It's early.
Over the past five months, as I built the cocktail glass, I talked openly about my infection with HIV to all the friends who came to help. We discussed messages the sculpture could deliver. Last evening, I gave people at the meeting a one liner to start our conversations - describing what was this creation was about.
The huge vinyl banner hanging in the foyer of City Hall was about prevention being by far the better choice than treatment. Surely once we got talking people would realize that there were many more messages in the glass than that. After an evening of discussing the locally sensitive topic of AIDS, I am so glad that I live in a liberal - that’s little ‘l’ liberal - community, rather than in Abbotsford. It was so hard to receive the rigid responses that the conversation invoked. I heard horror stories from people who are not willing to disclose their identity, for very good reasons.
The evening was long - after listening to two and a half hours of mostly one-minute sound bites at the all-candidates meeting - I waited in the lobby to engage people in dialogue. The first man I approached was young, clean cut and wore a soft smile.
“Would you like to read more about this Cross Canada Cocktail Tour?” I asked, handing him a flyer. “I created this giant pill bottle sculpture to help people understand that prevention is essential, and much less costly than treatment (both in dollars and on the mental and physical bodies of those infected).”
“This disease is easily preventable by abstinence until marriage,” he explained to me, “and then taking only one partner”. Great theory I thought. What about reality?
The conversation somehow continued, with me asking about those who were infected as babies, through rape or blood-born infection. He agreed these were special cases and explained to me that the medication was unnecessary and ‘those things’ can be controlled by diet. I think he meant the virus. Hadn’t I read about people who had been cured through diet? I asked for the references. I really would like to read about these people and contact them. He listed a few. I wrote down ‘H.Acres.com, the China Project, Forks Over Knives, Fat Sick, and Nearly Dead.’ I will look for some of these when we are in a library, but know my own health is a result of diet, self-care, complementary therapies and medication. When he started lumping cancer and HIV together, I knew that the evening would be a bigger challenge than I thought.
Thank goodness for another woman who came over and told me about the Hospice where she had worked and the isolation of those dying from AIDS-related illnesses. She was interested to hear that there were special Hospices for HIV in Toronto and in Seattle. I thought of the friends that I have known that died in Hospice and was suddenly more concerned than ever for those in this part of Canada.
In the next 45 minutes, Cathy and I met most of the candidates and the Mayor. We heard about struggles between jurisdictions to get harm reduction established here - the lack of treatment facilities for those wishing help to overcome addictions - about youth who fall between the cracks - about a man being denied a transfusion when his hemoglobin levels were unacceptably low - about dental offices that wrapped everything in disposable plastic before allowing a positive person to sit in the dental chair, and worse, the person needing dental work accepting that treatment because this was the only dentist that would see them and accept their disability coverage. Canada, I shed a tear for you and your dream of Universal Health Care.
I am so glad that we stopped here. HIV support does not seem to exist in the medical system - there are too few doctors, emergency rooms refuse appropriate treatment for people who are HIV positive, and, hospitals, even though they are only an hour away from Vancouver and the Centre for Excellence in HIV care, do not stock the medications that people living with HIV need to take daily. I was reminded that here hospital stays, if you are treated, can lead to treatment interruptions. And all of this is much worse if you happen to be incarcerated.
For the second day in a row I heard about the proposed exportation of the young man from Zimbabwe, who was jailed for having unprotected sex with several women. His recollection was that after he’d had an HIV test, he was called to come talk to the clinic about his results. When he asked, over the phone, if there was a problem, he was told that everything was fine. He just needed to come for post-test counseling”. He assumed that everything was fine and never went back to the clinic.
It doesn’t really matter what the truth is about this case. In my heart, it’s wrong to knowingly infect someone. It is also wrong to put the blame on one person in non-violent situations. When there are two consenting adults, two people should be making decisions. I know that this case, and the 129 others in Canada, are much more complicated. For example, there is a power differential in most relationships. One partner is usually stronger and more in control of situations - whether it be preparing dinner, choosing a movie, or determining whether or not protection is used. How does this play out in our bedrooms?
Abbotsford left us sad. We were treated wonderfully by our hosts, who believe in the Cross Canada Cocktail Tour, and encouraged us to continue the dialogue.
Tonight we will arrive in Hope, where I know that there must be some very frightened people living with HIV. Perhaps the rolling cocktail glass will let them know that they are not entirely alone.
I am reminded of the conversations from Africa that were shared on Day One - about people dying within six months of diagnosis, because no one would talk to them, no one would share a meal with them, no one would sing or pray with them. They died of isolation. And I think about the statistic from the Kruger Report. ‘Two thirds of the people living in this part of British Columbia, who die of AIDS related illnesses, die without ever accessing care or treatment.’ Is it about lack of medical services? Misdiagnosis of the disease by doctors who believe that people don’t have sex until they are married and then only have it only with their partner? Do people lack the funds needed to get them to clinics and hospitals? Is it about fear of approaching a medical emergency room that discriminates against people? Or is it that those addicted to drugs or alcohol, see no service for them in this region? I can’t answer the question. I can just hang my head and cry for a country that has enough and does not find ways to prevent deaths.
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