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They Key to Believingchapter 5
The LettersEveryone in the laboratory was buzzing with excitement Friday; Sloane stayed in her office working. The possibility of a new integrase inhibitor was a fantastic development, but the possibility that there would be more side effects was also very probable, and that thought loomed over her head like a heavy weight she could no longer hold. She looked over the homeopathic solutions that people had recommended to her, and found herself wanting to talk to Steve, knowing she would see him at that weekend with everyone. She looked over the comments on alternative medicinal treatments such as hypnosis and acupressure, which supposedly alleviated discomfort from the drugs. But she knew there was something more to learn about dealing with these drugs. There had to be. She looked over the outline for the book, which now gained the working title “Winning the War”, named because the book was about home remedies to help AIDS patients. She was asked to write the introduction and the last chapter. The remaining staff would fill in the rest, and they were dividing up the chapters during the day Friday. She figured she could start writing the introduction over the weekend. No one had come to her with any ideas about a vaccine. She asked Kyle what he thought of her notes, and he answered with, “We’ve been working on so much, and with the good news this week about the integrase inhibitor and all of the homeopathy notes to work on, there just hasn’t been any time to work on it. I’m sure in a week or two people can get to it, but probably not until then.” In the back of her head she knew he was right; she just didn’t want to hear it. She continued to work on her notes in her office. Someone knocked on her door. “Come in,” she said. Howard opened her door. “How long are you staying here? You’re going to be late for Colin’s party.” Looking down at her watch, it said it was already 6:15. “I didn’t realize the time,” she answered. “How long does it take to drive there?” “Twenty minutes. I forgot you drove. My car is in the shop.” “I’ll give you a ride, if you need it.” “Thanks. I’d appreciate it. So you’re going to go straight from here?” “Yeah. Want to leave in a half hour?” “Sure.” “Just come bug me when you’re ready.” “No problem.” When Howard left her office she watched him smile as he closed the door; she could sense everyone was excited ... everyone except her. Sloane knew she was supposed to be happy. Things were going amazingly well. They had a lead on an integrase inhibitor that might be more effective than the other drugs, because it was generated from a natural versus synthetic base. They were about to work on a book that would get out to the market in two months to help AIDS patients. They were starting a clinical study on homeopathy. Looking back to her list of notes about a vaccine, she knew she had to come up with something, but she didn’t know where to begin. She kept thinking of when she first wrote her list: -------------------------- 4. a vaccine. 5. a cure. -------------------------- These were the parts of the puzzle that needed to be solved. These drug advances, she thought -- and knew -- were battles. She knew that the vaccine and the cure were what would win the war. Her watch read 6:40. Howard would be knocking on her door momentarily. Knowing that this was a time for the staff to relax, she knew she should be happy -- and congratulate the technicians, particularly Ellen. They needed this moment. They deserved it. Gathering her belongings, Howard made it into her office. “Does anyone else need a ride?” She asked him. “Um, no, I don’t think so. Most everyone is gone, and I think everyone remaining here has rides.” “Let’s get going then.” She turned off her lights and shut her door. She saw the cords from her computer coming out of her briefcase. She stuffed them back in and walked out of the laboratory with Howard.
Howard rang the doorbell and she stood by his side. One of Colin’s maids opened the door. “Oh, come in. Everyone is in the main room.” Walking down the hallway confidently, Howard followed. The marble tiles under her feet clicked when the heels of her shoes touched them. Her eyes remained fixed on the end of the hallway; Howard couldn’t help but be distracted by the chandeliers and oil paintings in the hallway. He followed her to the main room, where another servant was waiting to take their coats. Sloane handed her coat to the man and waited for Howard to remove his. A few people from the main room noticed their arrival. There were about 50 people in the room. “Sloane!” Kyle called out as he gestured her over. She walked over to Kyle and his wife. “You remember Elisa, don’t you?” “Yes, of course. How are you?” “Oh, I’m alright. Things are going well with your work?” “Hence the party, darling,” Kyle answered her before Sloane could. “It’s taken a lot of work and probably an equal amount of luck,” she answered. “Hope Kyle hasn’t worked too late too often.” “Well, he loves his work...” Elisa trailed off and turned her head away from the conversation. Kyle turned to her. “You know, I wanted to tell you it’s been --” “Kyle,” she whispered, “tell me later. Your wife needs you now.” He looked over to his wife and she seemed visibly upset. “It was good to see you again,” she said to Elisa. “I’m sure I’ll get the chance to catch up with you later.” “Yes, thank you, you too,” Elisa answered. Scanning the room, Sloane finally spotted Ellen Thompson talking to a few members of her team. Sloane made her way across the room and put her arm around Ellen’s shoulder. “So ... What’s the working title of our integrase inhibitor? Thomavan?” Ellen instantly turned red. “Oh, you wouldn’t suggest --” “You seem to deserve the credit for this one, Ellen. We’re all thrilled with what you’ve done.” “Well, it has a lot of testing to go through.” “I know, I know. But tonight is not about that. It’s about rewarding a job well done.” A voice outside the conversation added: “Exactly.” Everyone turned their head to see who joined the conversation. Knowing the voice was Colin’s, she turned her head more slowly than the rest of the group. “Colin, I haven’t had the chance to say hello yet, much less thank you for this,” she turned and said to her boss. Colin smiled. “Well, rewarding you guys for a job well done is the least I can do. Besides, you guys are satisfied with beer and wine and cheese. Imagine if I had to thank the marketing department for something; I’d have to forget medical school for my first born to throw them a party.” The group laughed. “Let me know if you need anything,” Colin continued, “I’m going to check on the hors d’oeuvres.” The rest of the evening consisted of the same pattern: Sloane would walk up to a group of people to listen to their conversation; Sloane would be noticed and the conversation would turn to what accomplishments everyone recently made; Sloane would thank everyone; Sloane would find the first opportunity she could to leave the group; Sloane would walk up to another group; repeat cycle.
