How did Jim Hutton survive so long?

Well that was a cracking read.

The answer was Duracell, btw.

Umm I thought only Americans can't speak English but what do I know, I'm mostly a lurker newb.

I learned just a few days ago that my late gay godfather was HIV positive. He died of cancer a couple of years ago..hmmm

The same thing might have been with Jim.

There were HIV positive people living without full-blown aids for 15 years and people getting sick two years after infection.

AIDS activist Peter Staley got diagnosed with AIDS in 1985 and lived long enough to get combination treatment.

Hey steveandabudgie, I thought for Peter Staley it was an ARC diagnosis in 1985? The thing that makes this not nitpicking is that in ‘85 it was not known how many people with ARC would go on to get an AIDS diagnosis (full-blown AIDS as it was called then) so that an ARC diagnosis, while not good news as it could be a disabling condition, was not as such a death sentence.

That diagnosis is no longer used as one is just diagnosed with stages of HIV disease these days. But back then it was not known if ARC was a related but different condition. So that’s 1985. I don’t know when it was realized that untreated ARC ends in AIDs.

It is great that Peter Staley made it.

Yes, I think it’s known that even well-controlled HIV increases the risk for some cancers. At least I think there are studies that support this. Sorry about your godfather. David Ho says this virus has 10 heads. So that’s another head I guess. Sheesh, and there’s still enough stigma out there that it took 2 years for you to be told the truth.

(I know you know a lot about this stuff—just trying to make this post clear for whoever reads it.)

Hey Galileo1564,

i thin you´re right- my memory played a trick on me. Staley war diagnosed with ARC.

Michael Callenn, another activist, is a much more fitting example: He was diagnosed with "GRID" in 1982 and died in 1990.

http://michaelcallen.com/who-was-michael-callen/

I really don´t know much about AIDS. I started watching documentaries, old news reports, interviews and oral histories on AIDS activism a few months ago, googled names and one thing led to the other.

Steveandabudgie—I just didn’t want you to feel that I was talking down to you.

Yeah, Michael Callen is an interesting man. He chose to follow an alternative path of medical care. Who knows if it helped him?

I don’t know if you’ve watched Jenny Baraclough’s film “The Plague” from 1993. She has another film from a bit later also. The 1993 film is in 4 parts, all of which used to be on youtube. The picture quality is pretty bad, but watchable. Sadly Part 1 has been taken down. I sort of suspect someone complained about sexual content, but maybe I’m paranoid. But why take down just one part? Or maybe there is footage in there that’s copyright and someone complained. But you can watch from part 2 without being lost for more than a short time. Part 2 has the real story of the discovery of HIV, as opposed to the fake version presented to the American public in 1984. That’s because it’s a UK film, I imagine.

Part 1 has Dr. Linda Laubenstein who becomes the Julia Roberts character in A Normal Heart. And thanks for recommending that, I watched it because you mentioned it.

I knew about AIDS first in early 1982 before it had a name. (At that time I was living in Canada, and as far as I know Canadians never used GRID. I’ve only heard that in the US.) I knew it as a scientific and medical issue, and am sort of embarrassed that I never understood the full impact in the communities affected. Even though I Iived in a gay city if I can call it that. A city with a large gay community. I’ve gotten interested in that aspect for about a year now. I listened to “And the Band Played On” as an audio book. I don’t read much. I really recommend it if you’re interested in this enough to read or listen to a 600 page book. The movie is not so good. It messes with history too much, and makes Bob Gallo into the movie villain. I mean I like the movie, I found it very moving in places, and it’s an accurate enough telling of Don Francis’ story, but I reccommend it with these caveats.

I remember the shock when I first heard of this disease. I remember the kind of scary feeling, and the feeling that this was a mystery. I was only a college student, but I knew enough to know this was something unexpected and shocking. Like everybody else I had no idea of the magnitude of what it would grow into. I don’t remember a lot of things from that long ago with this kind of clarity, and I certainly don’t remember every article that I read. But that first one, and the feelings I had reading it, that has stayed with me.

And living in Canada we had no news of Freddie during the time the UK press were speculating about his health. I remember hearing on the news that he had announced he had AIDS, and then he was dead 2 days later.

Steveandabudgie—forgot to mention that it’s your mention of Michael Callen that made me think of Jenny Baraclough’s film, as he’s interviewed in that, and there is footage of him singing. In part 1 he says something like, “So now there’s a sexually transmitted disease that’s fatal. There’s going to be hell to pay.” And it’s clear from the context and the way he says it that he means hell in social terms, not medical. As in, we’ve been hiding ourselves and our STDs in our communities (and he went through quite the list of what he’d had), and we are not going to be able to hide anymore.

