My life - forever changed by HIV and AIDS

It is World AIDS Day today.  It was in November 1989 that I first became a volunteer for the West Australian AIDS Council, and became an employee three months later.  Twenty one years have passed and as this year's Australian World AIDS Day awareness campaign says  " HIV is still here".

We are thankfully a long way from the days where the breakdown of people's immune systems was so quick and destructive that men, women and children in Australia, were dying in significant numbers.

Back then, I was part of a team that worked diligently in educating the public, supporting those who were diagnosed as HIV positive, as well as part of the Home Care team where we cared for those who chose to die at home. It was an intense time and one of deep personal growth.  It was not easy being able to convince the public they could not "catch " HIV off someone that was living with the virus, by sitting next to them or passing them on the street, or working with them in an office, or by taking a drink from their glass, or a bite of a sandwich!

One must remember that many people became HIV positive from giving blood or from being a haemophiliac.  I personally knew one woman who originally came from the USA,  who lost her six brothers to AIDS as they were haemophiliacs.  There was in those days a lot of panic and even more apparent was the ignorance and unwillingness of the public at large to become informed and educated about the basics of transmission.  Rumours and unfounded hearsay spread like wildfire and the Helpline at the AIDS Council was inundated with calls from the public needing reassurance they had not contracted HIV from the most simplest of incidents to the most complex.

During my time as an employee I organised three World AIDS Day awareness programs.  The most adventurous of these was a sponsored walk "Around the World" beginning at the Supreme Court Gardens down to the Causeway Bridge back along South Perth Foreshore, over the Narrows bridge returning to the Supreme Court Gardens.  Scattered along this walk were flags from nations around the world with signs giving the number of people affected with HIV living there. There was a great turnout and I recall it raining just after the walk started, but many of the 100's of people that turned up completed the course.

World AIDS Day marked on December 1st each year, began in 1988 and has continued through to this day with sales of Red Ribbons and the handing out of condoms to the public.  It is marked the world over with the World Health Organisation always having a theme to mark each December 1st.  Nationally here in Australia there is usually a theme that is more applicable to this country.

My journey with HIV & AIDS was stressful, rewarding, humbling and certainly intense at times.  I met some amazing people during those days in my role as telephone counsellor, bookkeeper, carer, driver and educator amongst many other duties.  When I resigned from the AIDS Council in 1993,  I became the Manager a Respite House for Silver Chain Nursing Association which was set up for people living with HIV and AIDS.  This was an amazing venture, the first of its kind in Australia, where volunteers were the back bone of the houses' success.  Recruitment and training was undertaken 3 times a year and I remain in awe of the man hours put in by those amazing men and women who willingly gave up their time to attend intensive training and work shifts on a weekly or fortnightly basis.  These volunteers were acknowledged by receiving the "Volunteers of the Year" award which I accepted on their behalf from the then Premier of Western Australia, Richard Court.  

Nurses were on call should a resident need medical intervention and our little house became a house of love for those who were dying, for the primary carers who needed time out and for those in need of temporary of support and understanding with their health issues.

Men and women came and went and died.  There was some wonderful cooking, lots of massages, much laughter, many tears and many a resident who chose to die surrounded by the love of people they had only just come to know. In those two years alone, I attended something like twenty eight funerals, visited Ward 10 in Royal Perth more often than I care to remember and spent many a night at someone's home by their bed ensuring they did not feel alone in the wee small hours, as they spent their last days in their own bed.

An amazing time of my life for which I have been forever changed.  It was a deeply personal journey throughout those years, an enriching time, one of personal expansion and meaning. To all of you beautiful souls who contributed to my journey and to those of you who are still  in my life, thank you for being you!