Eventually, she walked over to a chair by the living room window. She sat down and looked outside. Everyone was thrilled with the chance of excelling further with the drugs they’d created, but all she could think about were the possible side affects or the additional drugs patients would have to take. The current cocktails of drugs were taxing enough on the mental and physical balances of the people taking them; adding more drugs would just make it worse. It was almost pouring outside. It was a heavy rain, not the usual drizzle she was used to at this time of year. Homeopathy was an option, but she knew she didn’t know enough about it, and she knew there was something more than homeopathy that was helping AIDS patients deal with their illnesses. The solutions to the AIDS puzzle were somewhere else, not in these cocktails. She’d have to let them celebrate, let them continue to work on these short-term solutions. And she would continue to look for that missing piece of the puzzle, the piece that had always eluded her. A vaccine had to be worked on. She thought the work on a cure would take so long that it would be nearly pointless to start. If they could strengthen the cocktails and eliminate the side effects, maybe they could be the foundation for a long-term cure, one that took three years of pills to achieve, in the near future. But that was for the future. The present called for a vaccine. And the present called for finding out how people coped. The present called for anything other than this party. They needed to celebrate, but all she could think of was the mounds of work ahead of her. She looked at her watch. It was 8:45. People would probably still be at this party for a few hours, she thought. She wondered when would be a tasteful time to go. She wondered if people would miss her. How long had she been sitting there already, with no one coming up to talk to her? “Sloane?” She jerked around in the chair. It was one of the technicians, with his wife. “Are you okay?” “Yes, I’ve just been feeling a little under the weather.” “Are you sure? Maybe you should lie down. Or get some sleep.” “Yes, maybe I need some sleep.” Sloane got up and thought that it was a perfect opportunity to leave. “I should say my goodbyes to everyone, though.” She walked with the two to the center of the room to find Colin. Howard and Kyle met up with her while she was explaining she was under the weather and saying goodbye. “Howard, can you find another way home, will you be alright, or do you need me to give you a ride home?” “Oh, I’m sure someone here can give me a ride.” “I just wouldn’t want you to have to leave early on my account.” “Don’t worry about it. Now go home and get some rest.” Picking out her coat at the front hallway, she then opened her umbrella and stepped outside. When she got out of her car in front of her apartment, the rain was still falling down in sheets. She fumbled with her umbrella while her car door was cracked open. Her arms and her left leg were already wet, as was the inside of her car. She gave up on the umbrella and stepped out of her car as she closed the umbrella. The rain felt like a shower against her. She held her trench coat closed around her waist, kept her briefcase tucked under her arm and walked into her building. Dropping her umbrella next to her front door, she walked straight to her desk and set her computer up. She took off her trench coat, hung it on the coat rack by the front door and pulled her blouse from under her pants as she walked through her living room. The neckline of her blouse was soaking wet. She looked down at her pants; they were also soaked from the knees down. She kicked off her shoes and changed into a sweat suit. She walked back into her living room. Sloane got on line and checked her messages. Responses from her homeopathy postings stopped after about two days; she had no more mail about homeopathy. She got on the web and went to the same message boards she went to before, about homeopathy and AIDS. She posted a message on every bulletin board she could find. “Hello. I’m trying to help AIDS patients and people who are HIV-positive. I know people that are surviving for years with AIDS. In all honestly, I’d like to know how they stay so healthy, how they deal with it, and what works for them. Is there anyone out there who would be interested in telling me what forms of alternative medicine, homeopathy, or nutrition they use in order to help them out? For instance, what do you do to deal with the number of pills you take every day, or with the side effects you can get from the drugs? I’d like to know what people do to battle this, whether it’s support from a network of family and friends, getting back to religion -- anything. I’d like to learn more about this aspect of treating and living with HIV and AIDS. I’d like to be able to share your stories with others, but if you want, let me know and your stories will remain completely confidential. Please e-mail me; I’m hoping that you can help me help others. Thank you very much for your time.” There were groups of peers with HIV and AIDS, and groups that did volunteer work for AIDS patients. There was even a conspiracy bulletin board that mentioned AIDS. She posted her message everywhere she could. After getting off the Internet, she opened a text document. She looked over the homeopathy notes. She looked at the blank screen. She wanted to start writing. She looked at the clock on the wall; the time was 10:45. She hadn’t even started writing and already she had writer’s block. She got up and went to bed; she figured she could write an introduction in the morning.
It was the middle of the day when she walked out into her kitchen and saw a roach crawling along the floor. She walked over to it and stepped on it, reaching over to the counter for a paper towel to clean the floor off. She walked over to the sink to wash her hands; she reached down to the lower cabinet to get a cleaner for the floor, and she saw another roach in the cabinet. She stopped. “Where are these roaches coming from?” she thought. She reached around the roach and found her roach spray. She took the paper towel still in her hand and smashed the second roach. Standing up again, fully equipped with her roach spray, she closed the cabinet door. She threw the paper towel in the trashcan in the pantry. “I don’t leave food out, where would the roaches come from?” She thought as she put her hand on the counter and bent over to start spraying along the floor of her kitchen. She felt something on her hand. She looked over at the counter and saw two roaches crawling along the side of her hand. She let out a light scream and jumped. “Millions of years. They’ve been on this planet millions of years, they’re such simple creatures, and still we humans can’t kill them. A nuclear explosion wouldn’t even kill them,” she mumbled, grabbing another paper towel and smashed the two roaches. Where are they coming from? And why are they here all of a sudden? How long have they been hiding in my cabinets? Sloane walked back across the kitchen to the cabinet under her sink to see if she had any roach motels. She rummaged through the bottles of disinfectant and household cleaners. No roach motels. No ant spray. She had just one can of roach spray. She stood up again and closed the cabinet door. She turned around. She screamed again. Fifty roaches, maybe more, crawled around her floor and up and down her cabinets. She didn’t know where to start spraying. She didn’t have the speed to smash all of the bugs by herself. Her roach spray wasn’t strong enough. She looked around in a panic. She didn’t know what to do. She tried to remember the last time that her apartment was sprayed for bugs. “I can’t kill all of these myself. What am I going to do?” she thought. She leaned back on her refrigerator. She felt something on her shoulder. And with her final scream she sprung up in her bed, sweating and panting. It was four in the morning. She looked around her bedroom. She knew she needed more sleep. “One more dream to add to the list,” she thought. “And they’re always about losing control.” She got up and walked over to her window. She thought about her dream. Something miniscule, something less than human, was still something she couldn’t beat. Her dream was beginning to make sense. There wasn’t enough roach spray. Her spray wasn’t strong enough. She wasn’t fast enough. There was nothing she could do to get rid of the disease. “I mean, the roaches.” Sloane corrected herself. Looking out the window, she watched a few cars driving down the streets near her house. From her floor the cars looked small; all you could see were two small streaks of headlights. They looked like an insect’s antennae. She turned away from the window and crawled back into bed.
