Surviving and Thriving with AIDS: Hints for the Newly Diagnosed Michael Callen, Editor

©1987 PWAC NOTE: THIS IS OLD NEWS, posted for historical research only. The medical information herein is extremely outdated!

AIDS IN A PRISON SETTING

AIDS IN PRISON
by Martin

My name is Martin and I am a Person with AIDS in prison. I was diagnosed in December 1985. I just got ahold of your PWA Coalition Newsline from one of our only friends. I read about it in the Times and asked her to get it for us. At first we wanted to read the Newsline for its information about AIDS and the different treatments people are receiving.

I feel compelled to tell you of the plight of prisoners with AIDS here at Auburn Correctional Facility.

I don't have the words to describe what I have been going through since being diagnosed as having AIDS. In December, I was in a coma for eight days with Pneumocystis carinii. After recovering, I was brought back to the prison and placed in a restricted ward. I had two roommates and we were allowed out for one hour a day. No one talked to us and my visits took place in the middle of the hospital floor with officers, nurses and other inmates walking by every minute; my wife and I had no privacy and couldn't even cry on each others' shoulders. No one came to talk to me to help me to deal with this tragic news--not even the priest.

Everyday I was told I had AIDS and was going to die. If it wasn't verbalized by sadistic officers, nurses or other inmates, it was written in bold letters--A.I.D.S.--on the newspaper or deck of cards that they so generously gave us.

I have been thrown into a room to literally wait to die; all that is missing is the rocking chair. We do not get any treatment, nor do we get to go to the outside hospital unless you have a very high temperature, which makes it usually too late.

My one roommate went home; the other I sat with helplessly as he got sicker and sicker and when they took him to the hospital, he never returned. He is not the only one I watched die.

I really can't explain what I have been going through for the last eleven months. I can't talk; I can't cry; I can't even help myself.

My wife who came to visit four times a week has been made to feel like she has AIDS. The officers shy away from her, will not touch the same pen that she touches; they talk behind her back and make sadistic jokes behind her back. She is down to one visit--if that--a week, only to make sure I have food and am o.k.

I was completely alone in this room for months with nothing to do but think of dying. The loneliness was unbearable, but at least I could cry. I tell you all this not to have you feel sorry for me; I'm telling you this story because I have found my own treatment in my solitary.

I read of the friendship, concern and help you give each other out there and it warms my heart and makes me envious. Because we are in such a hopeless situation, I have seen many people just give up and die. I would have done the same thing if it wasn't for my wife, who got mad at me and called me a quitter. So I didn't quit. In fact, I forgot I had AIDS and hardly think about it now.

I wrote my life story and hope it will be published so it will deter others from using drugs.

I wrote the AIDS Task Force of Central New York and got the most friendly response of all the time I spent in this room. I was visited by Bradley Cohen, Director of the Task Force, and Raymond Durr, also of the Task Force, who have been most helpful--not only to me, but to the others that came after me.

I accomplished to have someone to talk to when one is diagnosed as having AIDS. Brad and Ray are trying to set up a weekly visit so we have someone to vent our frustrations on. We now can go out from eleven thirty to three forty-five every day and have weights to keep us healthy.

Nothing is marked "AIDS" anymore, but we still don't have anyone to talk to when one is really down.

Every six to eight weeks we go to the outside hospital for a check up. But we still don't get any treatment or answers to when we will be treated. I will say that the superintendent, Mr. Henderson, has done whatever he could do to help us, but he can't make people talk to us. So he stops by when he can and sits in our room and talks to us.

I try to help everyone that comes into this room. I give everyone support and hope that they will think to themselves as I did about my ex-roommate: "If he can live for that long, so can I."

I miss him dearly; he was a friend and an inspiration. I have not written this to blow my own horn. I just want people who think they have it the worst to look around them and they will ALWAYS see someone who is worse off. And please don't quit....

I am not a writer and don't know if I explained myself as well as I should have. But you are welcome to use my story if you like. I only ask that you don't use my name because my wife who comes from a small community has been through enough.

I am also coming up for a clemency hearing and don't know if I'm doing the right thing. I only know I had to say something because your paper moved me so.

And if you can send me the Newsline, we'd appreciate it very much.

Sincerely,

Martin
Auburn, NY

P.S.: My ex-roommate lived 19 months in the old hospital, where he had to piss and shit in a bucket.

-------------------------------
Another Full Page Picture here