (It isn't "safe" sex, it's "safer" sex.)

Just as is the case in all risky situations, you must measure risk vs. reward. Is there a balance? With HIV, there is no reward worth the risk of this disease. Someone you know knows someone with AIDS. It’s out there, and it’s still infecting people. It’s preventable. Don’t allow yourself or someone you know to get stung.

Crossroads: How I Got Here

In his comment on Blue Ridge Blog, part two, Paul asked me a number of questions that got me thinking. I’m going to do my best to answer how I got here, where I am now, and where I’m going.

Late in 1995, my family learned that my older brother David (his real name) was HIV+. We learned at the same time that he was fighting lymphoma. We were reeling from this news when, in a matter of only a few weeks, David was hospitalized with dementia and released to a hospice care center.

Apparently he’d been diagnosed positive in 1984 and never said a word. For that matter, he’d never come out to us, his family, although it was hardly a secret. (It was the elephant in the room whenever we were together.) As I began regular visits to Atlanta every three weeks to see him at Haven House, I got to meet a number of his friends. I had long, honest talks with them as we processed our progressive grief. I learned that David was afraid of being abandoned by his family and so lived as though he’d already been rejected, making rare and brief tension-filled visits over the years. His friends confessed that David was especially afraid of me because I am a Christian. I had come to my faith late—age 30—and it joined me to the world for the first time. But that which had given me a sense of connection separated me from my brother.

I was determined that David know he was not alone. Many times in my visits, he did not recognize me. Other times he did, but conversation between us—strangers, really—did not flow easily. He wanted to pretend that he was going to go home soon, and that fiction prevented us from talking about the important things. But there came a moment when the door opened to really talk, and I stepped through. I told David that we’d known he was gay since high school. We knew and didn’t care who he loved; we loved him.

I wish you could have seen the change that happened literally before my eyes: David’s body went fluid as he relaxed and his smile reached his eyes. He became a man I had never seen before: loving, open, and content. We had three months—five more visits— together before he died in May 1996, a week before he would have turned 49.

I returned home from his funeral in a depression that took almost a year to lift. As was my way at the time, I responded to the pain by hiding inside myself. But my anger at the injustice that had cost me a relationship with my brother festered for a long time. It would be many years before I realized I could help to perhaps stop that schism from happening in other families.

Next: Where I Am Now