Illustrated Daily; 6006; The AIDS Epidemic in New Mexico Grows

. . . . . . . . .. .. .. .. .. .. . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Basically, I don't have an anger about the illness.

The only thing associated with it is that would come close to anger, would be people's ignorance of the disease and their unwillingness to do something about their ignorance. The Illustrated Daylight, Managing Editor, Hal Rhodes. Hello. This May, in an award-winning series, we took an in-depth look at the developing AIDS crisis in New Mexico.

At that time, there were eight reported cases of the deadly disease in the state and evidence of difficulties, both social and medical, in responding to the challenges it has occasioned wherever its vengeance has been felt. Today the number of officially reported AIDS cases in the state has reached 16, double what it was just five months ago. But given the manner in which AIDS is reported throughout the United States, there are actually more known cases of the disease in New Mexico than the official count recognizes. For example, as many as 16 people are believed to have died of AIDS in New Mexico so far. Moreover, there are currently 28 people with the disease known to be living in the state. And beyond all that, there are literally countless AIDS-related complex, art, what

used to be known as pre-AIDS cases, perhaps as many as 50, being monitored by physicians throughout the state. As if that were not enough, according to one study, as many as 20% of all gay men alone in New Mexico may have been exposed to the suspected AIDS virus. For Dr. Jim Walner, medical director and immediate past president of New Mexico AIDS Services, it all adds up to a staggering problem in the next few years. What we did was estimate the number of sexually active adult men in the state, and then figuring from Kinsey's studies, approximately 10% being gay men, we then went backwards from the studies done at the university, suggesting that one in five people are infected. And then went beyond that, estimating that one in ten of those infected individuals would end up developing AIDS, and using those numbers just within the gay community we could

expect about 2,000 cases in four years. It is quite frankly a growing wave without a crest inside. But fortunately today, although medical science is far from either a cure or a vaccine for prevention, volunteer efforts in the state, notably through the now fully functioning organization New Mexico AIDS Services, are proving effective in dealing with the often tragic personal consequences of the disease. Dennis Dunham, client services director of New Mexico AIDS Services, who is working day often adds up to 16 hours, and whose clients include not only people with AIDS and

art, but their families, friends, and lovers as well, part of my responsibility is matching those people up with a counselor that will work best for them. So I spent a lot of time traveling to Albuquerque and around Santa Fe, visiting people in the hospital. In the evenings I have a support group for people with AIDS that needs every week, every Wednesday evening. We get a lot of information calls and counseling calls on the phone. People calling out a point to know about the HTLV-3 antibody tests. People concerned with confidentiality. People who have met someone or know someone who has AIDS and want to know what their risk is. We also have the hotline in Albuquerque and they phone in the referrals have to call them

back or set up appointments for them with other people. So now what we're doing is a pioneering effort, lazing the trail through the services in hopes of being able to provide them on an ongoing basis as the need arises in the future. We try to be as non-intrusive as possible. We make sure that when we become aware of someone in the hospital or through a doctor having been diagnosed with AIDS, we try to make sure that the person is aware of what services we do have and then let them come to us if they choose to. I mean the last thing many people need is one more person telling them, you know, we're

coming into their lives at this point. I mean it's a real chaotic time and most of their lives, their lives are doing a complete flip-flop and very often, you know, they would rather just wait and then as it becomes more apparent what kinds of needs they have, they can seek us out and see if we can fill them. You mentioned that so much of the work of New Mexico AIDS, they're overwhelmingly the work of New Mexico AIDS services performed by volunteers, counseling services, and the life. To people with AIDS or to their family or to their friends or people with AIDS-related complex, art. Is there such a thing as a profile of an AIDS services volunteer? No, I don't think so. I am real struck by the kinds of people who have come out to meet this crisis.

About the only generalization I can make is that they are warm, sincere, caring people. And I have personally been just overwhelmed by the quality of people that have come out to join this effort. They come from all walks of life. We have two or three professional counselors, a psychiatrist, two medical doctors, clerical workers, construction workers, landscapers, you name it, they come from every walk of life. I think say in six months from now you will see a different bill that he has grown in the role and had you known him six months before this.

