WEBVTT - Special Episode: HIV/AIDS 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:18.479 Hi, and welcome to this podcast Will Kill You, the 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:21.560 bonus episode. I'm Aaron Welsh. 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:25.200 And I'm Aaron Almond Updyke. First of all, holy crap, 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:31.000 Holy crap. Hi to all you literal thousands of new listeners. 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:34.199 It's insane, it's We are completely. 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:36.360 Overwhelmed with the response and with the love from all 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:40.920 of you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, yes, thank you. 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:44.120 Thank you for listening and for rating and reviewing us 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:45.520 on iTunes. 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:48.760 And also for engaging with us on social media. These 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:52.720 last few days have been an absolute whirlwind in the 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:57.080 best way, and we're very excited to have you all here. 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:03.200 Yeah, this is our first bonus episode, which we're releasing 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:06.320 while we work on gearing up for season two. If 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:09.080 there are any diseases or epidemics that you'd like to 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:11.959 hear about in season two, let us know. You can 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:15.319 find us at all of our usual places on email 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:18.600 where this podcast Will Kill You at gmail dot com, 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:21.480 our Twitter, our Facebook, Instagram, etc. 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:24.039 Yeah, look us up. 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:25.400 Yeah. 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:28.839 Well, this week we will be sharing more of Frank, 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:31.560 Hillel and Brian's stories, which you heard a bit of 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:34.880 at the beginning of last week's episode. So if you 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:38.760 haven't listened to episode twelve, HIV AIDS apathy will kill you. 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:42.600 Go and do that now, We'll wait, Yeah, just kidding, 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:44.120 We won't just go do it. 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:49.520 You press the pause, but yeah, we'll still be here. Yeah. Yeah, 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:52.880 So we when we interviewed these three men, their stories 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:56.080 were just so powerful and there was so much more 0:01:56.160 --> 0:01:58.120 that we wanted to be able to include in last 0:01:58.120 --> 0:01:59.800 week's episode, but we couldn't fit it in. 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:02.560 So what we decided to do was to bring them 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:06.680 to you in a special bonus episode and consider this 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:10.840 kind of like the director's cut of episode twelve. Yeah, 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:14.880 it's bigger and better and yeah, but honestly though, we 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:17.480 are really excited and honored to be able to share 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:21.519 these stories with you all. So let's get to the interview. 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:38.359 Yeah, we sat down with Frank and Hallel, who are 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.920 both gay men who lived through the HIV AIDS crisis 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:45.040 in the US in the nineteen eighties and nineties. So 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:47.359 we asked them to tell us about where they were 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:49.880 at the time at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:52.639 and what they remember about how it was perceived right 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:53.280 at the beginning. 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:57.040 Well, my name is Frank and my last name is 0:02:57.080 --> 0:02:59.520 I am Ellie. I was living in Boston, I mean 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:03.040 outside of Boston. I was about twenty seven, I guess, 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:07.600 or twenty eight when we first started to hear about it. 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:11.880 I remember distinctly walking into work one morning and this 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:15.560 woman I worked with, she hadn't read the newspaper, and 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:18.919 she said something about, hey, have you heard about this 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:22.720 gay plague. It's going on, this gay cancer, And I 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:26.680 had never heard of it before. So we read the 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:31.040 article together, and I distinctly remember that they were saying 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:34.200 that one of the signs of the gay cancer at 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:37.320 the time you were calling it was a rash on 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:42.320 your feet. So I immediately went and everything was fine. 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:43.160 You know. 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:44.320 When we first heard. 