A Fragile Lifeline: Lessons I Learned Answering The Aids Hotline

 Every Monday and Wednesday morning, promptly at 10 a.m., I leave behind

my daily life and turn to volunteering as an AIDS Hotline counselor at New York

City's GMHC [Gay Men's Health Crisis], the nation's largest social service

agency for AIDS.

For the next four hours, my co-volunteers and I sit in front of a bank of

constantly-ringing telephones, talking to men, women, and teens who call in

from across the nation with urgent questions about AIDS, the ravaging disease

that has left 13.9 million people dead worldwide.

After almost 20 years, a whole generation, families are still facing the

heartache of tending the sick, while scientists continue to be confounded by

this stubborn, ravaging virus.

Although the federal government currently spends$4 billion per year on

AIDS research, and $15 billion worldwide, there is no cure in sight for the viral

infection and no vaccine conference call service canada . Small wonder that the GMHC AIDS Hotline,

the nation's first, is flooded with more than 40,000 calls each year.

Listening to callers 8 hours each week, I often think the Hotline is actually a

direct link to the soul of callers--an anonymous forum that allows each to

reveal secrets and fears that they might otherwise never discuss with anyone.

A Morning in May

This is the way it began: "Good morning, GMHC AIDS Hotline, can I help

you?"

"Yes...I have a question...[hesitantly] My son...he's 21...and he just found

out...he's HIV-positive [voice breaking] I'm.....alone, divorced. And I need some

help...someone to talk to..."

"Of course....happy to talk to you...it sounds like this has been devastating

for you...."