You could see where he's already grown because you cannot go through an experience like this, either having it or doing what he's doing as a counselor and not grown as a human being, the kind of person who would not grow in a role like this wouldn't be here in the first place. It's a very special person just to make the sacrifice of time and energy and everything else involved in being a counselor, you know, perhaps sometime in the future my demands on his time may be a lot more than they are at this particular moment right now were friends.

What I'm finding is that this disease brings out the natural humanity in people somehow. Four people who are willing, who are able and willing to deal with serious issues. This disease is great at bringing out their natural goodness and warmth. It just challenges people to be as much as they can be and I see a lot of people who want to do that kind of work and this is sort of providing a context for them and I think it will continue to do that. Many of the people that I trained was, had never met a human being that was afflicted with AIDS and so it was still a textbook sort of disease and then when we met real people who are flesh and who are feeling people, there was going to be some sort of change that was promised. The training really addressed issues of death and dying and because there

is such an alliance at this time with AIDS and homosexuality and all the issues that that brings up for people. It was really important for us to know how we felt about it and where we stood on it so that you know we weren't bringing that in to any setting and dealing with it for ourselves and that we were there for somebody else. You know as my condition deteriorates, it will probably require a lot more of his time and energy and what it does at this particular time. For people with AIDS, people whose stories often go untold, New Mexico AIDS services can become almost the key to survival itself. Warren discovered he has AIDS last February and

has since turned to New Mexico AIDS services for assistance. One of the hard things for me was to go into this person's home and to know that they're facing an imminent death, that he is facing an imminent death and there's nothing I can do about it. It's not my role to change that. I can't, I feel very helpless in terms of that situation and I need to just accept that helplessness and in the midst of it just be with the person whoever his thoughts are and with this fellow, there were many times when he would kind of look away and now know what to say and I could tell he was real lonely and sometimes just a reassuring gesture touch of the hand is the only thing that can be done.

For those with AIDS, the physical and emotional drain is only a part of it. Add to that the inability to work and the lethargy of bureaucracies like social security and the situation can become unbearable. I think that was more difficult for me than the actual illness because the wheels of government move very slowly and you could starve to death by time. Like at this point, I'm still not receiving any funds at all from social security and if it were not from New Mexico AIDS services, I would probably have wasted away to nothing long before this. It's a horribly bureaucratic bumbling system. It's not very good at getting those essential things, those essential entitlements that people have worked for and paid into systems

to get. It's not very good at starting to deliver those when they're most needed. When they're most needed, those early days, I mean you've gone through your savings for medical care. You can't work. Who pays the rent? How do you buy food? They've told me I've been approved for social security but I won't receive it until December. So you can see what I'm talking about. The people that I've worked with have been very good and very kind. It's just the mechanics. I guess our governmental system is so big that it's slow moving. It's lethargic. Clearly volunteerism is the key to a good deal of it at New Mexico AIDS services. And volunteer members of the Board of Directors to support counselors. For people who have AIDS, it's often very difficult to do shopping, get to the hospital

and back, even clean the house or do cooking at home. And we have a program which we call the Green Chili Brigade, where people are on sort of an on-call basis to go into a person's home and cook a meal, go shopping, take that person in the hospital, any kind of errand like that that the client has a hard time doing himself. And that is also another component of our volunteer program. As well as we need volunteers for the hotline, Manning the hotline and for educational programs in the community. I think what we've heard about AIDS has all, it's come from either two sides in a hysterical side that is uninformed and overly concerned about what they see as the plague and the homophobic connotations that that side feels. The other side of course are the people who have AIDS, those who work with AIDS patients in the gay community. And until

the issue becomes broader and until support for AIDS research and treatment of AIDS patients is supported by a broad cross section of communities and we're not going to get anywhere with the problem. People do have questions and getting people's questions answered is the important thing that we need to do right now to so that people are mentally able, emotionally able to cope with the scope of an incredibly large epidemic that we've just seen the tip of the iceberg up. I have confided in a couple of people about the illness and had experienced some rejection, just they're inability to deal with what I have. What is that like when... That was a surprise to you.