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:48.240 About it, there was, well, we don't have to worry 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:51.600 about it because it's happening over there, you know. And 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:56.920 then when it hit here, it didn't seem to be 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:01.440 an immediate panic about it. That all changed within a 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:05.320 very short amount of time when people started to get 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:10.440 sick here, because they died pretty quickly when it happened, 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:13.680 because as far as I can remember, there were no 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:18.760 treatment protocols there was. There literally was an immediate sense 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:23.040 of panic throughout the whole city, and you know, if 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:25.240 you would go to a bar or something on a 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:27.480 Friday night and you'd meet with your group of friends 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:31.159 and have a drink, and all of a sudden, the 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:35.440 conversations got, hey, we haven't seen so and so in 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:37.520 a couple of weeks, we had to check on them, 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:42.000 or I heard so and so was sick. And it was, 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:45.400 like I said, just that a horrible, horrible panic that 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:49.440 went on right at the beginning. But then as more 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:56.599 people started to get sick, they quickly organized informally into 0:04:56.839 --> 0:05:01.640 being caretakers for your friends that got sick, because in 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:04.960 many instances, you know, people didn't have families. Families that 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:07.880 you know, cut them out of their lives, and the 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:11.239 only families that they really had was their network of friends. 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:14.920 So I want to say, within probably two two and 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:18.400 a half years of me first hearing about this, you know, 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:23.400 we were already attending to our friends that had come 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:27.760 down with Originally it was called it was called POSTI 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:30.200 sarcoma was the big thing, I think at the time, 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:35.279 but we all sort of went into this state of 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:38.839 mind where we need to help those that are sick, 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:42.800 and we need to try to be as cautious as 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:46.720 we can be. In taking care of them, because we 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:51.040 still didn't know that much about how you can catch it. 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:56.760 My name is Hillel Wasserman. I lived in Los Angeles, California, 0:05:56.839 --> 0:06:01.000 and at present time I work in the should picture business. 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:03.440 At the time of the age crisis, I was, of 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:06.520 course here in one of in what was in fact 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:10.400 the epicenter of the epidemic. The first three cases of 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:13.400 a new assistant pneumonia were reported at the UCLA Medical 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:16.479 Center as a matter of fact, so we were very 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:19.320 much in the center of that storm living here in 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:23.080 Los Angeles. At the time that I first learned about HIV, 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:27.160 I was about I guess I was in my late twenties. 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:30.760 We started to hear these whispers about this weird gay 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:35.159 cancer that was going around, and you know, there was 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:37.640 a lot, there was a whole you know, I understand 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:41.360 this was now the like mid eighties to really put 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:44.400 in a time frame on it, and there was a 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:48.520 whole stew of sexually transmitted diseases that were getting passed around, 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:51.240 and they were getting progressively more and more exotic in 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:54.520 the gay community. I was just beginning to wade into 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:57.280 that world myself, and so that's what I was greeted with, 0:06:57.320 --> 0:06:59.400 you know, sort of the fruits of the sexual revolution. 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:02.880 And we started to hear first there was some kind 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:06.719 of a strange a meeba that was going around, and 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:10.760 guys were getting terribly sick with ridiculous diarrhea and the like. 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:13.680 There were other things like that, and then finally the 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:17.520 whispers of this gay cancer, which you know, a lot 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:20.920 of us discounted because come on, cancer is amal disease. 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:23.840 How can you, you know, transfer cancer from one person 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:27.080 to another. It must just be a way for the 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:29.640 repressive society that we were living in to kind of 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:34.440 quash the gay you know, liberation revolution, whatever we were doing, 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:38.240 and so, you know, it was easily discounted, but it 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:43.800 was getting harder and harder to overlook. Guys were getting 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:46.920 together for funerals more often than we were getting together 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:49.600 for brunch, and people were showing up at the gym 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:51.200 that looked like walking skeletons. 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:52.280 I mean, it really was. 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:55.880 It began to be a kind of overwhelming, and then 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:59.320 you started to see, you know, weird articles in the newspaper. 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:02.200 And where it really. 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:06.480 Hit home for me was when Rock Hudson began to 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:09.760 die all over the front pages of the La Times. 