World AIDS Day

Today is World AIDS Day. I've had a day to think about my life in the era of the AIDS epidemic and how it has affected me, my relationships, and the relationship I have with my community. I've had a day to remember how AIDS has come into my life.

In my lifetime, it seems that we have come a long way though maybe not fast enough. In my college bioethics class I wrote a controversial thesis on the practice of fasttracking experimental HIV medications. The year was 1989 and at the time, AZT was the only real name on the block. Protease Inhibitors and drug cocktails were laboratory concoctions and scientific studies waiting for the light of day. All around us we were being asked to ACT UP and that silence equaled death. People were passionate about doing big things in big ways.

As I entered into the 90's on the cusp of a new millenium, the face of AIDS changed. The drugs became available and the gaunt faces were replaced with a new face, one that could climb mountains both literal and proverbial during this fight. AIDS became something surmountable. I became a doctor during this time. I watched the complacency begin at the same time I still saw the struggle. And then I saw a poster, an ad really. It read "When they discover a cure for AIDS, will you be able to say that you did your part?" I remember the first time I walked into the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin to be trained on the AIDS information helpline. I met so many neat people dedicated to doing big things in many small ways, just like myself. I would go on to other various duties like packaging and delivering food, working in the library, and attending the numerous fundraisers the Center would have throughout the year. But seemingly, the numbers continue to climb and the faces still look forward to a cure that still seems out of reach.

During this time, I also became a proud member of the gay community and AIDS could no longer be someone else's disease. Like I imagine every gay man does, I have friends with the disease. I sat before them as they tearfully disclosed their seroconversion with a mix of disbelief, fear, and defiance . And I tearfully looked back at them with a mix of heartbreak and anger - heartbreak for a life now altered forever, anger that it never should have happened in the first place. I fear that as gay men, we are made to feel as though control has been taken away from us. The question of contracting AIDS being not if, but when. Not won't, but could. Will it never be enough to know?

If it seems as though I am losing hope, I am. Numbers continue to climb, prevention education pushes seem to have been abandoned, money is running out, gay men are deluded by their own sense of sexual health and fortitude, our government has adopted a "cut them loose" conservatism, the whole thing seems generationally cliche. But if it seems as though I am giving up, I am not. When I think of how far we've come in my life, and where we could be before my life is over, I am encouraged. And so I will walk, donate, educate, be a role model, and do my part so that one day World AIDS Day will be a day to remember not only how AIDS came into our lives, but also how it left.