Growing Old Gracefully

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Growing old gracefully is not an option for gay men with hiv according to the New York Times.

The older we get the more ill we become is something we have been telling the medical world for a while now without response. Anal cancer, Lymph cancer, HPV, HCV, KSHV, Castleman's Disease, diabetes, heart disease, renal failure, and of course severe clinical depression and PTST amongst others are becoming more and more prevalent amongst the gay poz community. Even the old favourites that we thought were long gone such as Kaposi's Sarcoma and PCP are rearing their ugly heads again in more dangerous versions such as KSHV and all its variations.

Most Health Care workers have been (are) sticking their heads in the sand, but sometime soon they will have to wake up to a community of gay poz 50+'ers who are in need of constant medical support.
Medical support that will not only have to be individually tailored to each patient but will also be increasingly more expensive.

According to research done in the Netherlands (vague at best), +/- 25% of all hiv plussers are now over 50. I know myself that there are just very few of us still alive at this age. However, thanks to HAART that percentage should be more than doubled in the next 10 years, and in actual figures more than tripled.

As I've said before, the Health Care community is in no way prepared for a flood golf of old pozzers on zimmer frames camping out in their waiting rooms.

We knew when AZT came along that by pushing to get it used without clinical trials we would be setting a precedent and could be asking for trouble along the line. But we had no concept of 'along the line' then, 'now' was all that mattered and lives were saved.

Let's face it. We were/are the pharmaceutical companies dream patients. We didn't care what the side effects were of the un-tested drugs as long as they kept us and our loved ones alive. We didn't ask what the drugs would do after 10 years because we were glad that we had 10 more days to live. We lobbied and pushed and organised ourselves to get as much money as possible to find new drugs, the drug, to end all suffering with no thought of the future because without the drugs there would be no future.

However, we can now never say to a Hospital, Pharmaceutical Company, Professor, Scientist, "Were you careful enough? Did you take into account the long term effects", because we took that responsibility from them.

Quotes from the New York Times article:

Larry Kramer founder of several AIDS advocacy groups, 73 and a long-term survivor, said he had always suspected “it was only a matter of time before stuff like this happened” given the potency of the antiretroviral drugs.

“How long will the human body be able to tolerate that constant bombardment?” he asked. “Well, we are now seeing that many bodies can’t. Once again, just as we thought we were out of the woods, sort of, we have good reason again to be really scared.”

Marty Weinstein, 55 and infected since 1982, has had a pacemaker installed, has been found to have osteoporosis, and has been treated for anal cancer and medicated for severe depression — all in the last year. He also has cognitive deficits.
A former professor of psychology in Chicago, he presses his doctors about cause and effect. Sometimes they offer a hypothesis, he said, but never a certain explanation.

“I know the first concern was keeping us alive,” Mr. Weinstein said. “But now that so many people are going to live longer lives, how are we going to get them through this emotionally and physically?”

How are we going to get through this? With the Health Care System as it is in the Netherlands at this moment I see possibilities and willingness for adaptation. But the so-called Gay Community Care Institutions are far from ready or willing to take this on board. Most of them are still in the process of convincing themselves that Aids is no longer a problem in the Netherlands.

I believe it is this sort of problem that demands we take up the spade ourselves and dig the foundations for the future.
Our Future.
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