There are some people you never meet who have a profound effect on your life. Thanks to a friend who gifted me a record (as in vinyl) copy of Queen, in 1973 I became a hard-core Queen addict. It was #83 on the US charts and earned a gold record. I played it over and over and over that my grandparents bought me earphones. You can imagine their joy when I came home with Queen II.
But there's more to this story than music.
In June of 1983 my 75 year old grandfather had such a bad bout of indigestion he went to the ER. The doctors quickly realized that what my grandfather actually had was an abdominal aneurysm. After tests they rushed him into surgery, just in the nick of time. The aneurysm literally ruptured when his when he was wheeled into the OR, before his abdomen was was even opened. Thanks to quick thinking doctors and nurses, and eleven pints of blood (yes, eleven pints) he survived the surgery. He was in intensive care for two weeks, moved to a regular bed for a week and then came home. Two months later he resumed his daily two mile bike ride. He continued his rides until my grandmother died, when he channeled his energy into his garden and walks through the neighborhood with friends.
In June of 1987, he was suddenly taken ill with all sorts of unrelated stuff, all at the same time. An odd pneumonia called pneumocystis pneumonia necessitated hospitalization, and it was then that the doctors investigated his bruising, which caused by thrombocytopenia, a low level of platelets. Platelets make your blood clot. His skin lesions were diagnosed as something called Kaposi's Sarcoma. He was also diagnosed with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, not surprising since he smoked for over 50 years. He also had very low t-cell counts. In retrospect, it was obvious he had AIDS. But in 1987, many cases were not diagnosed, whether it was from lack of knowledge on the part of medical personnel or the lack of accurate tests. By the time he died in 1989, his hospice doctor determined that he did have AIDS, contracted from contaminated blood he received in 1983. He died six months after diagnosis.
On November 24, 1991, when Freddy Mercury died a day after he announced he had AIDS, I spent hours crying. His death brought back all the feelings I had when my grandfather died.
I still remain a total Queen freak. One of the ways I channel some of that love is to support AIDS education and support groups. The list below is just a small list of groups that really, really are worthy of support:
http://www.lifebeat.org/...: The Music Industry Fights AIDS
http://www.iasusa.org/..., a not-for-profit professional organization that sponsors continuing medical education (CME) programs for physicians.
CDS HIV resources
CDC HIV info En Español
http://www.unaids.org/...
http://www.pepfar.gov/
And finally, The Mercury Phoenix Trust Founded by the remaining members of Queen and their manager, Jim Beach, the Mercury Phoenix Trust has donated millions in grant money to the fight AIDS worldwide.