Easter Weekend

Easter weekend was 4 days long here. Good Friday is a huge holiday, even bigger than Christmas. People seem to connect with the message of resurrection and rebirth more than anything else, so they make Easter the major Christian holiday of the year. There are big church gatherings on Friday, Saturday night, and Sunday. The largest is north of Johannesburg where tens of thousands meet up to celebrate. The downside is that this is also the deadliest travel weekend of the year, with roughly 200 people or more dying in accidents.

We (the Minneapolis group and me) had an interesting Easter experience at the JL Zwane church. Zwane is a Presbyterian church with about 2000 members. We went only expecting to stay for about half the service, an hour or so tops. We were unexpectly asked to help administer Communion, which none of us were really prepared for. So, our rag-tag group that included two gay men, one atheist, one agnostic, one Jew, and two women helped the other dozen or so church leaders. I only got reprimanded once, for not going back for more when I ran out. At least I'll know what to do next time, assuming they'll ask me again.

Before Communion Kevin Winge pulled me aside to speak with a woman about her son. Sophie (I'm changing the names) has a 4-year-old son named Sam. Sam fell ill about 3 years ago and was found to be HIV positive. The nurse asked Sophie if she wanted to be tested, but as she said "if my son is HIV positive then I must be, too" so she didn't bother. Sam has been on antiretrovirals since being diagnosed (3TC/AZT/nevirapine). They've worked well until recently when his viral load, the amount of virus in his blood, went from 1,300 to 100,000. He started to have some liver damage and has developed seizures, which may or may not be related to the HIV or the medications. The doctor recently changed his medications (ddI/d4T/Kaletra) with the hope of bringing the viral load back down. Sophie takes Sam back to clinic tomorrow (Wednesday) to get tested to see if the new drugs are working.

Sophie is very worried about Sam. He is hardly talking and still has fits, even though he is getting anti-seizure medication (valproic acid). She has heard that Kaletra is a bad drug and is scared of it. I tried to explain that Kaletra is good for HIV and that she shouldn't be freightened. I will follow up with her later this week and see what the news is.

I'm starting to figure out why I'm here. If I can help people understand HIV better and learn to live with it, then I will have done something.

The Minneapolis group all flew back on Sunday night. They certainly made my first week an easy one. So, thanks to Kevin, Jane, Chris, Brad, Larry, Kelly, and Linda for letting me tag along on your trips.

More to come.