There are times when University Medical Center nurse Robin Parks wants to leave her patient’s room and howl in frustration.
“Some families just can’t handle the stigma of someone close to them having HIV, but pneumonia’s OK,” Parks says.
Paul Harasim
So now it’s come to this: We have to teach preschoolers that it’s good — and fun — to run and jump.
And, oh yes, we also must teach them to ask their parents if they can go out and play.
We were in the fifth grade when my friend David started feeling tired all the time. Instead of wanting to play ball, he wanted to sleep. He complained that his arms and legs hurt. David was dying of leukemia, a form of cancer.
When she gave her husband a huge bear hug and told him how much she loved him, a breath escaped from his lips. “Are you sure he’s still not with us?” Jean Georges recalls asking a nearby medical attendant through her tears. A little more than a half hour earlier, Leonard Georges, had died from Alzheimer’s disease.
“It can be tough when you rely on a bike for transportation,” says Las Vegas tailor Michael Starks. “I ended up on the hood of a car when somebody turned on me,” he said. ” I got hurt pretty bad, just skinned and bruised, but it took me about a week to feel better.”
Even so, Starks says, he might never drive a car again.
