My Summer in Honduras (July-August, 2002)

My Summer in Honduras (July-August, 2002)

Friar Timothy P. Dore, OFM Conv.

The following was written for the August, 2002 Newsletter of Helping Hands for Honduras.

See: http://www.handsforhonduras.org

As a Conventual Franciscan Friar and Roman Catholic priest I have had the opportunity to travel to and to live in many different places.  As such, I have had the pleasure of visiting the beautiful country of Honduras a number of times during the past eight years.  It is easy to be overwhelmed by the incredible material poverty evident everywhere in Honduras. 

I am from a relatively large middle class family, and grew up in a typical home in Baltimore, Maryland.  As a child, I never imagined there could be people in the world who live without all the comforts of home I would have considered to be "normal." Even today in Honduras there are many people for whom running water, electricity, gas stoves, televisions, telephones and computers are simply not part of everyday life.  For these people something as simple as getting routine medical attention is also an extraordinary event.

During my most recent visit to the Honduras I was able to go with Ron Roll, Chairman of Helping Hands for Honduras, to La Paz, Soledad, El Paraíso, a very small rural village in the southern Honduras, not far from the Nicaraguan border.  The trip from the capital city of Tegucigalpa to La Paz involves a fifty four mile, three hour journey over mostly dirt and gravel mountainous roads.  It is not possible to travel the complete distance without a four wheel drive vehicle. 

Time seems to have stood still in La Paz.  Ox carts are used to carry goods over deeply rutted dirt roads.  Visiting the bathroom involves a trip to a rustic and not so pleasant outdoor latrine. People bathe with cold, spring fed water taken by buckets from mountain caves.  Women labor over wood fired adobe stoves in order to cook tortillas, rice, eggs and beans for their families.  Men work long and hard hours in the beating sun, cultivating crops and tending to livestock on rock strewn mountainside fields.  For many children, completion of the sixth grade marks the end of formal education.  Without electricity, people begin and end their days with the rising and the setting of the sun.

The way of life in La Paz definitely does not include those "normal" comforts of home that I knew as a child, and continue to enjoy as an adult, even as a Franciscan friar vowed to a life of "poverty."  In spite of their great material poverty, the people of La Paz are full of life and have great hopes for the future.

Building on the hopes and dreams of the people of La Paz, Helping Hands for Honduras is sponsoring the construction of a health center (centro de salud).  The health center will regularly serve over one thousand people, providing such basic services as medical consultations, pre natal care, a birthing room, dental work, and dispensing of general medicines.  The project will definitely improve the quality of life of the wonderful people who live in this remote and very poor part of Honduras.  I felt privileged to witness the making of the very first cement block to be used in construction of the center.

It was a great pleasure for me to spend some time visiting and working with the people of La Paz.  Along with some other volunteers from the United States, namely Joseph Peters from Chicopee, Massachusetts and William Moore from Long Island, New York, I was happy to be a small part of the very enthusiastic beginnings of the health center's construction.  If not for the generosity of the those who have backed this project of Helping Hands for Honduras, especially the people of the Rotary Club of Chicopee, Massachusetts, the site of the health center would still be just a barren rocky hilltop.  It is good to know that people from my own country care about the well being and progress of people in developing nations.  Because of what I witnessed at La Paz, I have a renewed confidence that the incredible material poverty of the Honduran people is slowly but surely fading into history.

HIV+; A Letter from my Friend: +J. Adam Pickett

David Kirby on his deathbed, Ohio, 1990.

Photo by Therese Frare, Life Magazine, November 1990

A Letter from my Friend: +J. Adam Pickett,  February 2, 2002

<<Dear Friends......

As you all know, a grouped e mailing is just way out of character for me, but as I will explain, I have to do it this way to conserve energy on my part.  I am sure many of you have noticed I have been really laying low and not terribly social for a long time now.  I tend to lay low when I am ill and also just do not feel comfortable when I think I may be imposing on someone in the slightest.  And really, the bottom line in all of this is there have been so many changes so fast I feel my head is still spinning!  

So whatever social inadequacies I have shown or whoever I simply pissed off, it was certainly not deliberate and if you think you could make more sense out of my life these last few years than I did, cool.  You just might be right!  But all I can say is there was no malice on my part and of you have felt hurt, I am sincerely sorry and ask your forgiveness.

You are all aware I discovered in 1997 I was HIV+.  For almost a whole year after learning I had HIV, I really did try to take the antiviral medications. However, to me the cure was worse than the disease as the meds left me perpetually weak, nauseated, vomiting, and other various unpleasant side effects.  I stopped taking all anti HIV medications 40 months ago.

As expected, the virus has wreaked havoc the longer it cooks in me and has fatally damaged my immune system.  Around 2 months ago I started noticing some chest pain which turned out to be an AIDS pericarditis.  That means there is so much HIV in my body that it has even gotten into the spaces around the heart causing much inflammation.  This pericarditis became severe enough in early January to land me in the hospital for 4 days.  With no immune system to speak of, I can expect the chest pain will probably always be there.

In addition to the chest pain which over the last 2 weeks has gotten to be much more severe, I have been chasing one infection after another after another.  It became clear to me at this time that unless I start taking antiviral medications again, the constant doctor visits and diagnostic tests are essentially futile.  

After weighing all my options with Ray and my doctor, and after considerable prayer, I have decided to receive hospice care at this time.  It is simple; the quality of life on the antivirals was terrible.  Certainly, the last few months in particular have been very trying for myself, and for Ray; he tries so hard to make things better for me all the time.  I love him dearly.

Ray is working so hard to take care of me mentally, physically, emotionally; he is all things a partner in life should be.  We have discussed this decision lots, and we both feel this is the time to get hospice involved.  I do not want to be in pain anymore, and I do not want Ray spending all his free time at home with the vacuum cleaner instead of us enjoying our time together!

Over the last week or so, we have already felt a great sense of relief now that hospice is here. Time may be running short, the quality of life has increased dramatically with the help of hospice care. 

There is no way to predict "how long" I have now.  What IS certain is that I am in end stage AIDS (although my outsides still appear as stunning as ever) and it is only a matter of time before a nasty infection does me in.  Statistically, 80% of AIDS deaths are caused by pneumonia.  That kind of  death can be mercifully fast.

Please understand that all the statistics, etc, are NOT important.  What IS important is that I have made a fully informed decision to not re start anti HIV medications.  I am not alone in refusing antiviral medications. 

Between 30 and 50% of people living with HIV OR AIDS in the USA will NOT tolerate the medications for long term use.  The side effects are just too harsh for me.

Call me if you wish; I am slower getting to the phone so the machine may pick up; just call out!  If we are available,  Ray or I will pick up.  But please, this is not a call to social arms, LOL; it is just an update I thought might be of interest, that's all... so nothing morbid and I am not yet ready to be a drama queen either!  You are ALL busy with your own lives and please do not at all feel like you have to really do anything in response to this update; I am fat still, I have great love in my house and two cats that are eating me out of house and home!  If you want to do something, send cat food!

I will close in saying that if I have caused offense or pain to anyone, it was not meant to happen and I can only say I am sincerely sorry for that and ask your forgiveness. And now, back to the gorgeous day calling to me from the porch......

Peace and All Good Things,

Adam>>