I feel like talking about something important.  Something grand.  Something larger than the rest of us.  I feel like talking about HIV and AIDS.

 

Right now, right here in Canada, it is estimated that 60, 000 people are living with HIV.  60, 000 people.  That’s almost the same size of the town I grew up in.  What’s even more frightening is that 1/3^rd of these people – 20, 000 Canadians – don’t even know they are infected.  Scary stuff.

 

HIV is an acronym for Human Immunodeficiency Virus.  Once contracted, this virus gets to work on destroying your immune system.  Every one is different for the timeline of immuno-obliteration, but it always comes.  Always.  There’s no escaping it once you are infected; unless, of course, you seek treatment (more on that, later).  Eventually the viral load will build up so great in your system that you’ll be classified as having AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome).  The two are different.  AIDS, technically, could be caused by any disease process that strips you of your immune system that you “acquired” in life (ie. were not born with it).  HIV will always lead to AIDS if you live long enough – it can take anywhere from 3 – 10, or even 15 or 20 years before full-blown AIDS develops.  It all depends on your general health and medications.

 

Yet, HIV/AIDS is classified as a hidden epidemic in Canada and North America.  It’s also very challenging to find accurate statistics on the diseases, too.  For example, the tainted-blood scandal of the 1980’s resulted in over 20, 000 Canadians becoming infected with hepatitis C (a liver disease to which there is no vaccine or cure) and HIV.  However, of that 20, 000 lump-sum number, only a little over 1, 000 people contracted HIV.  So where did the rest of 59, 000 people come from?  Approximately 5, 000 people with HIV have immigrated to Canada since the 1980’s, there’s a few hundred in federal penitentiaries, and about 10, 000 infections have occurred from injection drug use.  Aboriginals are misrepresented; nearly 10, 000 women and 50, 000 men are infected; and women currently are on the rise for infection rates.  Nearly half of all infections are from men having sex with men – the list of mind-boggling statistics goes on and on.  It is quite challenging to sort out.

 

Not only that, but to even get HIV means you have to be exposed to someone who has the virus.  And even if they have the virus, the viral load in their blood has to be high enough to allow for transmission.  Not only that, but there must be a route of transmission and a high enough concentration of the virus passed into your bloodstream for you to maybe sort of kind of get infected.  One study I read even showed that men who were circumcised had a 50% reduced risk of becoming infected through heterosexual intercourse.

 

It’s a lot of information to take in and sort out.  I’m not trying to write a scientific paper on it – I’m just throwing around some information I have come across in the hopes that it will make you think and wonder.

 

Like, have you ever gone and got an HIV test before?  If not, why?  I have.  Did I truly honestly with all my heart believe that I had it?  No.  But you never know until you are tested.  Some people go 10 years without knowing and then, one day, nearly drop dead as if being attacked by the worst flu ever and then mysteriously recover; but now with an AIDS diagnosis.  Scary.  I got tested because I read somewhere that you should know your HIV status.  It makes sense.  Why be afraid of knowing it?  Why be ashamed?  There’s nothing shameful about it.  You have a right to know your HIV status.  If you’ve ever had unprotected sex, received blood, or potentially got someone’s blood or body fluids into your own blood stream then you should get tested.  Even if you haven’t – you could be the most sheltered and protected person in the world – you should still get tested.  Why?  It helps with the statistics.  It makes scientists happy.  At least they can now say there is one fewer person with an HIV diagnosis.  I think we should all be tested, for all that we can test for, just so we know where the country stands demographically.  Of course, that would lead to a huge uproar in human rights, etc.  But things are coming, things we can’t protect from or be prepared for.  SARS was just a glimpse into the biological nightmare soon to haunt us.  My advice:  get tested for HIV and Hep C – it’s better to know and deal than not know at all and later get a sucker punch from life.

