Garden Grove Man’s Life Tied to AZT Pillbox

Morning, noon and night, a timer attached to his pillbox goes off, a jolting reminder that he is ill. The persistent beeping is a signal that no matter where he is, or what he is doing, he must take time out to swallow his dosage of AZT.

Like about 1.5 million Americans nationwide, he is infected with the AIDS virus--living in constant fear that any day, something as harmless as a common cold could announce the arrival of a death sentence.

Spurred by basketball star Earvin (Magic) Johnson’s stunning announcement last week that he had tested positive for the human immunodeficiency virus, this 30-year-old Garden Grove resident agreed to describe his own private struggle to cope.

However, he asked that his name not be published out of fear that he would lose his job as an accounting clerk. In 1989, county supervisors narrowly rejected a proposal that would have made it illegal to discriminate against people with HIV or full-blown acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

“For Magic Johnson to come out and say he’s HIV-positive” is all very well, he said, but “although I’m sure that was very difficult for him, he does not have to worry about a roof over his head and where the mortgage payment is going to come from.

“I think my employer would find a reason for me not to be here if he knew,” he said.

For those without the financial resources and public support of a Magic Johnson, living with the AIDS virus often means hiding their condition from co-workers, friends, even family members.

“Many times, they can’t be open about their infection at work and get support,” said Pearl Jemison-Smith, AIDS coordinator at UCI Medical Center in Orange. “It’s very stressful. People will make AIDS jokes, and they’re sitting there.”

The Garden Grove man worries constantly that someone at his office will find out why he is taking medicine.

“Sometimes my timer will go off when I’m not in my office,” he said, “and I’ll come back and there’s a note on my desk, ‘Your pills were calling.’ The difficult thing is that I ask myself, ‘Do they wonder why I am taking medication?’ I don’t know what they’re thinking, so the way I deal with it is that I avoid the issue.”

Like Johnson, the Garden Grove man has so far been spared the symptoms associated with full-blown AIDS. But since learning 14 months ago that he is infected with the virus, the news has taken an emotional toll.

“The range of feeling goes from ambivalence to complete terror,” he said. “The terror part usually comes when a friend or someone else that you know is dying.

“I used to go for years without going to the doctor. Now, every time I get a cold or something, part of me says, ‘Oh my God, if I don’t take action it’s going to get worse.’ ”

According to AIDS activists, people who carry the virus but have not yet contracted an AIDS-related illness are falling through the cracks.

“People out there are fending for themselves,” said one AIDS activist who asked not to be identified because he too is HIV positive and fears that it could jeopardize his job.

“There is a gap in services between the time someone tests positive, like Magic Johnson, to the time that they get AIDS,” he said, “and a lot of people are not hooked up to any services anywhere.”

For the Garden Grove man, the nightmare began in July, 1990, when his doctor told him that his HIV test had come back positive. He had decided to get tested because he is gay and had become active with several AIDS advocacy groups that stressed the importance of early detection.

“I was really scared,” he said, remembering his fateful visit to the doctor. “I thought, ‘Does this mean I’m going to die, or what?’ ”

For about a month, he ignored the diagnosis and continued on as if nothing was wrong. But then, he says, his white blood cell count dropped below normal, requiring him to start taking AZT, the antiviral drug azidothymidine.

“That was when I had to resign myself to the fact that I had the disease,” he said. “I had started going back to community college to get my business degree, but when I had to go on AZT, I thought, why am I doing this when I don’t even know if I’m going to graduate?

“I stopped going to school after that semester and decided to do some community work, where I can at least do something for other people,” he said. “What good would a piece of paper do for me?”

Counselors said volunteering for AIDS groups is one of the best forms of therapy for someone who must live with the virus.

“We encourage them to do volunteer work with other people who are HIV-positive, so they can feel that they are not as isolated and alone,” said Sara Kasman, director of administrative services at Laguna Shanti, an AIDS support group in Laguna Beach.

Volunteering helps patients “deal with where they are at this point and helps to allay some of their fears,” she said.

The Garden Grove man has taken this advice to heart. After working at his job from 8 a.m. until 5:30 p.m., he volunteers late into the night at the AIDS Response Program, or the AIDS Walk committee.

“I think that the level of involvement that I have allows me not to deal” with the virus, he said. “By the time I get home, it’s time to go to bed, and there’s no time in between for socializing or relationships.”

Relationships have been a source of pain ever since he learned that he has the virus. “I know people who are HIV-positive who have met partners and have had wonderful relationships,” he said. “But my experience has been that whenever I meet someone and we start to get to know each other, they disappear.

“With one particular experience, we were just starting to date, and I told him I was positive because I thought he ought to know. He said he didn’t have any problem with that and said, ‘You just practice safe sex, that’s simple.’ But after that he just turned a cold shoulder on me, and we never went out again.”

Like many others with the AIDS virus, he has opted out of the dating game altogether, rather than risk rejection.

“It just makes you feel worse,” he said. “You rationalize that if you were in their position, you’d probably do the same thing, but it just starts eroding your whole self-worth.”

However, he finds some hope in the numbers of AIDS sufferers who are living longer and longer.

“I’m still going strong, and I just try to take care of myself,” he said. “I don’t smoke but I do still drink. I haven’t made that transition to Coca-Cola yet.”

Times staff writer Lily Eng contributed to this report.