The Personal Price of AIDS

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Keywords: HIV, AIDS, World AIDS Day, drugs, health

I'll never forget the last time I saw my uncle Patrick Slane. I had just returned from a visit to Scranton, Pa. He was lying on the couch, and the moans he was letting out were chilling--he could barely breathe. After years of suffering from HIV, it was finally catching up to him, and from all indications, the end was near.

Days earlier, I found him walking around the house aimlessly. He was completely demented and had no idea who he was, who I was or where he was. When I returned from Pennsylvania, things appeared even worse.

The television was on loudly. He had his favorite chocolate milkshake sitting on the table. But he was struggling to take in air. He was going to die soon.

The very next day, under his own power, he walked down a flight of stairs and was driven to the Jersey City Medical Center where he died the next day.

He was once a vibrant power-plant worker, but eventually withered away to a 90-pound former shell of himself. To shake his hand was to shake the hand of a skeleton. Some 25 years after he first injected himself with heroin, often using needles that others had already used, it finally caught up to him.

At 41, Pat was the second son my grandmother lost. It was in 1970 that her son Thomas died, four years before I was born. She had no idea on that September morning in 1995 that 10 years later, she'd lose yet another son, my uncle Matty, also to complications caused by HIV/AIDS.

In a sad twist of fate, it was Thomas' death from ulcerative colitis that eventually led Pat and Matty to turn to drugs. Neither of them dealt with Thomas' death well. One drug eventually led to another, and another, and another--until finally, the drug of choice was heroin. Of course, back in the '70s and early '80s, no one could have ever dreamed that drug abuse, a horror in and of itself, would lead to an even greater horror in HIV and AIDS.

But it did--and Pat paid the ultimate price, as have so many others who've abused drugs.

When Pat died, Matty wasn't able to attend his funeral. It wasn't because he didn't want to go--Matty's own addiction caused him to leave his family and turn to the streets for comfort. His addiction was so strong that he wasn't able to maintain a family. He lost everything but the clothes on his back--and he, too, was living with HIV.

Despite his ailments, after Pat's death, Matty was able to turn his life around.

About a year after Pat died, Matty returned home from a stint at Riker's Island Correctional Facility in New York. For me, this was unacceptable at first. His addiction forced him to steal. He had never stolen from the family, but I was still concerned he'd eventually find a way to take from us too. Maybe he'd pawn my computer, I'd often think, or perhaps he'd find a way to trade my car for drugs.

None of this happened.

From the get-go, Matty was determined to turn his life around. And that's exactly what he did. Although he was HIV-positive, he went to work at a grocery store, where he worked for the next eight years or so. He loved the work so much that he was there just two days before he died.

During the years he "reformed" himself, he was an integral part of our family. His laughter and spirit were contagious. Everyone was so happy to have Matty back. He showed us that despite his addictions--and despite a former life of homelessness and crime--he truly did have a heart. He truly did love his family. He truly did love life.

Fast forward to July 2005. It all happened so fast.

My mother called me one Friday morning and told me that Matty had gone into the hospital. He was having trouble breathing, so as a precaution he went in for observation. Truthfully, I thought nothing of it. A lot of people go to the hospital for routine issues.

Matty never came home. Two days after he went in, he died.

The strangest part of his death was that he had no signs of being ill--quite the antithesis of his brother Pat. He wasn't too well the last day or two of his life, but he never suffered in the way so many who have HIV/AIDS do. In a sense, his sudden and quick death was a blessing in disguise. It was difficult to lose him, especially after his incredible bounce back, but everyone, including my grandmother, who was now going to bury her third son, was so grateful Matty didn't suffer.

What could have been an incredibly difficult time was instead a time to give thanks.

Matty was buried in his favorite white pinstripe New York Mets jersey. His death, at 53, was yet another stark reminder of how vicious HIV/AIDS really is.

All of these years after we first learned about the disease, there's still no cure. Sure, there are the cocktails that slow down the virus' progression--but no matter how you look at it, when someone is diagnosed with HIV, it's still a death sentence.

As we approach World AIDS Day, it's my hope that our new president seriously meets the demands required of AIDS research and finding a cure. Considering that in this country alone 22,000 new cases of HIV are reported each year, the need for beefed-up research has never been clearer.

One person dying from HIV/AIDS each year is too many. I had to watch two loved ones die from it.

I can't wait for the day when no one will ever have to worry about dying from or watching someone die from HIV/AIDS ever again.

I'll tell you what, though: I'm not holding my breath.

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