I can tell you straight people in Toronto generally didn’t talk much about this until public health started telling us around 1987 that we had to follow safe sex practices. The gay community in Toronto was affected very much, but you wouldn’t know it from the news. You can bet it would have been in the news daily had it been straight people affected.

I actually can remember only 2 people pre-1987 who talked about this. One was an art-school grad who had some gay friends in the art world. And the other was the nurse I mentioned on Thor’s thread. It was as if nothing was happening.

Mostly it would hit the news because of the blood supply, and when the test came out, and Ryan White. Stuff like that.

Loved reading the end of this discussion (above my post here), you two. I remember watching And the Band Played On in almost a catatonic state. I'll look up the YT vid. Sounds like something everyone should see. I watched Queen in NJ in 1982 while still in school and I had NO IDEA really who I was watching, sad to say. We watched a whole lotta concerts in that arena back in the day, and this was just one of them. The only inkling I had that this here was something special was the melodiousness of it all and his voice and Brian's guitar work. Then, later in the year, I made it a point to watch the SNL appearance, and remember my brother saying something like -- "he doesn't look happy/well." It took years for me to make the connection.

I went into pre-med for my undergrad but didn't stay in it -- changed majors -- but I remember talking to my pre-med buddies over the years and keeping up on any research stuff they sent me. The NJ/NY area was a hotbed of news and most of my friends were there or in Baltimore (JHU). I knew someone who taught at NYU. He thought his group and discovered a "cure." What a laugh and just very, very sad because he died in the mid-90s (a stroke, not AIDS) and his daughter who was a close friend of mine (became an epidemiologist later) told me the experience (of the research and its results) had devastated her father's entire system - mentally and physically. That he just could not take the up and down of the ride. Makes you think of the toll this disease took especially in the mid-80s/90s on not just the patients, but the medical community. Red alert signs everywhere, literally.

I was in DC for grad school in the early 90s, and I remember (I know this is TMI) going out with someone and then being hit with a stomach virus (the likes of which I'd never experienced) for WEEKS on end. I was scared to death that I had picked up something (you know what I'm saying) from him and went through talking myself in and out of having "the conversation" and both of us getting tested. The feeling of mortality hit incredibly hard and for a few weeks it felt like my entire life was on hold. Then, just as I was coming out of that tunnel, we heard of Freddie's death. To this day, I can't think of his last few months w/o thinking of that horrific time in my life.

There was a whole lot of paranoia going on, some of it absolutely justified. Shit does happen, and sometimes for a reason. Because of the loss of so many souls, I believe our generation changed some of its lifestyle choices (not overnight, mind you). I can't help but feel that was for the best.

indy 19 Freddie wasn't happy with his SNL performance . He had been up most of the night screaming and shouting with his lover at that time Bill Reid. When he woke on the morning of the show he had lost his voice because of all the shouting. He spent a large part of the day in a small room inhealing steam and drank lots of honey and lemon. By show time his voice had come back but not fully.

Peter freestone confirmed this and he also said that it was this incident that finally promted Freddie to ditch Bill.

Thanks doughnut. I just saw this reply. Yeah, I got to know all of that but much later. At the time, we were just kids watching SNL and had no idea what was going on BTS.

I love how the insane Jim haters insist he was nothing but the Gardner, despite the band, Thor and Lee, Phoebe, and Mike Moran all stating Jim was indeed Freddie's boyfriend (Brian called him his "civil partner") and they have zero explanation for Freddie taking "his gardener" to the studio, on vacation to Japan and in two music videos.

(And I continue to derail this thread. . .)

Indy19–

I’m not sure if And The Band Played On is on YT. I watched it on HBO, which I’m signed up for at present. The closing montage is on YT, and I’ve watched that many times, with the Elton John song playing. He wrote it after a friend of his died of AIDS.

That’s a sad story about your friend’s Dad. In the book it’s mentioned that in the early years some of the doctors would have repeated nightmares that they had acquired KS. I got the impression they were able to keep going due to the support of the people around them. And out of their own dedication.

Your story is fine, not TMI. Thank you for sharing.

Sent you a PM G... :)

[QUOTE] [b]Galileo1564 wrote:[/b]

(And I continue to derail this thread. . .)

Indy19–

I’m not sure if And The Band Played On is on YT. I watched it on HBO, which I’m signed up for at present. The closing montage is on YT, and I’ve watched that many times, with the Elton John song playing. He wrote it after a friend of his died of AIDS.

That’s a sad story about your friend’s Dad. In the book it’s mentioned that in the early years some of the doctors would have repeated nightmares that they had acquired KS. I got the impression they were able to keep going due to the support of the people around them. And out of their own dedication.

Your story is fine, not TMI. Thank you for sharing.[/QUOTE]