Today is Giving Tuesday. Today, more than ever we should give thanks and should also give back if situations allow. The COVID-19 pandemic has put great stress on individuals worldwide. More people than we have imaged are going without. They have gone without, and they will continue to go without. Resources are scarce. Small businesses are suffering. Children and family meals are sparse. People are or have lost their homes. Furthermore, most of this is a result of job losts, furloughs, or reduced hours of work.
If you have never given anything in your entire life, today and from here on out should be the day that you pay it forward. In previous cases we never knew what the situation were, but right now situations are exposed and out in the open. People are not afraid to ask for assistance today. They are not embarrassed, as everyone is on the verge of losing insurmountable income, irrespective to residuals and preserves.
For me, I try to do my part, for the most part. I try to give back when situations allow. I am a huge stickler for education so anyone trying to better themselves, I am for it. I will provide assistance to others just on the spare of the moment.
If you don’t do anything today, or tomorrow, GIVE. It should be a simple phone call, a huge, make someone laugh or what have you. You can give a person in need a meal for the day even if its a simple sandwich. GIVING does not have to cost you anything, but if you can afford to spare a dollar or two, give that. It will definitely bring a smile to someone’s face.
Today, December 1, 2020, is the day that we recognize the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome/Human Immunodeficiency Virus (AIDS/HIV) and all the damage that it has done and all of the people that have lost their lives to this terminal disease. We acknowledge all of the people that continues to walk among us in this world that remains infected and who will be on immune balancing medications and treatments for probably the rest of their lives, as there is no cure. Even though, COVID-19 has taken precedent over out thinking, we cannot help but to things about the compounds and compilation of other ailments that people worldwide suffer from.
Image Source: Google Images
Tough science and technologies are evolving, and there has been treatments developed, such as Antiretroviral therapy (ART), to reduce the amounts of virus in the system and to prevent the spread from one person to the other, no cure has been formulated. Yes, people are able to live normal lives and engage sexually, but given that AIDS/HIV can be a terminal illness, there is still a great deal of stigma associated with the disease. For the most part, taking the various medications, i.e., NRTIs, NNRTIs, PIs, and Integrase inhibitors, just to name a few, and going through treatments such as ART has seeming, can be mentally draining. I am not sure of the side effect that this treatments and medications ensue, but having to take medication for long periods of time can have wear and tear on your physical and mental being. What happens when your body becomes immune to such medication, or is this possible with this medication? Does the prescribing doctors increase the dosage, and if so, how can they determine when and how much.
If this is true, then it is definitely a breakthrough, as a cure has been a long time coming and it well deserved. AIDS/HIV has been known to be a sexually transmitted disease and can be contracted through blood or blood transfusion. That is still the case. If there is a cure on the horizon, or a cure have been found, tested, and proven, we must given kudos to our scientist, donors, supporters, and advocates who have been working around the clocks to make this happen. Speaking, of scientist, it seems that a cure to cancer is on the horizon.
It would be even more amazing if they found a cure for cancer, as some reports are suggesting that Dr. Haidiyah-Nicole Green, the first black woman to cure cancer in mice and have been given grants to expand her findings. Who knows where this could go, hopefully it will lead to a cure of cancer in humans. However, the research does not determine what type of cancer was cured. In any matter, any time of cancer that is cured is astronomical.
While most individual have become vigilant regarding the transmission of HIV/AIDS, there are some people who have been exposed to this disease by force. Men and women have been raped by others infected. People have transmitted the disease not know they were infected because their partners sexual proclivities and urges outweighed the risks or harms that they were subjecting others to. So, in most cases, the transmission was intention or unintentional. The sharing of needles by addicts are another form of transmission, as an addicts need to get high outweigh the risk of transmission by using the needles of others. Its a tragedy to be subjected to this disease, but given that they have found viable treatment and potential cure it sort of put some people more at ease, mainly those infected and can afford the medications and treatments. For those persons who cannot, they continue to walk the planet-a walking viral plague. But what can we do. Most of these persons are black/African American or Africans who most likely fall at the short end when it comes to medical treatments, healthcare, and healthcare insurance.
It has been suggested that the aids pandemic started from African American same-sex male partners. From being on the down-low, meaning embarrassed by your sexual preferability or desirability, or bi-sexual males, who have transmitted the disease to women partners through unprotected sex. And given that these women become pregnant, these morbidities are then transmitted to unborn children.
So, I leave you with, remain supportive and vigilant. We must all do our part to stay safe and protect ourselves when it comes to sexual engagements. People with AIDS/HIV do not look sickly and you make not witness any symptom, yet the continuance of have sexual encounters unprotected can not only lead to the infection of others but can also result in their death.
Au'Pearce 