HIV-POSITIVE MAN TELLS STUDENTS HIS STORY

DCVI Assembly Teaches Students About AIDS

AIDS Action Perth staged assemblies at St. Marys DCVI last week, complete
with rapper, dancers, and a Stratford Festival actress . . . but it was a
34-year-old Stratford man's account of contracting and living with HIV that
had to leave the biggest impression on the students.

A youth-friendly program has been adopted by AIDS Action Perth because AIDS
organizations have learned their message is not getting through to teenagers.

But teens couldn't help but be moved by Mike Patterson's talk, as he
detailed years of "bad choices" which led him to the life he's forced to
live today.

"I went to (AIDS Action Perth) this summer because if I can get my message
across to you, maybe you won't end up like me," he told the audience. "To
tell you what it is like living with this disease."

The important thing people must know, he said, is that HIV and AIDS is "100
per cent preventable."

Patterson was diagnosed in 1999, he said, "but saying it aloud still makes
my knees get weak."

And last week was the first time he'd ever spoken publicly about his
disease; he chose several high schools in Perth County to do just that.

"I've learned a lot of things since (1999), I've learned to cope, I've
learned about discrimination, and I've learned compassion and tolerance for
others."

Patterson said he's "a personal example of what can happen from making a
series of bad choices."

He went from being an auxiliary police officer with York Region, to having
a cocaine addition for 10 years, to spending time in a federal
penitentiary, and to the reality of dealing with an illness that will
eventually kill him.

He said by the late '90s he had "sunk so low" he was injecting cocaine, so
he moved to Alberta to escape the life he was living in Ontario. The move
did not help, to say the least. He got a job in the oil fields and was
making lots of money, but said "the bigger the pay cheque, the bigger the
bag of coke."

Mike Patterson said he spent his weekends drinking, doing drugs and having
unprotected sex with "someone I didn't know."

One night he went to a bar with a friend who pointed to one woman and said,
"stay away from her, she's positive," he recalled the man saying.

"I said, 'what do you mean, happy?'" No, the friend said. The woman was HIV
positive.

"It was the same woman I had spent the last weekend with," he said. "I knew
right away that I had it, considering the things I'd done with that girl."

Shortly after, Patterson became ill, feeling like he had the flu only much
worse. One day he looked in the mirror and "my skin had turned yellow."
Before long he was in intensive care, where he almost died. His liver had
stopped working. He had Hepatitis C.

Patterson said he got out of hospital and immediately committed a robbery.
"I didn't need the money, I was angry."

He ended up getting arrested and called his family for bail money, which
they sent -- his voice choking as he spoke of his family's continued love
and support despite his behaviour.

Six months later, he tested HIV positive. "It takes six months for the
antibodies to show up in your blood," he explained.

He committed another robbery, then tried to take his own life; taking pills
and slitting both wrists so bad he cut the tendons.

"I woke up in hospital, in intensive care, alone and scared." From there he
was sent to federal prison. Shortly thereafter, Patterson learned his
father had cancer back in Ontario, but he couldn't even come home to see him.

All of this had happened in just the few months he'd been in Alberta.

"All my hopes and dreams were taken away from me when I heard those two
words (HIV positive)."

Mike Patterson said he knew almost nothing about the disease. "I thought
people with HIV and AIDS looked different, were indigent . . . what I found
out is that the disease doesn't discriminate -- rich, poor, gay, straight,
black, white . . . anyone can get it.

"If you choose to have unprotected sex or share a needle, you could end up
being a statistic," he said.

Patterson said people believe that if you have HIV these days, you just
take a few pills and you're fine otherwise. That is very far from the truth.

He takes well over 20 pills a day, and because of his liver disease and
other factors, he must take pills that make him sick every day. The side
effects he listed were lengthy and painful.

"It's not much fun. You don't want to go through this; it's serious stuff,"
he said.

"The meds make me so sick, that pretty soon I'll have to decide between
quantity of life and quality of life."

The virus itself is causing brain damage and muscle loss, he said.

To make matters worse, he was accidentally poisoned by hydrogen sulphite
while working in northern Alberta and is off work indefinitely, so now he
is dealing with financial difficulties.

"I might be able to get some disability assistance by spring," he said.

Abstinence The Best Choice

Patterson told the students that the best way to avoid getting HIV or AIDS
is by simply not having sex -- abstinence.

However, if they do choose to have sex, "know your partner. Realize that
you will be having sex with everyone your partner has ever had sex with,"
he said. Stay away from drugs too, he said, and not just IV drugs. "Even
passing a bill around (to snort coke) you are passing around blood, even
though you can't see it," he said.

Mike Patterson says he's not looking for pity.

"All I want is a promise from you that you'll respect your body, and
respect other people's. And be kind to people," he said.

"And if you have questions or issues about yourself that you are struggling
with, don't stuff yourself with alcohol or drugs like I did. And if someone
you know is in trouble, don't wait until they hit rock bottom before you
help them," he said . . . because by then they could be dead.

"I don't want to see anybody have to go through this," he concluded. "Life
is tough enough."