The Tulips on Park
Ken was particular. If and when he got sick, he was going to Lenox Hill hospital or nowhere. Having had many bouts of AIDS related hospitalizations, he was done with the likes of St. Vincent's, the crazy cast of characters that populated the emergency room and the burn-out of an over-burdened AIDS ward. Located in the heart of the ritzy Upper East Side at 77th and Park, Lenox Hill was a world apart and a different experience all together. Not that any of this mattered. In 1999 Ken was the picture of health. A former Fosse dancer, at 49 he was still turning heads at the bars. Never mind that he couldn't tolerate any of the new meds that had begun saving lives by the dozens back then. He was strong as an ox and he looked great.
But the day after his 50th birthday Ken went into Lenox Hill with a persistent pain in his right side. Tests had been run but his doctor couldn't figure out anything. "It's probably gall bladder," I said. "It's often hard to diagnose." Sure enough, his gall bladder was inflamed and surgery was scheduled. I had mine out a couple of years before and knew there was nothing to it. "Julie Andrews just had hers out and she was back in Victor/Victoria in 5 days." I assured Ken, "this is nothing.". He had a beautiful corner room to himself overlooking the tulip beds that grace the islands in the center of Park Avenue, a yearly sign to winter-weary New Yorkers that indeed Spring has finally arrived. They were yellow. I pointed all of this out with perky optimism on my first visit to see him at Lenox Hill but I could tell Ken had started to give up.
What was supposed to be routine surgery revealed lesions covering his liver and gall bladder. Non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Ken started to drift away a little bit every day after that. He was on heavy pain medication and his moments of lucidity were fewer and fewer. I would pipe in with whatever conversation I could during those precious moments hoping somehow it would will him back to life. But then his eyes would go blank again, his mind confused with pain and disease. My eyes would drift out to the tulips which seemed to grow brighter and stronger as Ken became weaker and weaker. It was a matter of days before he was in that precarious situation of which would kill him faster, the disease or the treatment. With my encouragement, he opted for treatment which landed him in ICU. He died there as I held his hand. It was almost 1 AM on a Saturday night. I left the hospital and just walked and walked for blocks counting the beds of tulips along the way. I hit 13 before I hailed a cab and went home.
I was reminded of all this because I had to go by Lenox Hill for a back x-ray today. I stopped to look up at that second floor corner room for a few minutes and wondered who was in there now. The earth on the island in front of that window is freshly tilled ready for a new planting, the tulips being finished for the season. My mother or someone more religious than I would surely find symbolic meaning for Ken’s death in the new life of a tulip born of a dormant bulb. But to me, the tulips on Park Avenue just make me sad.
Labels: AIDS, Personal
GMHC AIDS Walk New York 2007
Thousands turned out today to take part in GMHC's annual AIDS Walk New York, the biggest fundraiser of the year for the organization. Starting in Central Park with a speech from Whoopi Goldberg and a stirring rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone" by
The Pirate Queen's Stephanie J. Block the walk meanders through the park, across Cathedral Parkway (110th Street) and down Riverside Drive to 74th St. I'm in a prime location at 83rd and Riverside to watch and cheer for the walkers as they pass by.
The walk brought out its usual cast of colorful characters which you can see pictured below including: bears greeting dogs, tranny waitrons, cute volunteers, muscle boys and in the last photo, my parents who participate every year. Mom got to wear a crown as a star walker this year. She raised $1350 for the cause.
UPDATE: $6.8 Million was raised to benefit the Gay Men's Health Crisis by over 45,000 walkers, both new records for AIDS Walk New York!
Labels: AIDS, Gay Culture, New Yorkana
Completely Bananas
Well it seems
Tina Rosenberg of the NY Times is not the only one touting outlandish cures for HIV and AIDS. It took till this past December for AIDS activists in Toronto to finally speak out against South African Health Minister, Manto Tshabala-Msimang, MD for pushing an all natural vegetable diet on AIDS patients in lieu of anti-retroviral drugs. It prompted 81 world renowned scientists and doctors to petition South Africa's president for her resignation. Here's a quote from
an article that appeared in December's issue of POZ magazine:
In the summer of 2000, with Tshabala-Msimang at his side, Mbeki (President of South Africa) proclaimed that poverty, not HIV, causes AIDS. However, in 2003 he announced a plan to quickly treat 380,000 HIV positive people with anti-retrovirals. Only 200,000 have received treatment thus far, and Tshabala-Msimang, continuing to tout her natural remedies, has repeatedly thwarted the rollout.
In a related story, according to
an article in the Daily Mail, the president of Gambia, Yahya Jemmeh, who won his office through a powerful military coup back in 1994, claims to have cured AIDS altogether. That's right--he's found a cure! Saints be praised and hallelujah! So thank you very much Liz Taylor and AmFAR, all you high priced pharmaceutical companies and all the folks toiling away at the
Aaron Diamond Institute, but your services are no longer required.
And that's not all boys and girls, the news only gets better because Mr. Jemmeh's cure is FREE! Here's a description of this new no-cost miracle cure:
A green paste is applied to a patient’s chest. A grey liquid is then splashed on, and finally the patient is given a bitter yellow brew to drink, followed by two bananas.
Patients are then advised to do the Hokey-Pokey and turn themselves about. That, after all, is what it's all about.
In response to this story, I'd like to quote the immortal words of Gwen Stefani, "This sh*t is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S!"
Labels: AIDS, Medicine
New AIDS vaccine? Not so much...
Yesterday I received an email from my friend Tom whom I've known for nearly 20 years. Tom and I met during my first week of college and became fast friends. Much like myself, Tom has never been one to shy away from expressing an opinion, and in fact our mutual passion on issues that are important to us has been one of the many bonds of our friendship over the years.
Tom's email was to inform me that a letter he wrote in
response to a NY Times article had been published (albeit edited) in yesterday's NY Times magazine.
The article in question was by a Tina Rosenberg who quite outrageously and irresponsibly (in my opinion and Tom's, too) equates circumcision with an AIDS vaccine. She cites studies done in Africa that show a fifty percent reduction in HIV rates among circumcised men compared to their uncircumcised counterparts. She claims that this fifty percent "success rate" is the best we can hope for in an AIDS vaccine even though it only protects the circumcised man and not his partner. She neglects to mention the millions of
circumcised men living with HIV, however.
By
Rosenberg's reasoning, condoms, which are widely known to prevent HIV 70 to 100 percent of the time, should have been touted as a "vaccine" years ago. There are so many problems with her claims it's hard to know where to begin but Tom brings up one of the many issues in his response below. You can also read responses from other readers by
clicking here. Tom writes:
The foreskin is a vital part of the male sexual mechanism, and it seems inappropriately easy for a woman to suggest that a man cut off part of his genitals when the opposite suggestion would be greeted with outrage. For centuries, circumcision has been said to cure everything from demonic possession to madness. This study is another in a long line of witch-doctoring. I foresee men failing to protect themselves (or their partners) during intercourse by reasoning, Don’t worry, I’m circumcised.
You can read Tom's unedited response on his blog,
The Daily Rocket. Rock on, Tom!
Labels: AIDS, Medicine