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:13.360 You know, you couldn't open up the paper without seeing 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:16.120 another story about this man. Now, I don't know how 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:19.560 many people really remember who Rock Hudson was, but he 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:23.600 was probably the biggest movie star in the world. I mean, 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:25.880 he was Hugh Jackman, he was Tom Cruise, he was 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:26.640 Daniel Craig. 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:28.080 He was all of that rolled up. 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:31.880 Into line, you know, and comedies and action movies and 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:35.640 dramas and the like. And here was this man, this buff, 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:39.600 handsome man that we all watched in collective horror as 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:43.520 he shrunk before our very eyes. Now, you know, among 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:47.480 my community and friends, the perception of this, well, it 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.160 suddenly became a whole lot more serious. Right, Like I said, 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:52.480 this was something that we could no longer discount. 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:57.679 Since the federal government's response to the crisis was so 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:03.160 woefully inadequate. Division played a huge role in creating real change, 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:06.079 And so we asked Frank in Hellal whether they were 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:08.920 personally active in any political groups at the time. 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:15.360 You know, honestly, I wasn't because, for I would say 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:19.440 a good five to six seven year stretch after that, 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:24.360 my life was, you know, was working and taking care 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:27.520 of everybody that was getting sick around me. You know, 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:33.960 there were periods of time throughout the eighties where I 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:35.920 had a partner at the time, and he and I 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:41.800 were caring for probably about the at one time, probably 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:45.240 seven or eight different people, just one night with this, one, 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:48.240 one night with that, one, one night with this one. 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:53.240 And then when we weren't doing that, there were memorial 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:56.240 services because you know, people were dying left and night, 0:09:56.800 --> 0:10:01.040 and as angry as you as you would get from 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:06.840 seeing this carnage, I just thought, for me, my energies 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:10.319 were best spent in caring for those that I loved, 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.400 you know. And there was certainly plenty of people that 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:16.480 had joined Act Up, which was the age you know, 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:21.480 after this group, and they were doing their job, and 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:23.920 you know, I felt like I was doing mine, you know, 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:27.120 in the trenches kind of thing. And I do want 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:30.760 to say that something that is not really I don't 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:36.880 think it's really well known, but the lesbian community was 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:43.360 truly the unsung heroes of the whole age crisis because 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:45.640 they stepped up to the plate. I mean, this was 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:48.680 a disease that relatively did not affect them at all, 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:53.320 and I got they just stepped up and they were 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:56.439 in there taking care of people left and right, and 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:02.360 working in hospitals and volunteering and so their gay men friends, 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:04.680 and it was amazing. 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:11.199 At the time that I was diagnosed, As I had said, 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:15.520 I was concerned for my job security because I was 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:18.319 perfectly healthy, though I did have this bus to do 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:22.280 anything my blood. So I really was not involved in 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:27.160 any activist sort of groups, at least not in a 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:32.199 public way. I gave money because you could do that anonymously, 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:37.120 but I didn't show up at HIV social groups because 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:39.160 who knew who I was going to run into there 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:41.240 and what they might say to somebody, and what that 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:43.520 somebody might say to somebody else that could cost me 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:44.080 my job. 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:45.920 So no, I wasn't. 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:49.360 But at a certain point it was post cancer, and 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:52.600 I'm not that much of an egomaniac, but I could 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:56.360 not help but believe that there must be something in 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:59.920 my experience that somehow could illuminate the lives of others. 