World’s Aids Awareness Day

Saturday December 1^st is World’s Aids Awareness Day. This day is noted around the world, by fundraisers, educational programs, and events.  World Aids Awareness Day was created in 1988 by the United Nations World Health Organization.

HIV/AIDS is one of the world’s biggest medical crises. It is estimated that approximately 40 million people in the world currently have aids. One million of them,  are in the United States. Each year, over 40,000 new cases are reported in the U.S.

I was a hospital nurse back in the early 1980’s and on the front line in a medical mystery. At that time, we did not know a lot about HIV/AIDS and it was a crap shoot with the medical professionals trying to find treatments that would really help the individuals we were being presented.  I was working in a hospital in Kentucky and the majority of the patients were hemophiliacs that had acquired the disease through blood products.

I recall friends and family simply freaked out that I was volunteering to be on a team that focused on taking care of these patients. I kept hearing things like aren’t you afraid of catching this strange disease and my simple answer was NO.  It was a challenge to find the right treatment for each individual and that was the reason I had become a nurse to provide help to those in need.

The fight has been long and we lost a lot of friends, family and nearly a whole generation until the cocktails provided a chance to make this disease a chronic condition and not an immediate death sentence.

Unfortunately, what I have seen is that today’s generation did not live through those early years and have no idea of the struggle and issues that have caused so many losses.  Like any generation they feel they are invisible, they see ads of buff bodies for the drugs used to fight the disease so they don’t see the fear and struggle of actually having the disease.

Education/research are still very important aspects to fighting and moving toward a cure.  We need to continue to keep this in the forefront of each generation so they do not have to suffer what my generation did in the beginning of the crusade.

To all those that have suffered a loss to this disease, don’t stop telling the stories of those we have lost, keep their memories out there so others can continue to hear their voices.

Keep Dancin’  LB