Toby rolled over on Saturday morning and tried to read the clock next to his bed. In the early hours of day, such as these, his eyes routinely refused to focus clearly. He looked around his room. Remembering the night before, he checked and confirmed that there was no one in bed with him. Sometimes he had to manually check over his memories to make sure there wasn’t something that he had forgotten. He hated thinking at times like that about things that could have gone wrong. Toby tried to think analytically and started analyzing his actions. He preferred to think about what Sloane would think at times like this in his life. He thought about that at times like this. He knew she would think that it didn’t make sense to spend time with other women, especially if he knew he didn’t love them. He knew she would think that her definitions of love were different from his. Maybe that’s why she had never married. At least that was what he liked to think about, when his roaming thoughts made their way back to thoughts about Sloane. Toby hadn’t talked to her for a few days, and he was curious about her progress with changing the drugs. He knew that was not a good topic to ask about, because if he started her on the subject, she might not be able to get herself off the subject. Maybe, Toby thought, maybe that was why he liked the company of other women, because they didn’t ask him questions about his job, because they thought he was smart. Because they thought he was important. Granted, they were not organized women, they were not always levelheaded women, but they were women who thought he had merit, they were women who thought he was successful. They were women willing to shower him with attention. That was what he needed sometimes. He knew full well that she wouldn’t give him any attention like that. It was not her style. He sat up in bed long enough to see his excuse for clothes piled on the floor near his bedroom chair. His clothes were wadded into a ball on the chair, hanging down to the floor. He looked at the clothes on the floor and in his chair, and he looked at the poster prints he had framed in his bedroom, and he looked at the spare change and the containers thrown about in his room. He liked seeing his room look like that, he thought. Other people might not have liked the clutter, but it made him look like he had put enough time into decorating his apartment. This way his place didn’t look like a hotel room. It looked like his home. He always had the same craving in the morning, after the beginnings of a hangover set in. He always wanted hash browns and an omelet with extra sausage links on the side. It was a usual craving for him, and when he got that craving, well, he knew then that he just had to satisfy it. He would usually go to the local diner without a shower on late mornings like this. So he got up and got ready to go out for breakfast.
Sloane woke up Saturday morning still thinking about the dream she had that woke her up. She knew they needed to have stronger drugs for AIDS patients, drugs that worked faster to combat the speed of this virus. And she knew that a vaccine was imperative. She went straight into work and worked alone in the office until 6:00 that night. She started narrowing down what kinds of vaccines would probably produce the best results. She started working on preparations for some laboratory work that she would start on Monday. When she got home she thought about starting the introduction of the book. She turned on her computer and thought she would get on the Internet first. Before her computer got the chance to dial up, She received a phone call. “Hello?” “It’s Carter.” “Carter? It’s awfully late in your neck of the woods.” “I know, but I wanted to know how the book was going.” “I was thinking of starting the introduction. You got the outline I faxed, right?” “Yes, I did.” “I was thinking of plowing through the introduction this weekend.” “You think it will be that fast?” “I’ll do my best.” “Okay, I was just checking.” “Are you okay, Carter?” “Yeah, I’m fine. Why?” “Well, it’s late, on your time, and you’re calling me about this book.” “I just wanted to check. I worked all day, I’m not going out tonight.” “You too? I’m supposed to go out to a benefit dinner tonight. So in some ways I’m going out, but in some ways I’m not.” “Yeah. I guess I just have work on my brain as well.” “You too?” Carter laughed. “Okay, I’ll let you get to writing. Talk to you later.” “Oh, wait, Carter, I forgot to tell you the good news.” Carter stopped. “Yes?” “It looks like we have a start on a new integrase inhibitor.” “Isn’t that one of the things you were going to start working on this week?” “Yes.” “And you got something this fast?” “I tell you, Carter, my people are good.” “Sloane -- that’s great news! Congratulations.” “Well, thanks. It’ll take some time to work everything out, but...” “I’m really happy for you.” “Hey, this should help with the book publicity, too.” “I should have thought of that. It didn’t occur to me.” There was a slight pause in their conversation. “I’ll tell you more about it when I talk to you about the book next week.” “Yeah, we should both get some rest.” “And I should get to work on that introduction, but if I go to this dinner, I might have to wait until tomorrow to start working on the introduction.” “Well, remember to sleep...” “I will. Have a good night, Carter.” “You too.” They both slowly hung up their phones. Sloane turned back to her computer. He was right; she should start on the first chapter before she checked her e-mail. Any letters would still be there tomorrow.