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:03.520 And that's when I decided that it was my turn 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:06.080 to step up. And what I did was I sought 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:09.600 out a speakers program, and there was one. There was one, 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:13.040 tiny little speakers bureau, I should say, the remnants of 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:17.079 a speakers Bureau. It was being run by an organization 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:20.959 called Being Alive Los Angeles. Look them up on the web. 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:26.960 Being Alive as la dot org. Being Alive was founded 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:31.480 now some thirty thirty or more years ago by two 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:35.480 HIV positive guys. Remember this was the darkest days of 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:38.560 the epidemic, and they founded this as a way for 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:42.040 HIV positive men and women to come together and speak 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:46.960 openly to another of our fears and share the rumors 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:51.160 we heard because our doctors were completely stumped. But here 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:54.600 they formed an organization where people could speak in an 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:58.720 authentic voice because we were living it every day. I'd 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:01.440 given lots and lots of money to Being Alive, but 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:05.840 finally it was my turn to put my put some 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:06.720 skin in the game. 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:11.640 Effective treatment for people with HIV didn't really emerge until 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:15.520 the mid nineteen nineties with the introduction of anti retroviral therapy. 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:19.200 All of a sudden AIDS diagnosis was no longer the 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:21.960 death sentence it once was for a lot of people. 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:26.400 Though Frank remained HIV negative throughout the epidemic, he lost 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:29.840 countless friends and his partner at the time, and Hillel 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:33.480 had been diagnosed with HIV in nineteen eighty seven, we 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:37.040 asked them both how things changed once these so called 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:38.960 miracle drugs came onto the scene. 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:45.680 We're talking of good at least ten years or so, 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:50.640 I'm guessing from my memory of when we first heard 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:55.480 about AIDS up to that point when those recombination therapies 0:13:55.559 --> 0:14:01.520 came into play. During those years, just seemed that every 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:06.000 week there was some other drug or some other treatment 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:09.920 that was coming into play. There was a z ty, 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:12.160 and then there was this, and then there was that, 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:18.040 And so in retrospect, when those drugs, those therapies came out, 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:22.480 we did not know at that time obviously what a 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:25.560 game changer it was going to be. But you know, 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:28.840 to us, it was just let's see what the hell 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:31.480 this one does, you know, that kind of thing. So 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:35.680 it wasn't really that big a deal to us at 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:36.120 the time. 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:42.200 Credation inhibitor drugs had entered the scene, and that changed everything. 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:46.720 People were getting up off of death edge, returning to work, 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:50.200 returning to life as productive citizens. There was real reason 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:53.560 for hope again, and so the last thing people wanted 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:55.160 to do was get up in front of a bunch 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:58.160 of high school kids or junior high school kids or 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:02.440 community college kids talk about how miserable their lives were 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:05.200 with HIV, and in fact, we were starting to live 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.920 good lives again. But that's what was most important, That's 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:13.560 what made my participation so urgent, was because you can't 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:16.920 tell by looking. You know, the joke is, you know, 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:18.640 you walk into a gay bar, you can tell who 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:21.120 the hid the guys are there are really fuss good 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:25.520 looking runs because you know, we're taking care of ourselves, right, 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:30.960 but we're walking around with this and you know, as 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:34.160 I grew find as telling my audiences, you really cannot 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:36.240 tell by looking. And that's why I thought it was 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:38.800 so important to carry that message out, to put a 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:42.680 human face of what at that time was a terrifying, 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:44.520 mysterious disease. 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:59.360 We also sat down and spoke with Brian Jackson, whose 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:02.160 story you hurt a little bit of last week. He 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:04.960 was infected with HIV when he was only eleven months 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:10.360 old after his father, a phlebotomist, intentionally injected him with 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:15.479 HIV infected blood in an attempt to avoid paying child support, 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:21.440 which is just the most unfathomably evil thing I can 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:24.640 even think of. Yeah, and he is now his father 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:28.000 is now serving a life sentence in prison for this act. 