I am the 99%

[MikeE]

I watched the Stonewall resistance and the Kent State murders on TV and later attended the same University. I fought apartheid in South Africa, and watched the vast majority of my friends die of AIDS in the 80s and 90s. I have been forged in the crucible of revolution. I am the 99%.

[bainz]

1. Mike. Why did you lose so many friends to AIDS?

Did they not have any education as to how to prevent the spread of the virus? How did you escape it's wrath? What should be done to prevent it to those who remain?

[lunatica]

2. AIDS was ignored for years thanks to Reagan so no money was spent on finding

the cause or the treatments for it. It was ignored as a gay disease for years so no one cared much if they weren't gay. Treatment was very slow in coming even after they found out how it was transmitted and what the cause was. Many people, not just gays, died without ever getting any treatment because there was no treatment. Aids is a blood disease where the T-cells attack healthy cells and compromise the immune system because it tricks the body into not recognizing it as foreign to the body. That's why people who received blood transfusions got it. People died from other diseases they contracted because the body couldn't fight them off anymore.

Hindsight makes it look like everyone knew what it was and how to treat it as soon as it made it's appearance. That's the furthest thing from the truth. It took years to develop medicine to treat it the way it's being treated today. And finding the right treatment was incredibly slow. It wasn't until Rock Hudson got AIDS that anyone in government would acknowledge it and do something about it.

[bainz]

3. Hindsight, indeed.

I was young in those days. I do remember how it was headlined as being the "gay plague". I now also remember how Rock Hudson somewhat brought it into focus.

Thanks for the head check.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. I got the leading edge as a medic

When you go to the doctor people use gloves, right? People didn't know how it got transmitted and things like getting staff to wear gloves was like pulling teeth or doing a root canal without anesthesia. And as pointed, since it was the gay disease, it on a morality play tone, at times getting ERs to take patients led to a few fights.

And then they had the good luck of getting a particularly virulent and drug resistant firm of tb. It was just harder.

Not fun times.

[newfie11]

8. I remember doing portable x-rays because no one knew

how it was transmitted.Gowned, masked, cassettes covered, machine wiped down etc.

What a horrible disease. Later, once the mode of transmission was known, we x-rayed those that were able to travel in the department.I remember just walking past a poor man on a gurney in x-ray. I could feel the heat from his high fever. It is a HORRIBLE HORRIBLE disease and I am glad to hear there is progress in meds. I only hope those that need the meds can afford them.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. It wax fun...I remember doing a full decon

Like the one you do after a major trauma, gor just tacking a dying patient.

[Fire Walk With Me]

4. Years. It took years. Fucking REAGAN.

If republicans love him, they they love someone who caused sooo many people to die horribly...

[MikeE]

9. A few reasons

Thanks for asking. :-) One reason was simply the reality of being a gay man living in DC, (which has a huge LGBT community). Another big reason was that most of my friends were minorities, and the rates of HIV/AIDS were and still are off the charts, as well as the fact that those communities are notoriously underserved. Also, as some posters have noted, the entire epidemic was ignored by the government for a long time.

The strange thing is, I am HIV positive and probably was back then, (found out in the early 90's), and am still here and healthy as a horse, thanks to good health benefits, otherwise I wouldn't be able to afford the pill I take everyday to keep things in check.

[Fire Walk With Me]

5. Bless you, MikeE. Be well. Thank you for sharing your story.

[Jnana]

6. And I am but one.