The main book I am working on right now is (tentatively titled) Every Flower in the Garden, formerly In the Bushes. It’s an autobiographical novel loosely based on my life in the gay community from 1978-1988… immediately pre- and post AIDS.
Part of my research included reading How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS by David France. In this book, which was amazing for those wondering, I read how gay men fought for medications, that their rallying cry was “Drugs Into Bodies” (before morphing into “Silence = Death”).
The way the FDA tested medications could (and does) take many years to work through the vetting process and in the time it took them to approve medications for AIDS, hundreds/thousands died.
The group ACT UP protested everywhere they could find that someone might hear their voices to get them the medications faster and faster.
The men and women fighting for their lives wanted ANY medication invented that might save their lives, or prolong it… even if for only a couple of months.
My Do Not Resuscitate Order
It was in reading this that I had my mind changed about having a DNR hanging over my bed. If gay men who were so sick they could not sit up or even cry anymore, who went blind, who had horrific infections… if they could beg for a longer life, I should… and could… do the same.
Vaccine Reactions
In my previous post, I talked out why I would be waiting at least 6 months before reconsidering the COVID-19 vaccine. I forgot to add an anecdote about a relative of mine.
She got the Merck & Co.’s Zostavax vaccine to prevent shingles and within 12 hours was in the ER with the shingles. Zostavax came out in 2006 and this person got the vaccination in 2018, right before a slew of lawsuits about this reaction not being disclosed even though the company knew of the “side effect.” Zostavax is no longer in the United States because of the lawsuits from people like my relative who was so so sick with the shingles. The vaccine was removed from the shelves in the US November 18, 2020… half a minute ago.
It took from 2006 to 2020 to learn enough about the vaccine to remove it from use. What will we be seeing from the Coronavirus vaccines in 14 years?
Navelgazing Writer 