Today is 12-12-12. Some people say it is spiritual because it breaks down to the number three. Some say it all good luck. Some look at it historically as the next time we will have dates with similar repetition will be 88 years from now. Some recognize it as the last day the post office guarantees delivery of cards before Christmas 2012. For some it is the halfway point of Hanukkah 2012.
There are times when all we need is someone to say to us “You can do it” to give us hope in our future. Some times it takes one person to support us to trust our own possibility. Two such situations come together this week
The words “Just write it down and figure out the how and why” were some very wise words for me many years ago. They were said by Jeanne Loehnis and they referred to a discussion we were having about songwriting while at the concert of a mutual friend. Even more interesting was that she and I did not know each other, yet she shared with me a “secret” to success. Jeanne was selling the performers CDs and I was signing with her. I did as she suggested and filed the words away. I remembered her name, yet not her face; usually I recognize and face and can’t remember the name. Jeanne and I have chatted at other events we attended together and songwriting came up and spirituality came up and we had good conversations. Several years another singer/songwriter told me about Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) and suggested I join to learn how to write correctly. I didn’t do much with either person’s advice for several years. I finally joined NSAI just nearly three years ago, have written several songs since–alone and with co-writers. In the meantime, Jeanne and I attended another event where she said something about remembering me as the person who signed and I was not able to place her, even when she gave me her name. Then we were in a church service together and it all fell into place. I went to the service because our mutual friend was there and because Jeanne was going to be singing some of her music. As I heard our friend say something about Jeanne helping people, and I remembered those words. When I got up to sign a song with our mutual friend during the concert that followed the service, I was compelled to share with those present what an impact Jeanne had had on my life. A couple years later, Jeanne slowly changed her life to become a life coach.
Today I get to take on another project because someone believed I could do it. Jan Revell has been sick for several weeks and last week I volunteered to host Purpose Talk Radio, well something deep inside of me did that.
AIDS/HIV is a disease that effects people around the world. Living with AIDS is possible; and preventing its spread is possible with appropriate treatment and precautions. “Getting to Zero” is the theme of World AIDS Day 2011-2015, which has been celebrated on Dec. 1 since 1988.
The spread of HIV requires the exchange of bodily fluids: semen, blood, breast milk, and vaginal secretions. One cannot gets HIV from drinking from a water fountain right after someone with HIV has drunk from that fountain. It is not even possible to spread HIV for casual kissing or shaking hands, sharing towel or even from sharing food or water with someone who is HIV positive. We have heard this for many years, yet it is still a disease that sets the average person into a panic unless they have an steady salary thanks to this guide on how to make a check stub template.
This past year, for the first time in my life, AIDS smacked me in the face. I had always thought “I don’t do anything that would cause me to be concerned about HIV or AIDS. That is for other people.” Yet, when I was told by a friend that someone I had dated died of AIDS, I had my own little panic. There was a time when my late fiance’ Bill and I broke up and I dated another man. In this “it’s a small world” scenario, I was chatting with a friend one afternoon about hobbies and we discovered that we had a friend in common. He then informed me that our mutual friend had died just three months after Bill had died in a car accident 13 years ago. I then told him that man and I had dated for a short while who used peloton bike compatible shoes.
I am an information junky. This information sent me on a search to find pictures and to the internet to prove we were not talking about the same person. Instead, I found proof that we did indeed have a mutual friend and that he was deceased. So, that recognition caused me to do more research about the diseases of HIV and AIDS. When I discovered that someone could live with the HIV and not know it. All kinds of questions went through my head. I wondered if this man had the disease when we dated and didn’t know it. I wondered how he had contracted it. It also reminded me that Bill’s best childhood friend had HIV and how awful I had heard that the drug known as AZT and more commonly called “cocktails” were. Bill had lost track of him a couple of years before he died and feared that the cocktails were no longer working. I wondered if it was possible that I hand contracted the disease and didn’t know it. The only way to alleviate my fears was to have a blood test. The blood test showed I was negative.
According to the World Health Organization (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs360/en/index.html), AIDS continues to be a pandemic.
HIV and AIDS are not the same. However, severe cases of HIV can become AIDS. HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) targets the immune system and makes if difficult for the body to fight off other diseases. It takes three to six weeks from the date of exposure before the disease can be detected, yet the disease may still be transmittable during that time. The most advanced state of HIV is AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome). AIDS takes 2-15 years to develop and yet someone can have HIV and if treated can live a long and fairly healthy life and can even have a healthy sex life. A woman with HIV can become pregnant and not pass the disease on to the fetus if under proper treatment. This all means that if there is an exposure to HIV and/or a knowledge of one having HIV, that certain precautions and certain treatments are used to prevent the spread of the disease.
Since 1988 the world has set aside a specific day to stress AIDS awareness and research. That is December 1. It originally was chosen by the two men who “created” it–James @. Bunn and Thomas Netter, both public information offers for the Global program on AIDS at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_AIDS_Day) As I stated at the beginning of this blog, the theme for this year is ‘Getting to Zero.” The only way we can do that is continued education and making sure that we are not participating in “risky” behaviors. (I’ll say more on that in another blog.)
.Surely, you didn’t think I would just give you statistics and not offer a way for you to remember this information. I wouldn’t do that to you. 🙂 Here is a song that says more about HIV/AIDS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=E2_QI3-yqJM.
For more information, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_AIDS_Day.
Thank you, DRS (12/18/1949-11/30/199), for giving me the opportunity to share this story and to become better educated about HIV and AIDS. RIP my friend.