Friday, June 26, 2009

It's my party

This one is a tear-jerker; I almost started crying watching the preview, but perhaps that is because the first time I watched it I got too involved with the characters. It seems to me like AIDS used to be front and center in the public media, and while I understand that fear-mongering isn't useful, I do think it is smart to be aware of all illnesses that are highly communicable, and easily preventable.



I just wish there were some way to keep the public educated, to keep people cautious without making them fearful. The trend seems to be the same each time there is a new disease (virus, bacteria, fungus, whatever) discovered. First, people panic (Ah! We're all going to die of West Nile Virus), then they forget all about it, as if it were never a problem even though for something such as West Nile, the incidence has NOT vanished! Granted, like any virus, in each year it cycles, but, the incidence in certain ecological niches remains high.

Even now, with HIV/AIDS, the CDC reports that many AIDS patients are diagnosed too late, and strikingly (to me at least), is that they estimate "that 56,300 new HIV infections occurred in the United States in 2006"

2 comments:

GeorgeRN said...

Farrah Faucet died but within hours she was buried under the news of Michael Jackson's death. Right or wrong, the news agencies are always looking for new, unusual, cute, or bizarre things to report. Once the newness of a topic expires, they move on. This has happened with HIV.

I like that this film touches on people accepting their mortality. That's part of the basis for hospice care, acceptance and a chance for closure. Everybody dies but those who die in accidents don't have a chance for closure. Some who are dying of disease also miss out on closure because they're unable to accept that change is inevitable and death is part of the life cycle. Like many, I fail to tell my loved ones that I love them on a regular basis. That's one of many things I need to work on.

mathbionerd said...

I agree completely. Life, I think, is much easier to appreciate when we realize how fleeting it is. It can be easy to get caught up in petty drama, but realizing that I could be gone tomorrow usually helps me get over being upset about most things (usually). :)

I do hope that I have closure enough that I won't need to have a big party to do so, but I suppose that is a process we work through every day.