After choosing a simple dress for the dinner, she slid it over her shoulders. She didn’t even want to wear any make-up; she checked her appearance in the mirror in the hallway to make sure that she looked presentable. Within fifteen minutes her doorbell rang. What she didn’t realize was that nothing looked just ’simple’ on her. When Steve talked to her earlier in the week, he insisted that he was going to give her a ride to the dinner. She only insisted once that she could get there on her own, but she stopped herself from insisting again. She was expecting him to pick her up at seven in the evening. When she opened the door, she saw Steve in a suit. She was used to seeing him in casual clothes. They both stared at each other for a moment. “You look amazing,” Steve finally said. “Thank you,” she responded as she started to grin and said “you look presentable too.” After she said that, she knew that Steve would have expected her to say something more complimentary to him about how he looked. Maybe it was for the best that she didn’t say anything too nice. “Do you want to get to the dinner a little early?” “We can.” “Unless you want to go somewhere for a drink first, we have the time to do that.” Steve thought this was a chance for him to see Sloane drink. Maybe she wouldn’t get drunk, like the women he usually saw when he went out, but this could be a chance. “Your call. I don’t have any liquor here, but there’s probably a bar we could pass on our way to the dinner.” “I’ll see if there’s something on the way,” he answered. Steve helped her get her jacket on and escorted her to the car. Steve stopped on the way to dinner to a place he had never been to before. “I don’t know how this place is; would you like to stop here?” “That’s fine,” she answered. Steve thought she seemed quiet during the ride, but for Sloane this was just like any other occasion, where she didn’t have much to say. A part of her was unsettled with interacting with Steve, because she didn’t know what to do, so she hoped he would take the lead. He was thinking the same way, which seemed to lead them nowhere. They went into the bar together. It occurred to her that if Steve had been here before, then she would look like his date and that she should look like a woman interested in him. It wasn’t a dressy bar, and the other people there looked like they had been working at the nearby factory all day. She felt that her and Steve looked out of place, since they were the only ones dressed up. Steve apologized for the lack of class at the bar. “We could go somewhere else for a drink, but I don’t know any other bars around here.” “I’m sure the hotel next to the dinner has a bar too,” Sloane answered. “But if we’re not looking for the ambiance of the bar, this place is fine. What do you want to drink?” As soon as she asked that question, she knew that she shouldn’t take on the role of hostess to this man she barely knew. The bartender walked up and waited for their order. Steve asked for a Berghoff’s beer on tap. She followed his lead and said she would like the same. They had their drink and tried to make conversation to kill the time before they were supposed to be at the dinner. She tried to keep away from talking about her job, since that was what she would probably talk about with colleagues after dinner. So she asked him about his job. “Before writing the column, I taught mostly high school business courses.” “What kind of courses?” “Word processing, database work, career planning, you know,” he answered. “The students do work like check writing and account management and things that should be important to kids, but they don’t want to learn it.” “That’s exactly why they should learn it. Even if they think right now that they don’t need to.” “But how do you teach fourteen year-old kids how to balance a checkbook?” “You remind them early on that money has value. And you do not call them ’kids’. You teach them that what you earn has value.” “But kids don’t learn it. They don’t know it when they reach high school...” “That’s a parent problem more than it is a high school teacher problem. Solve the problem at an early age.” “But what do you do for the kids who never learned that?” “That’s why I’m not a teacher any longer. I don’t have the answers to questions like that. That is what counselors and principals and parents and teachers are for. In a way it is still my problem.” Holding her head down as she responded. “Don’t be mad, but yes, in a way a part of it is your problem. Sorry.” “Then what do I do about it?” Sloane knew there was no easy answer to that question, so she mentioned that someone should have come up with the answer before tonight. She also knew they had to go to dinner soon. Before deciding to go to dinner, she had to get it out in the open to them. “Is it just me, or is all of this a problem that we should both deal with?” “What?” She attempted to get it out in the open. “Do you like me, Steve?” That one caught him off guard. He answered. “I like you more than I care to admit, I think.” “I can gather that you are the womanizing type, that you do the best to make all the right moves --” “I’m not that way, and I am sure you wouldn’t want those ’right moves’. I have been avoiding you because of it.” Steve was almost offended that he seemed this shallow to a woman he barely knew. “Maybe that’s what I needed; maybe you should have taken charge --” “Maybe you talk too much.” This caught her off guard. “What?” Steve immediately leaned over, grabbed her neck and started to kiss her passionately. He even grabbed her hair to pull her head away from his when he was done. Steve immediately felt at the moment like the thrill of sex was killed with her, that she killed it when she answered his gesture. “Is that what you wanted?” he asked. Sloane waited for a half minute before she spoke. “Wipe my lipstick off your face.” Steve grabbed a napkin, saying, “You are cold,” as his wiped his face. “You made this decision to like me,” she answered. “You made your bed, as they say. Now you have to --” “I know. Head to the Hilton Hotel,” which they inevitably did, and they found their way to their dining table. That was where she spotted Kyle. Before the meal was finished, they started playing music. Steve liked the big band music and asked her to dance. She knew full well that he was doing this so he would look good, and so that they would look good together. She knew he was trying to be nice, and she didn’t have any opportunity to tell Steve it was unnecessary, she consented to his request and mentioned, “You’ll have to bear with me. I don’t dance.” Steve was a gentleman throughout the dances. He had a style and grace when he danced, even with Sloane, even with someone who said they couldn’t dance. Sloane saw Kyle and his wife dancing at one point; she thought it was refreshing to see them together dancing. Kyle’s wife Elisa seemed happier than she did at a lot of the formal parties Elisa went to. She opened a text program early Sunday morning so she could do the writing she should have done the night before... “I’ll start with some grizzly facts, facts you might not want to hear, or facts you might know all too well. Twenty-two million people are currently infected with HIV. Five new victims are infected every minute. Ninety-four percent of infections occur in undeveloped countries. AIDS is now the leading cause of death of men and women between the ages of 25 and 44 years in our country. “Medications and drugs have been difficult to develop for HIV for many reasons. Constant check-ups are necessary, because a change in viral load would necessitate a change in the amount of medication to be taken at any given time. The virus multiplies very rapidly in the body, making it almost too fast to fall when under attack. During HIV’s life cycle in a body, it mutates constantly. This increases the chances of cells mutating into a less ’prone’ cell by the body. These cells then continue to mutate and multiply, making it harder to fight. “A cure is difficult because the virus integrates itself into normal cells. And initial waves of success in studies have led to high expectations -- that have often