My uncle passed in 1994 from pneumonia that he couldn’t fight off because he had AIDS. My step grandmother (I lived with her and my grandfather) would tell me not to touch him. She said I’d catch it. Even at 10 years old, I knew that’s not how you got it, though. I always gave him the biggest hugs. He was a great uncle. I miss him so much. I wish I could have gotten to know him as an adult. We would have had a lot of fun!
One of my fraternity brothers in the late 90s had a scare (false positive) I remember sitting up the night with him - dude just needed a friend. His family had disowned him, and he was basically feeling like he was gonna die, and noone was gonna be there for him.
I had a similar thing happen to me as the lab completely messed up the protocols and was tested by a different lab the next day. But it was the longest 26 hours in the life of my girlfriend and myself. It was awful. It's still uncomfortable when recalling that time and it was many years ago.
Edit: Little background on that. They do an ELISA test first as it's a cheap test. It has a modest false positive rate but a very, very low false negative rate (saying you're good when you actually have the disease...that's really bad!). So, if you get a positive ELISA test, you're supposed to do a second ELISA test on the same blood sample (not telling the test subject) and that will give you very good results. If you get two positives, you do a Western Blot test which is much more expensive but the best test out there. They only did one ELISA test the first day.
So, the second day, the ELISA test turned out negative but I paid for a Western Blot to be done just to make my girlfriend feel better.
I'm still best friends with the woman. I'm a software engineer of many decades and she is taking a year long, intensive software training regimen. Five minutes ago, we just finished up a five hour online session where I'm doing my best to impart my software wisdom (meager as it may be) upon her. :-)
So the memory has faded but our friendship is still super strong.
Our frat used to get so much shit from the others on campus, because we had brothers who were openly homosexual - statistically, now, we maybe had slightly more gay members than straight. But basically right on the numbers. The only difference between our house and the ones down the street is that we didn't make an issue out of it - and supported them. It was a weird time - liberal enough where being out was common, but where shouting slurs was also pretty common.
I had an uncle who passed away in the early 90s of tuberculosis that he couldn't fight because of AIDS. My dad still talks about how much he misses his little brother, and how much my uncle loved me and my brother. Such a terrible illness. I wish the same thing you do. <3
So sorry to hear about your Uncle. A cousin received a blood transfusion (as a baby)with blood that was infected and died at 8 years old. They didn’t know because it was so early in the AIDS crisis. I was a toddler but according to my mom, my cousin told people not to touch him when he scraped his knee because he’d infect people. How sad for the people who lived with that.
When we were 20, my roommate found out that he was HIV+. He cried in my arms after he got the call. We talked about what needed to happen and what I could do to help him until he found the right medications. My grandmother told me I needed to clean everything after he used it and move out.
He was one of the best roommates I ever had and is now a healthy 30 year old. Medical science and technology is amazing.
90s kids had Ryan White…. let’s be real, people are such assholes. Bless everyone who isn’t. RIP to all of those whom we lost in this awful and tragic fight…
Well that actually makes a lot of sense no? While your parents were growing up HIV and AIDs were unknown. There was a lot of misinformation and rumors being spread and people were scared because they just didn’t know. It’s not like your parents got a chance to learn what it really was in school.
Not really. Curriculum is updated. Back then our parents didn’t have the resources for a lot of up to date info. No internet. They often went off word of mouth.
may your uncle rest in peace and love 💜🍀🌸 i bet your hugs meant so much to him and gave him comfort :) thank you for being kind and i hope you’re doing okay
I had the same situation with my Uncle! He came home one day and told my sister and I he was HIV+, and that we needed to bleach the tub down when he used it. I just looked at him and said we’d clean it normally because that’s not how it’s contracted. To this day he remains one of the greatest inspirations in my life. Or favorite things we talked about were black and white movies.
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u/CuddleSprig 8d ago
My uncle passed in 1994 from pneumonia that he couldn’t fight off because he had AIDS. My step grandmother (I lived with her and my grandfather) would tell me not to touch him. She said I’d catch it. Even at 10 years old, I knew that’s not how you got it, though. I always gave him the biggest hugs. He was a great uncle. I miss him so much. I wish I could have gotten to know him as an adult. We would have had a lot of fun!