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Show by Ten Gomes No one is safe from AIDS Editor's note: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome known commonly as AIDS not only affects homosexuals and intravenous drug users, but also has spread to the heterosexual community through bisexual contacts and through the transfusion of blood donated by infected people. AIDS destroys the body's immune system and is fatal in most cases. There is no cure. Dateline: San Francisco AIDS is no longer just a gay problem or "Rock Hudson's disease," or a touching cover story from last month's Life magazine. The Disease AIDS is now my problem. I came here, first to Sacramento, last week, to be with my mother while she underwent some heart tests. I had enough prior indications to guess the tests would show she needed surgery and I wanted to be here for her. She is 62 and single, once again, without any family living in the state. The morning after her tests, the doctor came into her hospital room to explain she would need triple bypass surgery. She had not expected that news. In addition, all heart surgery for the medical group she is a part of is done in San Francisco. In addition to that, the doctor suggested that with the AIDS problem, we might want to arrange our own blood donors. Quite frankly, it took a full 24 hours for the enormity of his words to sink in for me. Because the concern here is so very great, the Irwin Memorial Blood Bank in San Francisco has started a special program called the Designated Donor Program. I hope I can explain this simply.. ..First, one of the family members (not the patient) is asked to coordinate the donors with the Blood Bank and make all appointments and handle all the paperwork. The surgeon determines how many units of what kind of blood is needed and gives the coordinator that form with the results (in my mother's case four units of whole blood, O-positive), then schedules the surgery two weeks hence to allow time to get the donors. Two weeks is a long time for a heart patient to wait under the best of conditions. It is not enough, however, that the potential donor have O-positive blood. Four special properties within my mother's blood have been identified and they must be matched. Exactly. For four units of whole blood, they suggest eight donors. Eight people who must come, in person, to only this blood bank in San Francisco to give blood, have it tagged with my mother's information to make certain it is the exact blood that will be used on the patient, my mother. My mother works in a nice, state job, appointed by the Republican governor, her friend. She knows a lot of people. What she does not know, and until now had no reason to care, is if these people may be AIDS carriers. You see, if it was just a matter of giving any blood, we would issue the call that has been suggested to state employees who then could donate blood in her name, either all over the state or in person, specifically for her. But that won't do. The scare here is so great, even within the medical profession, that it is critical the donors be well known by the patient. I have been working with my mother's best friend for four days now to try to find eight people with O-positive blood who can donate at this San Francisco clinic. I try to ignore reports on the evening news that say a walkout of all San Francisco nurses is planned for next week. At this writing we have gotten six people, including my husband, who will fly out from Park City, who we hope can net four exact matches. The literature my mother received from the surgeon says this hospital and staff perform over 750 open-heart operations a year. I find out the operative risk is about 1 percent. Compare those numbers to this quote in the Aug. 5 issue of Newsweek magazine: "More than 11,000 Americans have been diagnosed as having the disease (AIDS), first identified five years ago and none has ever been known to recover from it." I got to thinking how, in Park City, we pride ourselves on being a rather cosmopolitan town. People travel, literally, the world over to visit us. Now that it has been proven AIDS is not only a Haitian disease or a homosexual disease, we can no longer say, in our seemingly sheltered little mountain town, "Gosh, it's all so sad and all that, but AIDS is not my problem." It strikes a vein with me that AIDS is my problem and it is your problem. And pretending it does not exist is dangerous to yourself and those you love. True, if perhaps my mother (or perhaps your child) were in a situation that required immediate, on-the-spot emergency surgery, we would take whatever blood matched and be damned grateful. But if you had a week or two before surgery, would you risk taking just any blood with a killer plague on the loose? Or would you too try to line up your own designated donors? Take a moment this week with those you love and see if you even know each other's blood type. And then ask yourselves a few "What if?" questions. AIDS may be my problem today, but until this disease is checked it's just I a matter of time before it or its effects become part of If your life. |