The Years of Plague and Love Part One

“But what does it mean, the plague? It's life, that's all.” 
― Albert Camus, The Plague



I graduated from nursing school in 1982. In San Francisco. I lived in the Castro District and worked at a "gay" restaurant while I was in school. Many of my friends were gay. Many. Most of my clinical rotations were at San Francisco General, UCSF and Kaiser, all hospitals with active Infectious Disease Units and I gravitated to them for doing my in-depth work. A new disease was being seen more and more often and it was hitting people I knew. No one was really sure what it was, but most people called it GRID, Gay Related Immune Deficiency.

Halloween at The Sausage Factory, Castro Street,1981

 I remember the first patient I cared for with GRID He was a 22 year old skinny African-American man, gay, and had a disease of old Jewish men, Kaposi's Sarcoma, a cancer which coloured his mocha skin in deep purple splotches. He also had a respiratory disease called PCP, a fungal disease usually found in chemo patients or other immune compromised people. He looked very tiny in the hospital bed, And very scared. His caregivers, the nurses and other hospital workers, including me, wore isolation gowns, gloves, and if we chose to, masks. I rarely wore a mask, I knew my chances of getting PCP were beyond slim- I was a healthy young woman.
One day he was visited by a rather well-known SF community leader and his entourage. It was a photo op. They asked me what they should wear in the room. I told them the options, knowing that they would be on the far side of the room from him, I suggested a gown, gloves if they had open cuts, and that a mask was not required. They chose to do compete isolation garb. It was their choice. I held the young man's hand , gloveless, not because I was saintly, not because I was crazy, but because that small man was going to die very soon and to feel that alone and unwanted must be a very terrible feeling.
Rumours were already spreading through the Castro , down Folsom Street, Polk Street that there was a disease that you could get from gay men. Some people said it was only from the street gays or in the bath houses or promiscuous guys- of course what other kind was there?

Nursing School Graduation

By the mid 80 I was working as a nurse and the disease had a name. AIDS. In the next few years we would learn more and more about the virus which caused it, HIV, and also how it was spread. And I would see friend after friend die. I chose to work at the Visiting Nurse Association as a hospice nurse. It was the first agency that would take care of People With AIDS who were in end stage. Some of my friends, gay and straight, thought I was crazy. I did not tell them all of the stories. Men left alone by relatives,left alone by friends who were scared, even as the medical community learned more and more about the virus, how it was spread, what vectors it chose. People didn't want to believe it. They preferred to demonize gay men, Haitians, IV drug users. I saw mothers refuse to hold their sons hands, just their hands, even as we told them the virus was not passed through casual contact. I sat with men who waited and waited for visits from friends who never showed up.
I saw dementia take over the brains of brilliant college professors and I saw young street prostitutes die without ever having felt real love.

And I kept my own secrets from friends. One way we all knew AIDS was spread was through blood contact. And I had that contact. The first time was in a hospital. A needle had been left behind on a bed after a patient had an in-room procedure. It punctured my glove and broke my skin. I washed my hands thoroughly and reported what happened. I was tested for the virus. And continued being tested several times. I told no one other than my partner.

I took care of an older gay man for several months as he went through his dying process. He was quiet, dignified, a bit of a snob in a quirky likable way. He had been an interior designer and his house was filled with beautiful objects. His best friend was a very religious woman who had escaped from Shanghai as a child and knew my client through Grace Cathedral,the beautiful Episcopalian church near his home. Gradually dementia took over his brain and he became angry, forgetful and often delusional. One of my tasks was to check his blood sugar, as he was also diabetic. One day after I pricked his finger with the small lancet used to get a drop of blood, he picked it up as I checked the dipstick we then used to show his glucose levels. He was playing with the sharp  absentmindedly, then reached for my hand and stuck me with  the still bloody lancet. I reported it to my supervisor. I was tested once again. And again I told no one other than my partner.

A few weeks later the same client jerked as I was giving him his insulin and I was once again stuck by a needle. From an AIDS patient. I reported again. And my tests continued longer.  And I still kept it secret. Not long after that I held one of his hands as his friend held the other and we  watched him breathe his last breaths.