failed. “Drugs that have been developed have made great progress in lengthening the amount of time the human body can battle the virus. The medical community has developed drugs that each attack a different part of the virus, in effect staging a multiple-level attack. “But the focus of these drugs is to get rid of the virus in the body. There is another way to destroy the virus. “All viruses attack the human body’s immune system. Drugs to date have worked on removing the virus from the body, but the drugs also weaken healthy cells in the immune system. Strengthening the immune system can also help the body naturally fight the virus. “Vaccines are a way we strengthen our immune system in order to deal with viruses; small pox, polio and the measles are examples. “Currently researchers have been unable to develop a vaccine for HIV. But there is another way to strengthen the immune system, and strengthen the human body so it gives it’s immune system less to fight, and that is by taking care of the body naturally. “Once someone has full-blown AIDS, their immune system starts to lose its ability to fight other viruses that attack the body. The current drugs can improve the viral load of a patient, but although a viral load can change, it has not been shown that any drugs can correct a ravaged immune system. If the drugs could eliminate the virus, it wouldn’t change and correct the damaged immune system the virus left behind. In the future, if a cure is found, there may still be a problem with people who have recovered from HIV and AIDS who have a low tolerance for other infections. “So the key may lie in natural remedies to take care of your body. The logic works like this: in order to battle HIV, you can work on destroying HIV with drugs, and you can also work on improving your own natural defenses, so your own body can better fight HIV. And attacking the virus on two levels is better than only fighting it on one. “For thousands of years different civilizations have relied on herbs and plants to help solve medical problems. Western medicine has made strides much greater than what could have been done with barks and berries, but during our searches for synthetic cures we may have forgotten the fact that taking precautions can keep your body in better shape. “Also, our changing lifestyles in developed countries such as America, have given us more synthetic foods, filled with preservatives, additives, sweeteners, and other chemicals -- instead of spices, herbs and other things found naturally in certain foods that could help our immune systems and keep us healthier. So not only are we bombarded with chemicals that our bodies need to battle, what we choose to eat -- our ’fuel,’ so to speak -- isn’t doing all it can to help us keep in shape. In fact, the choices we make about what we choose to eat can sometimes hurt us more than help us. “If you’ve been diagnosed with HIV or have full-blown AIDS, there is an added urgency to taking care of your body and helping your immune system. A virus has declared a war on your body; now it is up to you to strengthen your defenses and fight a good battle. “There are many levels that homeopathy and natural therapies work on. What might work for you is a combination of parts of what we suggest here. Whether you feel the benefits of hypnosis over acupuncture, or whether you prefer taking vitamin supplements to eating spinach, starting to take steps to take control of your own health will show great improvements in your emotional as well as physical well-being. “The following chapters will show you what people have done throughout the ages to help improve their general health. They will show you what sorts of natural remedies may help you to combat some of the painful and difficult side effects some people suffer from taking AIDS/HIV drugs. They will show you what nutritionists have said about diets for people with HIV. This book goes over exercise regimens, supplements, even psychotherapy and support groups. “We have worked for a long time coming up with drugs that may help people with the battle of HIV and AIDS. But what we can’t do, you can. In conjunction with your current medication plans, this book may give you the edge you’ve been looking for. “And for once, we didn’t sit in a laboratory and create it. We’ve collected this information from the knowledge of hundreds of generations of experience, and now it is yours. “Let us prepare to win the war.” Looking over what she wrote, she knew she’d have to write more. But it was late, and she could stand to sleep. She could check her e-mail Sunday evening. Later in the day she went to her e-mail. She knew she had to save all of these letters so she could eventually respond to them all to thank people for writing, and she knew she had to have someone archive all of these letters and categorize them for her. Once again she had well over a hundred letters, all personal stories about people with AIDS, people who know people with AIDS, and what they do to get through the days. From: Holly@urban.online.org Date: Friday, 11:06 p.m. Subject: AIDS and hypnosis I’ve had AIDS for a few years. I’m on a cocktail now & my T-Cell count has gone up from eight to 410. The doctors are thrilled with me. Recently I started hypnosis with a doctor in Santa Monica. It relaxes me & keeps me thinking about positive aspects of dealing with my illness. I’ve tried to look at this as a learning experience -- now I have to learn to make decisions that will help me live my life. It taught me to be responsible when I wasn’t before. My doctor says he uses hypnosis to relieve depression I may be feeling, but he also does exercises to try to make my body fight the virus. I don’t know how well that works, but I know that I’m getting along a lot better now, with the hypnosis. You have to believe it, though, in order for it to work. Some people can’t be hypnotized, but it’s only because they’re resistant to the idea of being hypnotized. I don’t know if there are any studies done on this or not, but I know it has helped me. And I hope this can help you. From: Cameron447@ala.edu Date: Friday, 11:15 p.m. Subject: AIDS story I have had AIDS for a number of years now. My T-Cell count is 4, when it should be nearly a thousand. I still work. I stopped drinking. I needed to continue my work, because that is what kept me going. Someone told me to take shark liver oil, and when I did, I felt a lot better. I don’t know what it did for me. I try to take care of myself. I work out, lift weights, to try to build more muscle mass so I don’t get too thin or lose my appetite. My work is what really keeps me going, though. It makes me feel like I have a reason to wake up in the mornings now. I have a dog. He is wonderful. I have to make sure he’s clean. I get him groomed and I pay kids on the block to wash him. He provides constant affection to me. He is great at supporting me without trying. I think about the unconditional love that dog has and it makes me happy. It’s like having a whole family to come home to. I don’t live in the same town as my family, I was moved to this town with my job, and I don’t have many friends. So I try to think of reasons to keep living. I think when the day comes that I get worse, I might move back. I think I’ll need my family then, if they’ll have me. It’s a choice you have to make every day: Am I going to live or am I going to die? So I have to think every morning of reasons to live, even if it’s for something like my dog, or the fact that they need me at the job site. It gives me reason to smile in the morning, knowing someone needs me and I can be there for them. It gives me reason to smile in the evening when I come home from work knowing my dog will be waiting there for me. You have to look for something to live for. I don’t know if shark liver oil helped, or if it was my attitude. I just know that you have to decide to make it. If you need anything else, let me know. I hope this helps out, and I hope this was what you were looking for. From: gratis40242@prodigy.com Date: Friday, 11:22 p.m. Subject: mineral water I have had HIV for a few years, but it has never grown into AIDS. I am not on any drugs. I