Girl With AIDS Has a Gift for Speaking Out About Disease

Her black ringlet curls fall gently over her ears as Hydeia Broadbent hunches over her math homework. With a quick tap of her pencil and a stern look toward the kitchen, the 13-year-old has had enough.

Decimals, it seems, are a bit confusing.

“Mom! Mom! I need help,” she yells, summoning Patricia Broadbent to the dining room table.

It’s a much different scene from the educational talks Hydeia gives to audiences across the country. From the stage, she commands her audience to listen, often bringing them to tears.

In the spotlight, she’s a little girl with so much poise, confidence and knowledge of the disease that may take her life--AIDS.

Broadbent and her husband, Loren, adopted Hydeia as a baby, but didn’t know of her health condition until their 3-year-old became seriously ill. Hydeia’s biological mother, now deceased, was an intravenous drug user.

Hydeia developed full-blown AIDS when she was 5.

Until then, Broadbent, a former employee of Clark County’s Social Services, knew little about the disease. As she learned, she started giving talks to local groups, anyone who would listen to the hardship of rearing a child with AIDS.

As her mother talked, Hydeia listened--and not just to her mother. Through doctors, nurses and other patients, she soaked in all she heard. Hydeia even surprised her mother with her knowledge of AIDS.

Hydeia’s public-speaking career began at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., when she picked up a Fisher Price microphone and started interviewing her mother and a social worker.

“What’s it like having a child with AIDS? Is she going to die?” the inquisitive 5-year-old asked her mother.

Speaking out was her way of dealing with the disease, Hydeia’s mother believes.

Hydeia was chosen to speak on an NIH educational tape. Since then, she has made the talk show circuit, met the president and first lady, spoken at the 1996 Republican National Convention, starred in a television special with Magic Johnson and been featured on a “20/20” segment.

Her bedroom is evidence of her young stardom. Pictures of President Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Reba McEntire and Janet Jackson line her vanity mirror.

She travels the country speaking to conferences and organizations, and even has her own AIDS foundation.

And just what does a 13-year-old have to say? Plenty, no matter what the age of the audience.

“You can’t really tell by looking at someone whether they have AIDS,” Hydeia said in a recent talk to University of Nevada Las Vegas students. “I can walk down the street and you don’t know if I have AIDS.”

During her talks, Hydeia uses interactive demonstrations she’s developed to get her point across.

At UNLV, she had the audience of 200 stand up and shake the hands with the people in front, back, left and right of them. Then she singled out 10 people and told them to sit down, saying they had AIDS.

Next, she told those who shook the hands of the “AIDS victims” to sit down, and whoever shook their hands to sit down, and so on. When she was finished, no one was standing.

“That’s how fast AIDS is spreading among young people,” Hydeia said, silencing the crowd. “You guys are the future, but we might not have a future if everyone gets AIDS.

“It’s all about making wise choices. Your whole life is a choice. You can choose to live, you can choose to die,” the seventh-grader said, preaching abstinence to the group.

By the end of her talk, many in the audience were wiping their eyes, unable to control their feelings for a little girl who easily touched their hearts.

“I don’t mean to make people cry, but there’s a reality to AIDS. You can’t doctor it up,” Hydeia said.

In many ways, she’s just like any teenager; even has a silver nose ring. She wants roller skates for Christmas and loves scary movies.

Hydeia is small for her age, only 4 feet tall and 60 pounds.

She’s one of six Broadbent children, ranging in age from 5 to 32. Her younger adopted sister, Trisha, also has AIDS.

Hydeia is schooled at home, mostly so her mother can regulate her sleep (she needs 10 to 12 hours) and medication.

She’s had about eight speaking engagements this year, down from previous years. Broadbent brings a nurse on every trip in case her daughter becomes ill.

It’s been a while since Hydeia was sick, but her mother knows that could change at any time.

By age 9, Hydeia had suffered three bouts with pneumonia and seven rounds of the chicken pox. She was originally taking AZT, but when that proved to have too many side effects, she was accepted into a program for a new drug, ddi, at NIH.

Two times, doctors called a “code blue” on Hydeia because of a high fever and dangerously low blood pressure.

Death is inevitable for Hydeia, but after watching many friends die from AIDS, she is perhaps more prepared for it than her mother.

The last time Hydeia mentioned death was a couple of years ago. In the middle of the night, she burst into her parents’ room and said she couldn’t die.

Her mother asked why.

“Because there’s no room in heaven. It’s already full,” her daughter answered.

“It definitely tugs at the heartstrings,” Broadbent said.

After the holidays, Hydeia will return to the speaking circuit, once again telling her story and moving audiences with her eloquent words. But, in listening to her speak, it’s not just what she has to say, it’s what Hydeia has to give--a lesson in how to live.

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I am the future, and I have AIDS. I am Hydeia L. Broadbent. I can do anything I put my mind to. I am the next doctor. I am the next lawyer. I am the next Maya Angelou. I might even be the first woman president.

You can’t crush my dreams. I am the future, and I have AIDS.

--Excerpt from Hydeia’s speech at the 1996 Republican National Convention

Donations to the Hydeia L. Broadbent Foundation can be sent to: 1425 N. Sierra Bonita Ave., No. 411, Los Angeles, CA 90046.