The Cycles of Life

When Robert Orosco was hospitalized 14 months ago, his body was ravaged by disease and amphetamines. He was confused, his speech garbled. Thin, his skin aching from a debilitating wart-like virus, he was inching toward death.

He was told he was HIV-positive in 1990, about the time he began abusing drugs. Despite the diagnosis, year after year, Orosco’s health remained strong. It wasn’t until a month into his sobriety last spring that the life of the once vigorous hairstylist took its second downward spiral.

“I was knocking on death’s door,” the 34-year-old Garden Grove resident said. “I had hit rock-bottom. Everyone has one, and I hit mine. I was just wiped out.”

Now, however, with the help of what he calls the miracle of the AIDS cocktail--a concoction of drugs he takes three times daily to control the HIV virus--he is preparing for what he considers is one of most important events in his life.

At 7:45 Saturday morning, Orosco and Michelle Sherman, a Garden Grove pharmacist dedicated to AIDS treatment, will board an airplane for San Francisco. A day later the two will climb onto racing bikes and pedal for eight days in the grueling 560-mile annual AIDS Ride.

“I did the AIDS Ride last year, and it was a life-changing experience,” Sherman, 35, said. “It was the most physically challenging, painful, almost debilitating experience in my life. There was so much agony, but then you realize what you’re riding for, and it takes the pain away.”

About 2,500 cyclists will participate in the fifth annual AIDS Ride, covering nearly 600 of California’s most schizophrenic miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The ride, for which participants must pledge $2,500, is the largest single fund-raiser for AIDS care in the country. While it is difficult to get a precise number of participants with HIV or AIDS, organizers believe as many as 30% of the riders fall into one of those categories.

Lorri L. Jean, executive director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, said organizers hope to raise more than $10 million this year, up from $9.4 million in 1997. The center, which launched the rides in 1994, splits proceeds from the event with the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. The two service providers also coordinate providing food, shelter and health and medical care for the thousands of athletes participating in the ride.

Most people entering the ride have lost someone to AIDS or are close to someone living with the disease, Jean said. A tandem bike pedaled by a single rider has become an eerie yet familiar reminder of loss.

“These aren’t die-hard, finely tuned athletes,” Jean said. “These are regular people who are trying to make a difference and want to do something that’s not only adventuresome but almost seems like it can’t be accomplished. People tell me constantly that this ride changed their life.”

Orosco knows that will be the case for him. Were it not for Sherman and her work with the Garden Grove Pharmacy, he’d be in no condition to attempt the ride, let alone have a productive and relatively healthy life, he said.

Sherman, a longtime AIDS activist and health-care worker, met Orosco when she started working at the pharmacy about a year ago. She came to the store when its owner, Herb Gotterer, decided to specialize in working with AIDS patients, a move a number of small pharmacies are making.

Gotterer, who lost a brother-in-law to AIDS several years ago, said he works alongside patients, doctors and insurance companies to bring the best possible medical care to his customers. With Sherman at the helm, the pharmacy tracks patient medications, haggles with insurance providers, consults test results and educates patients on the medications prescribed and possible side effects.

“Once the doctor tells you you are HIV-positive, everything else he tells you you don’t hear,” Gotterer said. “There is a great need for education.”

Without instruction from Sherman on the need to be religious about taking his 35 daily pills and remedies, Orosco wouldn’t have recovered from his illness a year ago and couldn’t have led the somewhat-normal life he now has. Experts say taking the medication on schedule is vital to the success of new AIDS treatments.

“He’s made an amazing recovery,” said Dr. Thomas Lochner, Orosco’s physician. “When I first saw him, he was diagnosed with toxoplasmosis and his thinking was confused and his speech was garbled. He was doing pretty poorly. Now he has gained the weight back and his thinking has gotten better.”

Toxoplasmosis causes lesions on the brain and is often associated with AIDS.

Sherman was also the inspiration for his interest in the AIDS Ride, Orosco said. Besides his drug regimen, he now has a training routine for the AIDS Ride, riding 20 to 30 miles three or four times a week since January. Sherman said she rides about 150 miles weekly. On a recent Sunday, the pair clocked about 50 miles in Santiago Canyon.

According to Sherman, it’s the hills that get you. The first day out of San Francisco last year, riders endured a 92-mile stretch that included several hills; the second day is a 97-mile trek into King City. The third day has three of the route’s nastiest hills. “It is very, very, very grueling on your body, and there’s hills every day,” she said.

Orosco will be wearing No. 5868 when he points his blue racing bike southward Sunday. “Eight is my lucky number, so how can I go wrong?”

On the trek, Orosco and other so-called Positive Pedalers will receive their daily medication from volunteer doctors and nurses. So-called Fag Wagons will follow the cyclists and pick up anyone struggling or injured.

To add to his confidence, Orosco’s sister Mickie, an emergency medical technician in his hometown of Porterville, will be a volunteer, one of 625 volunteer crew members.

“A lot of people question if I’m really going to do it,” Orosco said. “I’ll tell you: I’m too far into it not to. I have lots of friends that I’m doing this for--lots of my best friends have died. It’s important to do it and get the message out that you don’t have to die when you have HIV. I’m going to do my best.”