It was brilliant. I learned so much about story from that situation.
Tonight, I watched another episode. This time it was just a different way of story telling. It was a series of flashbacks done in such a lovely frame that it didn't feel like flashbacks and it made sense. Three very distinct subplots were manipulated with ease in this manner - attending doctors lecturing about their intern days. Again, brilliant.
One of the flashbacks took the viewers back to 1982, where there was an interesting conjunction of minority doctors, a female white doctor that the male doctors called "nurse", a black doctor, and a female black doctor. Every one a minority in their own way.
In this episode, there was a patient who had a strange infection and no one could figure it out. When they ran out of possibilities they began looking at newer health threats. When they asked the patient about one of them he reacted strongly and told them they were wrong.
It got me thinking. It's been thirty-five years since doctors and the health community have begun looking at and treating AIDS in a serious manner. Back in those days, no one knew how the disease was transmitted. They called it an epidemic in 1981. Initially, the disease was called GRID (gay-related immune deficiency) Having AIDS was a death sentence and it scared everyone who was exposed to someone with the disease. As more studies were done, doctors realized the disease was not one just associated with gay men but with other groups susceptible to the pathogen including drug users, hemophiliacs and even some immigrant populations. By August of 1982 the health community was commonly calling GRID, AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome).
It took a princess to take away the fear associated with AIDS patients. In this picture, Princess Diana shows the world to not be
afraid to touch a person suffering with AIDS. It rocked the world at the time which was the early 1990's.
For me, I had just started my teaching career when this horrible disease became an epidemic. AIDS did exist in one form or another that doctors knew about probably as far back as the late 1950's. But, it was rare and definitely not described as an epidemic. Princess Diana was my hero.
Today, people with AIDS have a variety of drugs to help combat the disease and it's symptoms. It is still a serious disease, but people who have it are able to be productive with their lives and live longer.
Things were definitely different thirty-five years ago. Those of us who were young aren't so much these days. Hopefully, we have learned a lot since those days are heinous prejudice. Sure, there are throwbacks, who somehow think we all live in a Father Knows Best society, but that has never been reality - even in the 50's.
Hopefully, we look at people as people. No better or worse than anyone else. There is still work to be done too. Whether we like it or not, prejudice still exists. We all need to be a little more like Princess Diana, who wasn't afraid to reach out and touch a person that society branded a pariah.
With computers it is so easy to close ourselves off, and not go out of the house if that was what we wanted. Computers also let us be "blind" to the person on the other end of a chat room, or thread. We don't have to see color or religion, or sexual orientation. People can just be people.
It's up to each one of us to take a step forward, maybe take a stand if that is your thing, but each of us is responsible for how we treat the people in our sphere of influence. Maybe you have to be really active in controlling your thinking or speaking. Maybe acceptance of others comes easily. We all need to set examples - every religion, every orientation, every nationality and every race - we all need to set examples.
It's when we do that, that we have the ability to change our little world with a handshake or hug. We all have the ability to make as big a difference in a life as Princess Diana did to the people of Casey House in Toronto, Canada.