figured that when it does become AIDS, that’s when I’ll start fighting. In the meantime I’ve become a bit of a health freak. I drink about two gallons of mineral water a day. I eat well and work out daily. And I do yoga in the evenings. I am very conscious of what I eat. Only every once in a while do I allow myself to slip and do something less good for me. I think of them as “treats,” the way sometimes in a diet you’re allowed to have something fattening, as long as you don’t go overboard. I think the exercise has been really good for me, it has given me a lot of energy that I didn’t have before. I give a lot of credit to drinking mineral water, too -- I think I get a lot of minerals that I wouldn’t get in a supplement, and the water cleans out my system and keeps my skin feeling good, too. I’m not dying. Technically I’m not. AIDS has not affected me. And I’m hoping that if I keep up this regimen my body will continue to stop AIDS from starting. When I work out I have to think that I’m doing something to make me better, not that I have to do this otherwise my body will let this virus kill me. I have to think that I’m taking control. I think that’s the key. People feel like they have no control in their lives. You have to take some of that control back, especially when AIDS seems like such an uncontrollable illness. If you know someone who has AIDS, tell them to start working out more, and to drink a lot of water. It will help them, and it will give them energy. And they will feel like they’re doing something positive for themselves. If you have any questions about specific exercises I do, feel free to write back. From: TForest@med.go.ofd.uk Date: Friday, 11:29 p.m. Subject: AIDS and HIV I am in a study currently. I have AIDS. The only thing I have to do in this study is take their drugs. There is no lifestyle change. I have about twenty pills a day. My lover insists that I take vitamin supplements too. I take about six vitamin pills a day. He has been so helpful to me. He organizes all of my pills every day so I know what time to take what pills. It is almost like he is taking them too, he goes through everything with me. He has given me so much support. I don’t know how I could have gone through this without him. I worry sometimes that he feels like he has to stick by me because I have AIDS. I feel bad that he can’t have the love life he wanted. He gets checked regularly. I’ve had AIDS for a little over a year. So far nothing has turned up on him. That makes me happy. I can’t be a lover to him anymore though, and I don’t want him to have to wait for me. He keeps telling me that he wants to go through this with me; he wants to be there for me. I have to keep thinking of him in order to pull through this mentally. I’ve been doing okay lately. He keeps me from smoking. I used to smoke, and I really miss it. I think all the vitamins help too. Maybe it’s the drugs I’m on in the study, but who knows, maybe I’m in the control group and am not even taking any drugs. Either way, I seem to be doing okay. As for the vitamins, I take a multi-vitamin, a B6, a C, an A, an E and another B-complex. I was told the B and C would help me. Maybe they have. Maybe it’s the study. Maybe it’s Eric. Either way, so far, I’m making it. It could be anything that’s helping me through it. I don’t want to get rid of any one of those things, in case it is the magic potion that has kept me in okay shape. I just thank Eric, every day. And I take it day by day. From: ardien@quantum.net Date: Friday, 11:41 p.m. Subject: my child had AIDS My son had surgery for a heart defect when he was an infant. He went through three rounds of surgery by the time he was five. Then he seemed to be sick all the time. We took him into the doctor. He was always at the doctor, when anything was wrong, because we worried about him all the time. They took his blood and did a complete work-up on him and found out he had HIV and it was already attacking his immune system. They figured it was from the last blood transfusion he had from surgery. We are suing the hospital now. Because he was just a little boy he was not prepared to fight infections the way an adult might have been able to. HIV might have stayed dormant in an adult body for a few years, but not in my little boy’s body. This was three years ago. He is bed-ridden now. He cannot go anywhere. I am crying as I write this. We tried to do everything for him. We gave him foods that were extra-fortified. We made sure he didn’t go outside when it was cold. We never really let him out of the house. We dusted all the time. We had air purifier machines working in most every room of the house. We used disinfectant cleaners to clean everything. We tried to smile to our baby boy, all the time. We were dying inside, with him. The doctors said they’re amazed he’s lasting as long as he is. We never knew what else to do. We try to do everything. I don’t know if this helps you. It helps me, writing it down. We were told to keep the air clean and make sure everything was clean around him. We avoided perfumes in our laundry detergents. We tried to make sure he breathes nothing that could harm him. I don’t know if AIDS patients are that careful. I wish he didn’t have to die, but I’ve seen him in pain for so long a part of me wants to see him rest in peace. I don’t know why God would do this to me, or to my son. I think a lot of people wonder that, why does God allow this to happen. I hope this helps you. From: Ccandd@shout.net Date: Friday, 11:48 p.m. Subject: friend with AIDS You wanted stories about AIDS. I don’t have AIDS, but my friend does. I don’t know if this will help you, but I’ll write it anyway. My friend told me he had AIDS over the phone. I couldn’t believe it. It was one of my best friends. And he sounded like he was fine with it. He was laughing and talking and acting like it was something he could deal with. All I could think was that he was going to die. I had to stop myself every second of that conversation from crying. It was so hard to stay there on the phone and try to be calm. He said he changed his habits, he was on some drugs, he got into a study group in his state, so I’m not sure if they were AZT or not, but he was on some drugs. He said he hadn’t been with anyone, and he stopped drinking. I think a part of him thinks he can beat this. And it was so hard for me to think about one of my best friends dying, at such an early age. It was so unfair. I cried for so long. I wanted to be there for him, but he lived on the other side of the country. Finally I got a long weekend and made the trip out to visit him. I was so nervous that I was just going to start bawling my eyes out when I saw him. I didn’t know how I’d react, seeing that this would be the first time I saw him since I heard. When I saw him he was happy and so was I. We gave each other a big hug and instantly started cracking jokes with each other, the way we always would. It made me realize that he was still there, he was still alive, he wasn’t dead yet. I was mourning him while he was still alive. He said he had to accept the fact that he might only be around for another ten years, if he takes care of himself. But he has to look at it as a new lease on life. He said that any day he walks outside a car could hit him. He said this is his chance to live, and do what he wants with his life, now that he knows how precious life is. I thought about the fact that I figured that one day I would visit him with my husband and we’d show pictures of our grandchildren to each other. But that wasn’t going to happen anymore. He wouldn’t have kids, much less grandchildren. I noticed he lost weight and looked skinny, but other than that, it was my same old friend. And suddenly I had to stop thinking of him as dying. He could never die, not before his heart stopped beating. He was -- and is -- all about life. He is not dying, he is living, and that is what has kept him so healthy. I’m sure of it. I’m sure that over half of the battle is a battle of the mind. It’s a battle to say to yourself that you’re not dying, you’re living. