Well, it's not news that I'm getting older, but at least I am doing so at the same rate as everyone else. I remember the world when telephones had cords, reheating food meant putting it on the stove, and nobody knew of AIDS. Around 1986 I was working at the University of Iowa Hospitals when I encountered my first AIDS patient. I was doing phlebotomy. He was a haemophiliac. He had contracted the disease from injections of Factor VIII, used to control his disease.
We had to monitor his level of Factor VIII and it was a huge deal to go into his room and get the blood. Lots of precautions. He was a very sick man, and died within weeks. I learned right away how horrifying the disease was.
Years later things are much different for AIDS patients. We have retrovirals that make their lives much better, and their lifetimes much longer. But it is still an awful thing, and it is still great to hear about advancements in AIDS research.
NPR tells of just such a story, which references some work published in Science. Yay.
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