 

So, how does one deal?  Right now, HIV/AIDS has a terrible stigma.  Horrible stigma.  Under-education to boot!  This evening I read a statistic saying x-percentage of high school students 14 – 17 believe there is a vaccine for HIV (I forget the percentage).  The number isn’t relevant – the fact that even one kid out there, in Canada, thinks that there is a vaccine is one too many.  There is no vaccine and there is no cure.  There are only anti-viral treatments.  You have to plan when to start them – it’s a personal decision based on many factors.  Do you start right away, or wait until you start to become ill?  Once you start you can’t stop, you must continue the treatments for the rest of you life.  You can still live a long and healthy life if you take the treatments, too.  It’s a whole bunch of pills to pop, everyday, for the rest of your life.  I remember seeing an ad online.  It was a billboard divided into two.  On the left side was a condom package with the caption, “If you can’t commit to this …” and on the right side was an endless array of various pills, along with another caption, “then how do you expect to commit to these?”  I liked that ad and found it very powerful.

 

HIV/AIDS research and knowledge has come far in just 25 years.  It’s quite impressive, actually.  The once terrifying and “gay-man” disease has been realized into the ultimate virus of humanity that knows no discrimination.  It changes and mutates everyday – it’s a constant biological war.  We develop a cure (and cures have been found), but the virus eludes it and mutates again.  There’s 3 strains, I think, of HIV in existence today.  It has spread to infect over 40 million people worldwide since the early 1970’s.  That’s about 0.6% of the entire world’s population in a little under 40 years.  I know it doesn’t sound like much, percentage-wise, but you have to remember that these things work on an exponential curve.  Hit the tipping point before a vaccine or cure is found and we are fucked.  Big time fucked.

 

So, in the end, what am I saying?  I think we need more education on HIV/AIDS.  What happened to all the commercials from the 80’s of “no glove, no love”?  Why has the fear of this disease dissolved into the background of society?  How did we ever let it become a hidden epidemic.

 

I don’t know about you, but the idea of something microscopic killing me is down right scary.  It’s a smart virus – it’ll never stop fighting.  What do we do if it ever mutates and spreads through human contact like the common cold?

 

Or maybe I just think too much.

 

 

I know I should have written this entry before the end of 2007, but the motivational and time factors simply did not play out as planned.

 

So I'm writing it now.

 

Wow.  28 years of life, and counting.  That's rather exciting.  The past 8 years have all been about growing up and becoming the person I am today; I'm very pleased with who I turned out to be.

 

There's been many rough times over the past 8 years.  The big one, of course, was when my brother Chris unexpectedly passed away.  That was hard.  Very hard.  But I got through it, for the most part.  I pushed away many friends, too, or just didn't bother to make the effort to maintain the friendships.  That's a shame, but it's what happened.  It would be nice to have more friends, I think.

 

Anyhow, 2007 has been a wild year.  It's over, now, but I have good memories.  Work has been going really well, and soon I shall be working in the CT/Angio department.  I got a raise, have made good work-relationships with my co-workers, and find that most people here really like me.  You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone saying a bad word about me.  That alone speaks volumes.

 

My student loans have steadily been going down.  They should be gone by April of 2008.  That's incredible, considering how much student-loan-debt I graduated with.

I took two courses through one of my professional associations, and plan on taking a final third one to complete the series.  I guess I'm still a student, at heart.

I decided to become more financially aware, so I bought some books on investing and actually read them!  wow!  Not only that, but I've set up some regular deduction plans for RRSP's and investment vehicles.

 

I've even fallen in love - unexpected, though definately appreciated.  There are some snags and issues, but who knows, perhaps we can work things out.  It's been a long time since I've been in love with anyone or anything, for that matter.

 

I know this isn't the in-depth, page-turning entry that everyone was hoping for (not that anyone really reads this), but it's all I have to say right now.  I'm starting the new year out with a slight cold from exhaustion, but I do have 4 days off now.  Then I start up in CT/Angio.  The future looks very bright, indeed; I'm happy.