Yes. I guess it's like the old saying that when the chips are down you find out who your friends really are. You can talk and talk and talk, explain how it's transmitted, how it is not transmitted and they don't seem to hear you at all. They have their own fears and their own mind and they block out everything else. It depends a lot on the person that can be devastating to a client. I think on the other hand in many cases the alternative family system has already been developed and that's been recognized for a long time. Probably I don't have an anger about the illness. The only thing associated with it is that would come close to anger would be people's ignorance of the disease and their unwillingness

to do something about their ignorance. Ignorance is understandable as long as you're willing to learn and to grow but some people just close that out and they have their beliefs about the disease and their totally false and they're not willing to find out. They're not willing to take the steps to alleviate that ignorance and that fear and that makes me angry because there's no excuse for being ignorant, not when the facts are out there. This disease is going to rock the very foundations of the society. I mean if we're looking

at the nearest date for a vaccine at 10 years from now, if the disease continues to multiply, if the number of cases continues to multiply, the way it has been, the society is going to have to turn itself around and that is scaring a lot of people. I mean it's scaring them on their own personal fears of whether they're going to be subject to the disease. It's scaring people looking at the systems that are available. I mean how is the state going to handle 100 cases, never mind a projected one or 2,000 cases. The systems are just not in place. The whole attitude of this society toward sickness, towards disease, towards death, will be changing. I mean it's not only a personal fear, it's a whole societal fear. It's

sort of a collective, what are we going to do now? This is something that none of us have ever dealt with before and the response to date has been, you know, unpredictably on both extremes, you know, you're burying your head in the sand, you know, I'm not seeing this, it'll go away to, you know, let's jump in and fix the systems so that we will be able to handle it. Keeping our balance may be the key. That is the key. I don't know whether it's keeping the balance or finding the new balance. I mean this is throwing us out of balance. And it's my thought that for the horror of this disease, for all of the horror that is producing, it's got to produce an equal amount of good to balance it out. It will naturally. And I've seen that just in the people that I've been involved with since I started working

with the group, it's amazing the quality of people and the quality of caring that people never believe themselves capable of. And are now doing as a matter of course on a day-to-day basis. It's amazing. Ten years ago the issue for gay men was whether to come out of the closet or not today they all live in the shadow of a dread disease more or less. What's this doing to people? Again that runs the gamut. I mean there are, I would hate to be coming out at this stage of the game. I mean I can't imagine what's going through the mind of a 16 year old gay man looking at whether he wants to come out into the world as a gay man. Not only the fear of getting AIDS but the potential fear of how society is going to react to it. And that runs through the whole gay community.

There is a growing uneasiness with what's going to be the backlash of this. I mean there are many people out there that really believe that we are the ones who brought this disease here. Nobody stops to think that somebody had to bring it to us. We're the ones that spread the quickest through and so we're seen as the culprits. And that's a real hard, that's a real hard issue to deal with. Basically at this point in time and throughout our history there has been a difference between straight society and gay society. And there's been prejudice and judgment on both sides. And I feel the one thing

about this illness that can be accomplished is that in working together to find the cure, we can heal some of the attitudes on both sides to keep the two communities separated. And I think that that could be one of the very beneficial things for our entire society that can come out of this. And I think the issue is that we are all people. What happens in the bedroom is totally aside from the issue we are dealing with death and illness. And I think in the long run when humans interact with other humans at a caring and loving level, any other differences fall to the side. Something between sadness and the pride.

Now I was watching this man to the best of his ability to deal with what he knew was going to happen, his death. And in a way it was sad and in another way I really was very proud of him for doing whatever he could. I don't know if it's to serve a function or what, but we have this illness for a reason. And whatever it is I have to make the most of it. To me anger or bitterness is wasted energy. And if I gear that same energy in a positive direction, I can do a lot more good for those who will become ill later on. If I can do something positive.

And then I feel I will have accomplished something worthwhile. That will make it easier for anybody that gets it later on. It makes it very difficult to even talk about it because you know there are going to be certain people that listen

to you or watch you on a TV program that will instantly judge me because of my lifestyle. And this is part of the healing that has to take place. If your mind isn't healthy, your body cannot respond. And it's part of the growing process that we all must deal with in coming to grips with a terminal illness or death itself.