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University Daily Kansan / Friday. December 6, 1991
Patient finds solace at KU after whirlwind lifestyle
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positive," he said, then paused. "Actually, they're all dead."
No one really knew or cared about condoms in the beginning, Wayne said. And in those days there was not much of an education program for safe sex.
Testina positive for HIV
"The information wasn't there," he said.
"You had to set your own rules and decide for yourself."
Wayne moved to Florida as the AIDS death toll grew, and his friends were among those who fell victim to the disease.
Finally disenchanted with the wild Florida life, Wayne jumped in a beat-up Ford Fairmont and drove back to Kansas.
In Topeka, he still met men and went to a few bars. He got a job at the zoo selling lizards.
"I guess I had started feeling pretty invulnerable." he said.
Then in October 1987, he took an HIV test. Wayne had been tested twice before, and both times he had been negative. This time the results were different.
The test was positive
Devastated and scared he would do something drastic, he went to a support group that
"I thought I was going to die," Wayne said.
"I wanted to spend at least a few months pretending it didn't happen."
He filled an AZT prescription but put off taking it.
AZT, an anti-viral drug given to many HIV patients, is toxic and can have harmful side effects.
Wayne promised himself he would not start AYT until the new year. He wanted time before starting the medication he probably would have to take for the rest of his life.
He has not yet experienced any side effects from AZT.
Adjusting to the disease
Wayne tried to keep a positive attitude about the diagnosis, holding on to the job at the zoo and continuing to draw on the zoo's insurance plan.
he no in charge at the zoo knew that he no HIV. If his employers had known, he said he had been infected.
It took Wayne a year to sober up after the HIV diagnosis. He has not had a drink since 1988.
The trips across the United States had given Wayne all he wanted to see of the world, and in the fall of 1990, he enrolled at the University of Kansas.
He goes to class on Mondays. Wednesdays and Fridays and works in his doctor visits on the other days.
Wayne takes an inhalation treatment once a month at Watkins to stave off a pneumonia attack.
A doctor in Topeka recently referred him to a chemotherapist in Kansas City, Mo.
He would like to finish the semester before beginning chemotherapy for the skin dis-
Like the AZT, which he says he takes infrequently, the chemotherapy is a serious treatment that he wants to delay for now. Wayne canceled his appointment this week.
If his condition were to worsen, he said, he might have to drop out of KU and return to Topeka to recuperate.
His sister, who lives in Topeka, said that anyone in the family would be willing to take care of her.
Wayne tries to keep his mind and body healthy with a barrage of vitamins, herbs, teas and AIDS-related literature.
She said their mother and three other siblings died in January of Alzheimer's disease in Jamaica.
Wayne pays all of his bills from a federal disability check and from student health insurance money.
Treating the disease has been a financial burden, he said. He estimates that he is $3,000 in debt right now, but he still is awaiting some insurance checks.
Walking a fine line
But he doesn't spend his time watching the mail.
The young, vibrant University atmosphere and his classes keep him occupied.
"After years of floating around, letting decide my life, I chose to return to school."
Wayne earned a 4.0 grade point average his first semester and maintains good grades.
He has set some simple goals: passing tests, enjoyings lectures and keeping caught up on his reading. Although he has not chosen a major, he plans to graduate.
"There is a real fine line to walk between planning future and at the same time think about the long term."
Wayne admits he hit rock bottom after he was diagnosed with cancer and when his father died.
His frustration, combined with a need to conserve his energy, has made him more withdrawn. He lives alone in a small room off a busp. There, he concentrates on surviving.
"It really did get to be too much," he said. "You can fight and scream and yell and watch your friends all die, and nothing changes."
The distance between Lawrence and his hometown of Topeka has severed him from the friends he had before he moved here.
"I don't know where they have all gone," Wayne said. "I had a large circle of friends,
thank God — not that any of them really understood what I was going through."
AIDS patients go back and forth between dark feelings and hope. On a day down this year, Wayne wrote a letter to a national newsletter for people with AIDS. The publication refused it because it was too depressing.
Now when he scans the four-page letter, he laughs off the desperate tone.
"Please, may I choose love and beauty instead of that common, dreaded hospital room where the strangers prolong suffering and the living just stare," he wrote.
New bursts of energy
Wayne is glad to be far away from that antisite environment.
At KU, his day consists of one class, an hour break to rest, then three classes in a row.
Wayne said he left his last class early several times this semester because he became
Only one of his professors knows he has AIDS. The others simply know he is being treated for cancer.
But even if he is worn down by the afternoon, he often is able to kick back, relax and sleep.
"Sometimes, I can lose myself in class," he said. "Thank God for those moments."
His energy comes in four-hour spurts. Any longer without a break can exhaust him.
Wayne has changed his diet to increase his stamina. He has researched the vitamins and herbs that can be used to keep AIDS patients healthy and protected from disease.
During early summer, Wayne had to spend 20 hours a day in bed because he was
He is now a vegetarian, taking lots of vitamins B, C and E, and can function longer without a break.
A restful hour in the late afternoon listening to National Public Radio's "All Things Music."
At the small desk squeezed in next to his
desk, then may do some homework and readin
If he has time, he'll call someone on the telephone or write letters to friends.
They correspond about how they are doing and about new AIDS information they have
Cats and sunbathing, two of his favorite things, have been banned by doctors. But kaleidoscopes from his collection still scatter his small room.
Wayne at times misses the fun — the sex, the drugs and the alcohol.
Now he must constantly monitor his body, dreading each new spot on his skin.
One way he works through his frustrations is by assembling collages of words, paragraphs and pictures he cuts from magazines and newspapers.
A few of them are pinned on the wall above
a low bookshell, where he keeps his medical
book.
He takes down a photocopy of a collage he made when he moved to Lawrence to start college.
Amid the jumble of different-sized clips,
he points out a small phrase hidden in
them.
P. S. I still think life is magical.
"I've lost a lot of that in the past year," Wayne said "But I'd like to still think it is true."
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