DADvocate

Just Muttering alerted me that Bristol Meyers is "donating one dollar to AIDS research every time someone their website and lights a candle on their website. It's a pretty cool interactive gimmick, for one thing, and if, somehow, the few seconds it takes to visit the site and light a candle really makes a difference,..."

My brother died from AIDS in 1987. His suffering was relatively short for AIDS. He died just a few months after symptoms first appeared. He spent only the last 10 days of his life in the hospital due to misdiagnosis by the family doctor. Watching him lie there, knowing he would die was the most difficult time of my life.

I sat in a small meeting room in the hospital, just my parents and I, holding their hands while they cried when they first realized death was imminent. I still wish in some way I could have done something more to comfort him and show him my love for him.

I watched my brother's arm die before he did due to the aggressive antibiotics they gave him to try and extend his life for a short while longer. The pneumonia in his lungs required he be put on pure oxygen. Within days, the oxygen, itself, killed the cells of his lungs. No hope.

Tears well up in my eyes as I write this. I don't care who you are or what you've done. No one deserves to die like this. It's a horrible, painful, slow death. Twenty years later I can barely write of it, which is why I rarely do.

Go to Light to Unite and make a difference in just a few seconds.