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought that if anyone could handle AIDS, it was my friend - he had the strength to deal with it. It still wasn’t fair that this had to happen to him, but I knew that if anyone could fight it, he could. It was all in his outlook on life. It is all how you choose to live. He chose to live, and that’s exactly what he did. He’s still making that choice. And I think that’s why he’s doing well today. I hope this helps you out. It was nice to actually write it; you don’t think of it concretely until you have to put it down on paper. Well, good luck. From: skinner@lightning.org Date: Friday, 11:56 p.m. Subject: <> I didn’t know I was infected with HIV until my daughter was diagnosed with AIDS. I gave it to her, and she died as I was being tested. I had no idea. I used to do heroin. It was stupid. I battle every day with wanting to do drugs again. Sometimes I slip. I don’t have my daughter anymore. She died when she was only a few months old. I don’t have any suggestions on how to deal with AIDS, only suggestions on how to not get it, but you know those. It’s a lot easier to not get AIDS than to deal with it. I guess all I could say is don’t make the same mistakes I did. From: Tristen117@interactive.com Date: Saturday, 12:07 A.M. Subject: How I Deal With AIDS I have noticed a lot of muscle stiffness with one of the drugs I have been taking for AIDS. A friend of mine told me about someone they knew who did acupuncture and acupressure. I was afraid of sticking needles in me, you know what I mean, so I talked to the therapist and had one session of acupressure. I noticed that I felt so much more relaxed, that my muscles weren’t killing me when I tried to walk across the room. I almost felt after one session like I could go jogging again. I go to regular sessions now, once every two weeks and I feel like a new man. I think a lot of things are out there that can help people deal with the side effects of the cocktails for AIDS. Why are you looking for this information? Your posting said my letter would remain confidential -- why wouldn’t it? Are you a writer, trying to do an article on this or something? Let me know what you need information like this for. I told you my story, now you can tell me yours. Thanks. From: girrl@aol.com Date: Saturday, 12:12 A.M. Subject: AIDS I’m on my friend’s account. She saw this posting and asked me to write to you. I have AIDS. I hung around with the wrong crowds. My friend is always telling me to get on line and I can learn something from the Internet. But I know everything I want to know. She always checks the computer to see what she can learn about AIDS. I know she is trying to care for me and understand me, but I don’t need it. She told me you want my story. It’s not much of a story. I made some bad choices. I was a runaway teenager. I slept around and got free drugs. I was never a prostitute, but I slept with men for drugs. I don’t know how I got it. It could have been in one of a thousand places. I lived like this for three years. Then I got sick so I broke into a pharmacy and tried to steal some drugs, to make me better. Instead I was caught. They put me in the hospital and told me I had AIDS. Now I am in prison. I am twenty years old. They put me on drugs. They give me a regimen. I’m supposed to be in prison for another year. I shot someone while I tried to rob the pharmacy, but I barely wounded them. Basically, I do what they tell me here. People don’t mess with me since I have AIDS. They all think that if I touch them they’ll die. I don’t mind that they think that, actually. It helps me be alone. They have a few computers here at the prison and they let us write letters. I typed this up for my friend to e-mail to you. I wonder how long I will live here. I mean, I might die in prison. I hear it’s a slow painful death with AIDS. Sometimes I think I want to kill myself, and end it sooner. No one wants to listen to a prisoner complain that they have AIDS. What would I do when I got out anyway? I have no family and no money. I wouldn’t go back to my family; they would reject me I’m sure. I don’t know what my friend thinks she’ll accomplish by sending this to you. I have too many problems to begin to go into here. But if it makes her happy, I do it. She’s the only one that visits me here. I think she cares about people more than I do. From: 39564.2954@compuserve.com Date: Saturday, 12:26 A.M. Subject: AIDS You posted a request for information about how people deal with AIDS, so I thought I’d write. I meditate. I have had AIDS for a year and a half, and shortly after I found out I started looking into religions, and liked Buddhism. Whether or not I follow it completely, I don’t know if that really matters. I found something that I can think about when times get rough for me. And meditating once a day relaxes me so much that I can’t blow a gasket the way I used to. I used to be such a “Type A” person; I’d get stressed at everything. And I know that’s not good when your body is already taxed with a deadly virus. You know, your body has enough to deal with; you don’t need to add a little more stress to your system. So I thought: maybe there’s something after this life? I didn’t really go for the idea that there was a heaven and a hell and a purgatory. I kind of like Buddhism, but more than that I think I liked the way it just let you go along, you know, it let things roll off your back easier. I can clear my head now by focusing on a single word. I think it really has helped my system from going into overload. I can get information about what I’ve been doing if it would help you out. Glad someone is out there looking for ways to help out people in my situation. Good luck. From: Augustus@Physics.dbu.edu Date: Saturday, 12:37 A.M. Subject: AIDS and diet I used to be a vegetarian. I didn’t like the idea of eating dead stuff. I was a vegetarian for over five years. I was healthy. A little thin, but healthy. I was excellent at track and field in college. I was the star of the varsity men’s team. I messed around in my early twenties, and had a few one-night stands with men I didn’t know, and yes, there was unprotected sex involved. I thought when I was feeling run down it was because I was just getting older. I was always used to being able to do anything athletically I wanted to; my cardiovascular system was in great shape. And although I was getting a little thinner, I didn’t want to eat anything, so I didn’t think of it as a problem. Then I went to the doctor. They put me on drugs; I had AIDS. I didn’t know which partner it was that gave it to me. I tried to find them all. The hardest part was finding people I slept with and telling them I had AIDS and I didn’t know where I got it. It broke people’s hearts. I was basically telling them they played Russian roulette, and they might be dying from a bullet wound when they didn’t know they were hit. I couldn’t even find everyone; some of the people I slept with I didn’t know the last names of, and they didn’t know any friends of mine. Well, I learned I had to get my appetite back. I’m no longer a vegetarian. I don’t like eating meat, but I believe that people have the right to eat meat; it was just my choice not to. But I want to now, because it could help keep me alive. AIDS survivors need the extra fat and protein to bulk them up a bit, to put some meat on their bones. Sorry, no pun intended. I was actually doing more harm than good when I was a vegetarian once I had AIDS. A vegetarian diet may be better for a healthy person, but not for someone with AIDS. I’ve put on weight now and feel better about myself. So what can I tell you about AIDS? Don’t get it. That’s the important part. Don’t do anything stupid. But also watch your diet. It’s very important to helping you along and not feeling the effects of AIDS on your life. From: flower8@urgent.link.com Date: Saturday, 12:42 A.M. Subject: who gets AIDS I was in high school and didn’t want to have sex before marriage. I thought sex was a scary thing. Everyone talked about doing it, but I tried to just steer clear of the subject when my friends talked about it. I acted like I did it before, but I’d never talk about it. I’d say things like “Talking about it so much