This week was the most challenging week of this year for me. It started very good, inspirational, especially on Tuesday 23rd when around 8pm my 9 year old and I were watching House of Payne, a comedy show produced by Tyler Perry. For the first time in my life I see how they added a female character HIV positive to a show to try to create conscious and use it to teach the viewers about the ways one can get the virus. In the show they have other characters uncomfortable with her presence or with her touch, I was so proud of them for having this concern and proceeding to use their show to reach millions for the good of society. This is something that I support and I wish I could be a part of. Now on Wednesday 24th, they also did like a colon cancer awareness show but nothing compare to the one about HIV. I am still going through some tough days still, because in the middle of my school’s datelines and my new grandchild being born on Wednesday, I am also sad to hear about my 16 year old going through some hard times with her biological father. I am so disappointed of him for the man that turned out to be . I want to ask all of you to please keep us in your prayers to see if I can help her the best I can through this situation. I am just so glad that I divorced him such a long time ago.
Additional Blog for this week
My two famous HIV positive Puerto Rican singers are, Hector Juan Perez Martinez, with the artistic name “Hector Lavoe” and Jose Antonio Torresola Ruiz, with the artistic name “Frankie Ruiz”.
Hector Lavoe, was borne in Sept. 30, 1946. Hector Lavoe was a famous salsa singer and his songs dealt with love and the social realities of Latino’s life (Rhapsody, 2010).
In 1979, he went through a period of great depression and look for help in a priest of the Santeria faith, to attend to his heroin addiction. After a short rehabilitation, he relapsed, following the natural death of his father, the accidental death of his son and the murder of his mother in law. These events along with being diagnosed with HIV, affected Lavoe to the point of attempting suicide in 1988, where he jumped off a balcony of El Condado Hotel in Puerto Rico. Hector Lavoe survived and recorded his last album before his health began failing. Lavoe died from a complication of AIDS on June 29, 1993 (Salsaclasica, 2010).
Frankie Ruiz was borne March 10,1958.Although Frankie was of Puerto Rican descent, he was borne and raised in Patterson, New Jersey; one information that not everybody in the island knows (Artist Direct, 2010).
Frankie was one of the first salsa singer who perform salsa with a sensual style and his major role help rebirthing the popularity of salsa beat in the 70’s (Artist Direct, 2010).
Frankie Ruiz started using illegal drugs and alcohol during his years of fame causing cirrhosis of his liver and liver failure. Although many web sources do not report him being HIV positive, others report him dying of complication of AIDS at age 40, a month after his final concert at Madison Square Garden, on August 9, 1998 (Artist Direct, 2010).
Do You Know….
Pregnant women infected with HIV are more likely to spread the virus to the children if they are carrying twins (Reuters.com, 2007).
Dr. Laurent Mandelbrot from the University of Paris commented how “the length of pregnancy, the delivery method, and other factors indicate that twin pregnancy remained 2.3 higher risk of mother to child HIV spread than single pregnancies“ (Reuters.com, 2007).
If the premature rupture of the membrane, a condition in which the sack around the fetus breaks early, the risk will increase to a 4.5. It is recommended to start up the anti-HIV therapy no later than the beginning of the second trimester (Reuters.com, 2007).
Michelle Austein Brooks an U.S. government and politics writer reported in Dec. 1, 2009, how “U.S. has helped 240,000 babies to be born free of HIV due to a program that helps HIV positive mothers prevent passing the virus on to their children”. I don’t think this number of babies being saved are enough compare to the numbers outside U.S.
Now a publication in The Ecologist, on April 2001 reported How “every year 600,000 babies are born HIV- positive. 90% of them in Africa, United Nations figures 12 millions children are orphaned by AIDS in Africa in 1999 alone. I am only hoping that this numbers go down by 2010 and that more programs like the anti-HIV therapy reach countries like Africa but in Mass numbers. It’s not just the fact that the kids are parentless but leaving them HIV positive makes even less unbearable (find article, 2001).
Works Cited
Retrieved February 27, 2010 from Brooks, M., 2009. http://blogs.americans.gov/obama/tag/hivaids/
Retrieved February 27,2010 from The Ecologist. 2001. http://findarticle.com/p/articles/mi_m2465/is_3_31/ai_73040698/
Retrieved February 27, 2010 from Mandelbrot, L., Univ. of Paris. AIDS. 2007. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKRA1794122007611
Retrieved February 26, 2010 from Frankie Ruiz. 2010. http://www.artistdirect.com/artist/bio/frankie-ruiz/487822
Retrieved February 26, 2010 from Hector Lavoe. 2010. http://salsaclasica.com/hectorlavoe/bio.asp?l=en
Retrieved February 26, 2010 from 2010. www.rhapsody.com/hector-lavoe
Interesting to see more and more TV programs putting HIV into the mix. I wasn't aware that the movie Precious also had an HIV theme to it. Now I'll have to watch it to see what they say about it and whether or not to include it among the films to watch for this class.
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