globeandmail.com : . . . but not on AIDS

To summarize the article, the 16th AIDS conference, a conference that had taken place around the world over may years, is taking place in Toronto in August. Stephen Harper will not be attending.

Excuse the language, but Stephen Harper is being a fucking pussy about this. It’s incredibly shameful to me as a Canadian that my Prime Minister, the leader of the host country will not be at the conference. What a bloody coward.

AIDS has ravaged a generation in this country, and our lack of involvement means it looks like the younger generation is falling victim to their immortality complex. Is AIDS education even given in schools any longer? I don’t know. Even in my Catholic school I got taught AIDS education as of Grade 5 (1988 or so) and onwards. It was biased of course, and what we knew then was very little, but at least we paid attention.

Why is this disease so filled with stigma 20+ years later? I bet Steve-O would open a conference on Cancer. He doesn’t touch this one because it has to do with (mostly) sex.

Well FUCK YOU.

I remember. I remember volunteering as a “Candy Striper” at the local hospital when I was 13. My job was to change the garbage bags and water jugs of all the patients in the morning. This was around 1991. I went into one patient’s room, changed his water and garbage bag. He had a visitor – it was likely 8 a.m. on a Saturday. The patient was very thin and obviously very sick. He tried to talk to me, but his words were like mush, I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say. But I could see his eyes. He was THERE. Maybe he was just trying to thank me for my menial tasks, I don’t know. He was aware though, this much I know. I knew it then.

I felt bad because I couldn’t answer him – I didn’t know what he was saying. I left the room to be pulled aside by one of the nurses.

“Don’t go into that room again, okay. Someone else will do his garbage and water. Just don’t go in there.” (I’m paraphrasing, it was 15 years ago after all)”
“Why?”
“He’s got AIDS.”

Sure enough I never went back in that room. And I don’t blame that nurse for her ignorance such was the time. But even then, at that point I had had at least 2 years of (Catholic!) AIDS education and I knew that I couldn’t get anything from changing his fucking water or his garbage bag. He was so far gone – a horrible way to die. I can still remember him today. I wouldn’t have been afraid of him/his room if that nurse hadn’t made me so. I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone that story.

And then when I was 16 I was visiting my brother here in Ottawa. He got a call from my mother and I knew instantly it was serious. The year before I had been visiting him when my grandfather died, so I knew that look, that tone. My brother asked to talk to me, took me to the guest room where I was staying. The first thing he said was “No one died.” He must have known I was on edge.

[Frankly, looking back on these events that happened while I was visiting the city, I'm surprised I ever moved to Ottawa.]

He sat down on the bed and told me straight out: “Mom received a registered letter today from (hospital where you were born). Since you were born between 1977-1982 there’s a risk you received tainted blood tranfusions. They want you to be tested for AIDS and Hepititas C.”

And that was that. I could afford to cry, I had to figure this shit out. I knew enough at that point to know that if no symptoms had come up by this point I was okay. But still, I was terrified, I called my mom back asking about these blood transfusions. She never knew I had them. At 3 months premature hospitals take blood from preemies and they need to replace that blood. There was a lot done that she was never informed of, and at that point never knew I had had transfusions. She seemed fairly sure I was fine. She also told me that one of my sisters knew. This sister S, at the time was highly emotional and had cried and whatnot upon hearing the news.

I called her next. Now to give her credit she was only 20 at the time and had just heard that there was a possibility her little sister had AIDS. She was a wreck. I remember comforting her, telling her I would be okay, but still being so fucking TERRIFIED myself. And then at the end of the call she asked to borrow $20 so she could go to the bar.

She’d hate me for saying that. It makes her look colder than she is. But I remember that moment, I was so…hurt.

I had the tests taken, and they told me that they would only contact me “if something was wrong.” No news is good news. About two and a half weeks after the test the phone rang and the Caller ID read our Doctor’s office. I was home alone for whatever reason, but I picked up the phone. In that moment alone I had more courage than Stephen Harper will EVER possess. It turns out they were only confirming an appointment my mother had the next day. Exactly 21 days after my blood test I called the office, unable to take the wait, to be told I was “fine”.

But I wasn’t. 6 months later or so, in a theology class they played the Docu-drama “And the Band Played On” about the discovery of AIDS and HIV. At the end they played Elton John’s song “The Last Song” over pictures of the AIDS quilt.

I ran out into the hall at the end and sobbed.

FUCK YOU Stephen Harper, you coward.