THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 12, 1996 TAG: 9610120266
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 117 lines
If one views the struggle against AIDS as a war, Jim Spivey has been on the front lines for more than a decade.
He's faced the deaths of too many friends. And, as head of the region's largest AIDS service group, the Tidewater AIDS Crisis Taskforce, he's seen the deaths of many who had turned to him for help.
``My racquetball partner got very sick and ended up in fetal position and passed away,'' Spivey said. ``That's what motivates me. It's such an ugly disease. And there are so many people who want to stay an arm's length away from it. If everyone was like that, our clients would be just desperate for care.''
Yet the one thing he has never been able to face is their living memory: The AIDS Memorial Quilt. ``I still hurt a lot,'' Spivey, 58, said. ``I still miss my friends.''
Today, he will make the journey he has avoided. He'll join hundreds from Hampton Roads in the nation's capital for what organizers say will be the last full display of a unique memorial.
The AIDS Memorial Quilt was laid out Friday morning on theNational Mall, its 37,000 6-by-3-foot panels stretching from the Washington Monument to the Capitol - a 45-ton commemoration to the passing of the 70,000 people whose names are on it.
``I couldn't go last time because of my depression'' over the loss of his friends, Spivey said of the quilt's last full display in 1992. ``Maybe this is the way of putting a little bit of closure on it for me. What could make it bearable is that, today, we have hope.''
At no time since the AIDS epidemic began, since the first panel of the quilt was sewn, has there been as much optimism. There is a sense that a corner has been turned.
An expanding arsenal of drug therapies has, for the first time, seemingly put AIDS in check. Patients who seemed near death are getting better and living longer.
``That has changed the entire nature of patients' attitudes,'' said Al Torres, 50, who has been a case worker with TACT for five years. ``Finally, they are seeing the glass as half full, not almost empty.''
For years, Torres likened the battle to a wrestling match with AIDS in one corner, a 7-foot behemoth weighing in at 300 pounds, vs. the available medical knowledge, a scrawny 6-footer at less than 200 pounds. It was a mismatch that seldom went more than a few rounds.
Today, with multiple and changeable therapies, ``We have two 7-foot tag team members who, when one gets tired, tags off to bring the other,'' Torres said.
Torres said he has seen patients with devastated immune systems, and test readings indicating huge HIV infection, transformed in months with rebuilt immunity and almost no evidence of active infection.
``They are still HIV positive, for sure; they still have AIDS,'' he said. ``But the change is dramatic.''
In February, ``we noticed we were having fewer clients die,'' said Spivey, who joined TACT in 1985 and became executive director in 1995. ``We were averaging about 12 client deaths a month. Then, in February, there were only two. In March, three. And, in April, two.''
Yet success in the laboratory is raising a whole new challenge for AIDS service groups like TACT - a challenge that is only now being realized.
Absent a cure, people living with AIDS and living longer may strain already limited support services. In many cases, demand already outstrips resources.
``We struggle from month to month like most nonprofit agencies,'' Spivey said. ``We try to meet most of the needs. Some months, there's more than we can meet.''
TACT has about 800 clients. Of those, 380 are ``active,'' needing frequent assistance. Eastern Virginia - with 2,166 known AIDS cases as of Dec. 31 and 3,208 people known to be HIV-positive - has the state's highest caseload.
TACT has five full-time education workers and a half-dozen professional case workers. It has a $380,000 budget, much from donations, some from government and private grants.
TACT is one of scores of such organizations that sprang up around the country in the early days of the AIDS epidemic. The mission is much the same now as then.
``I am still amazed that so many people don't even know what TACT does,'' said Robin Neal, 37, president of the board of trustees.
She places particular value on the group's educational efforts - going to schools, civic groups and organizations - to explain AIDS and how to prevent its spread. And the warning that it is not a ``gay disease,'' but one that crosses every known social boundary.
``When it began, the primary mission was education in the gay community to try and reduce the spread of AIDS through unsafe sex,'' Spivey said. ``Then, as more people started getting infected, it expanded to case management to take care of those who are infected. Those are basically still our objectives today.''
There have been a few important services added over the years, among them an extensive volunteer program. Also, much more effort is required in helping people with AIDS find places to live.
And people are still dying.
``I lost three close friends within three months of each other,'' said Spivey, who finds that he has ``to keep a certain distance so I can be there and be effective.''
Still, it's impossible not to become emotionally engaged.
``A friend came by my office after a visit to his doctor. There had been a dip in his numbers'' in medical tests, indicating that AIDS was gaining ground. ``He was a little depressed. So we sat there and shared a few tears together.''
Though he'll not seek out anyone's quilt panel in particular, he knows the odds are that he'll happen upon names he knows. Local AIDS organizations estimate that about 300 panels, possibly as many as 500, commemorate people from Hampton Roads.
Another 50 panels, made by family and friends of those who have died, have been kept at home, hung at TACT's offices and at a local church.
He, his partner and four close friends will be among hundreds from the region to visit the quilt, many arriving on chartered buses.
``I guess we're all going to sort of lean on each other,'' Spivey said. ``It's something I'm not looking forward to, yet I'm also very much looking forward to. It may sound corny, but it's almost like a pilgrimage.'' MEMO: AIDS walk planned for Nov. 3/B3 ILLUSTRATION: TAMARA VONINSKI
The Virginian-Pilot
Tidewater AIDS Crisis Taskforce caseworker Al Torres, left, with Jim
Spivey, executive director. Behind them, a panel depicts falling
leaves - local residents who have died of AIDS. by CNB