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:31.920 Yeah, my name is Brian Jackson. But when I was 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:35.560 eleven months old, my father, who was a probotomist at 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:39.560 a hospital, decided to her HIV sainted blood and then 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:42.640 sinsuly injected me with the HIV bias, hoping I would 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:44.920 die off and he wouldn't have to pay child support. 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:48.520 My father stayed in the picture for about a month 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:50.840 longer and told my mom don't worry about looking me 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:53.440 up the child support. This child's not going to live on. 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:56.480 So she didn't think anything about that until nineteen ninety 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.520 six one for being this playful, hockey energetic five year 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:03.520 to this loaded beavers sick kid. In the amounter of months, 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:07.200 my body began to break down and doctor started custody 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:10.960 for numerous diseases, even forever and then just another country. 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:15.280 In conclusion, they came to say, you know, I know 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:17.440 he's not a risk for HIV, but let's. 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:18.200 Testing for HIV. 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.640 The results came back and I was diagnosed with full 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:25.560 blown AIDS. Given five months to this, my T cell. 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:26.679 Count was at zero. 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:30.560 They put me on twenty three or medications through IVY 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:33.600 in a Vatican two ingestion's daily the majority of those 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:37.000 were not available for SHIVEN at the time. But three 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:41.080 months past, five months past, and as I stand before 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:44.639 you today, wasn't supposed to see my sixth birthdays. But 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:48.760 come next month, I'll be celebrated my twenty seventh birthday. 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:53.639 As we talked about last week, a diagnosis of HIV 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:56.720 or AIDS carried with it a stigma and a feeling 0:17:56.840 --> 0:18:00.639 sometimes of impending doom, particularly during the height of the 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.119 AIDS crisis from the mid eighties to the end of 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:05.919 the nineties, when treatment was hard to come by and 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:09.199 ignorance of how the disease worked was rampant, both in 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:13.359 the scientific community and in the public. Hellal and Brian 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:17.520 discussed with us the emotional told that their diagnoses took 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:18.520 on their lives. 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:23.120 When I first became diagnosed with HIV, my body was 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:25.120 just sharing that day. 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:27.200 By day, the muscles of my legs. 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:30.880 Were breaking down, my boundary becoming brittle, and achy. 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:33.600 Was vomiting all the time. 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:37.879 If if it wasn't HIV or the opportunity to conceptions 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:40.280 that were making me sick, it was the side effect 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:43.639 that THEATIS. I've also lost a little bit of my 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:47.879 hearing because the doctors weren't moditing the drug that I 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:51.000 was on, and therefore I lost my hearing. And then 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:55.080 all those years of just battling this illness, I'm actually 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:59.439 another thing I speak about besides HIV is mental health. 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:03.240 When I was thirteen years old, I was. 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:06.600 Really struggling with the question that was left out a 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:07.359 birthday Piet. 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:10.560 And this is when Bullian was really high for me. 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:13.360 At school, I would be getting jumped into the lack 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:15.560 of room and I thirteen, You know, I said, do 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:18.000 you know what? I'm just interview everybody at Favor and 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:20.679 I'm going to kill myself. And I, as thirteen, I 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:23.120 had three knives in front of me, asked myself which one. 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:26.240 He had deeper and I, in. 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:29.320 My moment of desperation, this voice caught me through my 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:32.520 Bible and I read this passage and said why I said, downcast, 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:34.960 tell my soul with your hope in God. And that 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:37.679 would hold stuck out to me. And so this is 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:40.160 about two thousand and three, so I couldn't just. 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:43.520 Go google you know what is hope? But I was really. 