I remember when the first cases of the mysterious illness were being
reported, how strange it was, this unnamed thing that no one knew the cause
of, nor how to treat. I remember when the people getting it started dying,
and I remember being terrified.
AIDS completely changed the sexual and health awareness landscape of the
country, and yet even in my time, just entering college, people were still
reckless. Even I was reckless, for a little while.
It's hard to say just when the fear began to hit me, but at some point
early in my Army enlistment, I was hit with it hard, so hard that I was a
nervous, breathless, twittering wreck every six months, waiting to find out
if I came up positive on the mandatory tests. I remembered in scorching
detail every sexual encounter that had been unprotected, and every one
during which protection failed. I knew the virus could linger undetected
for who knows how long.
Then I became complacent. Ostensibly, all soldiers were being tested
every six months. So having unprotected sex with other soldiers should be
safe, right?
About halfway through my enlistment, I attended an AIDS awareness class
that shocked me to my shoes. The statistics concerning number of new cases
of AIDS and HIV infection among active duty military were alarming, to say
the least, as were the projections for the next few years based on risk and
other factors. All the new fears flared up again, and from that point
forward, I have assumed that not only is no one safe, but I myself am safe
to no one.
Since then one lover and one family member have accidentally come into
contact in the workplace with HIV positive blood, and each time we've
managed to make it through the six months of waiting, nerve wracking though
it was.
Concussions still rip through the lives of people I know, people from
amazingly variant walks of life, and yet the common perception is that with
the new drugs, AIDS is licked and dying.
Well, that's just plain wrong. Not everyone can get the drugs. Not
everyone responds well to them. And infection still continues.
Today is World AIDS Day, and websites all over the world are working
together to promote AIDS awareness, health education, and action to help
those who suffer, to stem the tide of infection. One effort in this is A Day With(out) Weblogs - a special collaborative effort on the part of people who create personal online content, from webloggers to journallers to live cam keepers to who knows. Please go there and see some of the other efforts being made, and the show of support that is underway.
