World AIDS Day... food for thoughts...

<--- AIDS Day in downtown Vancouver, on a bitterly cold day of December 2006. Photo taken on Howe Street near the very chic Robson Street.

This is one of those days, which the time has come to pause and ponder.

To think of brothers and sisters who have already fallen...

To think of those who are infected...

To think.

Of the past, the present and the future.

A friend of mine who is HIV+ once told me: "It's like sleeping at the top of a giant volcano that you know to be active. You never know when the eruption is going to happen and to take you away. This is my life."

And he's right. For instance, if you skip meals and have to skip medications, whether you don't feel ok, whether you were traveling and fighting jetlag, you can skip so many times without problems. But it can happen that the next time... this will be one time *too* many. As science has discovered, as a result, the virus can become resistant and your treatment is now ineffective.

Disaster.

It is only recently that there are have been a handful of alternate treatments and you have to count your blessing that one of these alternate treatments will take. You dearly hope of being given another chance at life. If not... it's AIDS and its slow spiral...

Even having your twice a day cocktail of pills isn't fun. There are good days and bad days, and some really bad days. To some people, there can be some very crippling nasty side-effects.

Besides, all sorts of minor ailments have been popping up here and there. None are life threatening, but it isn't the "business as usual" type of lifestyle as you may think it is, from taking these medications.

This comes as a result of the cumulative use of these medications for years. As people live longer with HIV, it is only by now that science has begun to discover these long term effects... and of course have little answers to that, at the present time.

HIV still kills people. As simple as that.

And it doesn't happen to... others.

It can happen to people who are dear to you.

It can happen to... you.

Can one do something? Sure...

Whether to support financially research,

whether to donate time and money to organizations who are helping people coping with HIV.

Also, medications cost a bundle, and some organizations will subsidize its cost. They will pick up where insurance won't. But to do so, they need your money.

I'm also thinking of illiteracy. I'm also thinking of moral and religious rules. HIV isn't a sex disease, nor a gay disease, nor that it reflects anything about your morality. It's been said ad nauseam for so many times...

And yet...

I'm also thinking that perhaps the most important thing you can do...

is to take steps to avoid getting it.

Have fun, but play safe. :)

Cheers,

-E