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:46.480 Fascinated by the word hope, and I really wanted to 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:49.439 find out what it is, and gat Internet's not going 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:52.439 to cut it, you know. So I'm like reading Booth 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:57.760 and I'm reading I loved Encyclopedia before Wikipedia. And what 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:00.520 I came to is that and I You're going to 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:04.280 go through struggles no matter where. But the consistency we 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:07.359 need to have is hope, and hope is vital. And 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:10.160 so with that, I started to realize that we had 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:11.840 huge choices. 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:14.320 When we have these oh plat moments. 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:16.280 It's either to be a part of the problem or 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:17.440 to be part of the solution. 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:19.840 And I said, you know what, I'm tired of being 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:20.639 a part of the problem. 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:22.760 I want to be part of the solution. I want 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:26.800 to live in victory, not victim mode. And so a 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:31.280 question I asked myself is if I believe that I 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:33.560 have a purpose in life, what is my purpose? 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:35.960 And I started asking that question that we. 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:39.360 All asking that victim zone, It's what can I get 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:42.440 out of this? And I realized that life isn't about 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:44.600 what you can get, it's about what you can give. 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:46.400 And then I started asking. 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:47.240 What do I have to give? 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:49.919 And I saw that I had a pass and I 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:53.399 had a story, and my story is now a story 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:56.879 of hope. And I think the word is missing hope. 0:20:57.480 --> 0:20:59.600 So I wanted to just start sharing that story of 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:02.320 part And so since the year just thirteen, I've been 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:09.600 in Motivation Speaking and traveled all around the world to Haiti, Ecuador, Kenya. 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:12.960 Last year I was main Canada Speaker of the Year 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:17.280 and so Motivation Are Speaking for me is my tient 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:21.080 to give back to people whoever struggling with something in 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:25.040 their life, whether it's mental health, whether it's disease, whether 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:28.480 it's just a day to day life problem. And I 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:31.000 would just want to empower people that there is hope 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:34.600 and that hope is vital and that regardless of your situation, 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:38.560 you can do anything and you can overcome it and 0:21:38.640 --> 0:21:39.120 you can be. 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:41.600 The best person you're capable of being. 0:21:43.720 --> 0:21:45.960 And so there I was sitting in my beautiful office 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:48.040 when I get a phone call from the doctor after 0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:50.280 those seven days to tell me that the chest results 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:54.560 came back and they were positive. And as I sat 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:56.440 there and listened to all of that, all I could 0:21:56.440 --> 0:21:59.480 think of, first, Oh my god, how am I ever 0:21:59.520 --> 0:22:04.240 going to my parents? See I was between my thirtieth 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:06.600 and thirty first birthday at that time, and I know 0:22:06.680 --> 0:22:09.879 to many people that seems impossibly old, but it is not. 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:14.919 When you are between thirty and thirty one, your entire 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:17.399 life is ahead of you, or at least it should be. 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:21.280 But there I was in my thirtieth and thirty first birthday, 0:22:21.359 --> 0:22:24.480 and the primary relationship I had in my life, for 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:27.520 better for worse, is with my parents. I'm also the 0:22:27.600 --> 0:22:29.760 oldest of three kids, and I don't know if anyone 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:32.000 out there is the oldest in their family, but I 0:22:32.040 --> 0:22:35.360 can clue you if you aren't, that is the oldest. 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:38.879 That child that is the repository of all their parents. Fond, 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:41.720 just houpes and dreams. Right, we're the ones that are 0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:44.800 going to change the world. We're going to have grandchildren, 0:22:44.880 --> 0:22:47.320 We're going to shine in our lives and make them 0:22:47.359 --> 0:22:51.720 proud on that afternoon that no longer was a possibility 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:56.520 for me. And you know, I'm no kind of an actor. 0:22:56.560 --> 0:22:58.600 When they walked in the house, they cleanly saw that 0:22:58.680 --> 0:23:00.920 something was wrong on their own. Say, no one knows 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:05.960 me better, or in this case, knows me least. But 0:23:06.040 --> 0:23:07.880 that's when I had to sit them down and tell 0:23:07.920 --> 0:23:10.400 them that it was time to start planning my funeral. 0:23:12.520 --> 0:23:15.879 You know, it's wrong for a parent to bury a 0:23:16.000 --> 0:23:21.520 child out of the national order of things. We're supposed 0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:25.920 to go to our parents' funerals, cause our parents' fuderals, right, 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:29.080 every since the day they gave with those cartoons at sixteen, 0:23:29.119 --> 0:23:31.359 they have not select a night. I guarantee you that 0:23:34.560 --> 0:23:38.399 I remember my mother's eyes filled with tears, and my 0:23:39.520 --> 0:23:42.760