just shows that you don’t know how to handle it.” I implied that I knew so much and I really knew nothing. I was a junior cheerleader. I was going to the homecoming dance with my boyfriend, from the football team. That’s how it was supposed to be, right? A cheerleader and a football player. A match made in heaven. I think one of the reasons why football players like cheerleaders is because a cheerleader is small enough for them to be able to dominate over. My boyfriend raped me after the dance. He kept saying he wanted to leave the dance. I was having fun. I didn’t know why he wanted to go so early. Apparently he was a steroid user, and did a few other drugs. He wouldn’t tell me how he got it. He never even seemed to be affected by having HIV. It was bad enough that he raped me, at least I didn’t get pregnant, he didn’t even think about the chance of that happening. But he gave me AIDS instead. I was fine most of my junior year. Senior year I felt sick and didn’t make the cheerleading team. I don’t think I wanted to be on the team anymore anyway. High school was pointless to me. When you’re raped not much seems important anymore. If someone can do that to your life, apparently your life doesn’t seem that important anymore. I was really depressed. I told no one. So my parents noticed I seemed sick all the time, so I went to doctor after doctor. Finally someone asked me if I had ever slept with anyone. I was wondering what he gave me. I never thought it could have been AIDS. I didn’t graduate. I saw no point in it. I knew I had to get out of that school. I took courses and got my GED less than a year after I would have graduated. I keep trying to stay in shape. I keep thinking that I will never have children. I keep thinking that I should have had a big wedding. I should have the big dress and the big wedding and some sort of prince that would take care of me for the rest of my life. But that’s not going to happen. He took that away from me. Since I graduated I got a job working as a crisis hotline operator and a counselor for AIDS patients. I visit people in the hospital. You’d think I’d hate to see it, hate to see people almost dead, the way I’ll one day be. But it makes me feel better. If I’m here doing this for them, there might be someone doing this for me in the future. I have to keep thinking that I can fight this and help people so they don’t have to feel the pain that I went through. When I tell someone on the hotline that I know what they’re going through, I mean it. I tell them I have AIDS and they believe me, they don’t think I’m feeding them a line. And they trust me. And they feel better. If I didn’t get AIDS I wonder if I would have worked as a crisis hotline operator for rape victims. The rape still bothers me, but my having AIDS has replaced my hatred for what happened to me with a fear of dying. I don’t think I would have done anything like this, like being the crisis hotline operator, if this didn’t happen to me. I think of my hotline work as counseling for me. When no one was there to help me out. I felt so alone, and there was no one to help me through it. I don’t want others to feel that way. Maybe this helps me, giving something back. I’m twenty now. I don’t try to date, but I’ve met some good friends. I don’t talk to anyone from high school anymore. What would I say to them? They have their proms and their homecomings. I have my rape and my AIDS. What gets me through is helping others in my position. If I can help them, I’ll know there’s less suffering in the world, and it’s because of me. That makes me feel good. And that makes me want to keep living. That’s what you have to look for, that’s what I tell people. And it’s true. So tell people that. Get through it emotionally somehow. I know it’s hard, but you have to do it if you want to live. I can give you some lists of hotlines around the country, if you’d like. Let me know. From: slam4silver@aol.com Date: Saturday, 12:51 A.M. Subject: herbs and natural remedies dealing with AIDS My lover and I have AIDS. I do most of the cooking. We live together; we have lived together for seven years now. I started seeing ads on television about Ginkgo and other herbal supplements and I went to the health store to learn more. I went to the library and checked out a ton of books. We seem to do okay with the drugs, but I make a point to add anything to our diet that will make us feel better. We eat a ton of garlic in anything. It’s supposed to be good for your heart and your blood. We eat a lot of fresh herbs. We take ginkgo for memory retention. We take cayenne to help our circulation. We use supplements when we can’t get the herbs. We make kombucha tea from the kombucha mushroom, I have heard of people saying that their T-Cell counts rose after drinking kombucha tea regularly. We seem to be doing okay. We have each other. We try to make a difference in our health in our every day lives. Instead of thinking of food as something to pick up through a drive-through window, we think of it as medicine. And we think it’s working. I’m blessed to go through this with someone. I just keep looking for other ways we can do something to help ourselves. That’s the key. If you don’t mind my asking, why are you asking? It didn’t say in your post why you wanted the information. Do you have AIDS, or did you just find out that someone you love does? That’s usually when people want to learn more, when they first really have to deal with it. You’ll get used to it, I promise. That’s not such a great thought, I mean, who wants to get used to a fatal disease, but it will become easier with time. If you need to talk, feel free to write back. From: skijane@power.network.org Date: Saturday, 12:59 A.M. Subject: AIDS and God Some people say that God hates gay people, and that he punishes them with AIDS. I don’t know if that’s the case. I used to be very religious. My family brought me up Catholic. But I got away from my beliefs and did some things I am not so proud of. When I found out I had AIDS, I did not know how to deal with it. I wanted to die right away. But then I thought about what could keep me alive forever -- Jesus. I couldn’t believe I let my faith go like that. I realized that Jesus Christ could help me see the error of my ways and bring me peace before I left this world. I now go to church every week, and I do volunteer work for the church as well. I feel like my life now has meaning when it didn’t before. Why was I living the life I had? It wasn’t making me happy. If I can show others where true happiness is, maybe I can help other people too. I feel like now I have a mission with God, and that is to help people from getting AIDS and help people in dealing with AIDS. The church is a good support group of people that I can talk to. I know many people who get AIDS go back to their church for the remainder of their days. It provides great comfort. Maybe getting AIDS was God’s way of punishing me for straying from the church. I don’t think of it that way, though. I think of this as my calling, that I can serve as an example for those who lose their way. I feel like I have a new lease on life, because now I have something to look forward to. From: user6@elect.cafe.com Date: Saturday, 1:22 A.M. Subject: engineered AIDS I am a government spy. I got AIDS from an agent from another government while on a mission. U.S. government Agents cured me with one injection and three days of bed rest. AIDS was used for the U.S. government’s purposes. The cure was engineered and used. You are looking in all the wrong places to find your answers. After reading this last e-mail, she leaned back. She didn’t expect it, discounted it and continued reading. She saved all of the e-mail she read, but she kept thinking back to the letter she received on engineered AIDS. She had no evidence that it was right. There was no proof of the claims made in the e-mail. She saved the letters and continued reading for the rest of the night.
Click here for Chapter 6 of The Key To Believing
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portions of this book are in the following books:
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