Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Chelsea Advocacy Group Helps Manhattanites Growing Old with HIV/AIDS

By Test Reporter | July 26, 2010 7:16am

By Tara Kyle

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

CHELSEA — When Jim Lister, a 56-year-old West Village resident living with AIDS, goes about his daily errands, he carries with him a plastic-covered spreadsheet cataloging the dozens of medications necessary to keep him healthy.

As he gets older, Lister's struggles with short-term memory and concentration make keeping track of all that information a little bit harder.

“Sometimes I freak out, did I take my medication this morning?” Lister said. While he plans out careful routines to avoid missed doses, sometimes waking up too early or an interruption like a phone call will throw him off his system.

Following the Obama administration’s announcement on July 13 of a new National HIV/AIDS Strategy, the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is calling attention to the fact that 75 percent of New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS are now over 40, with more than one-third over 50.

Juanita Chestnut, 51, and Jim Lister, 56, are part of a growing number of New Yorkers learning to deal with issues of aging on top of living with HIV/AIDS.
Juanita Chestnut, 51, and Jim Lister, 56, are part of a growing number of New Yorkers learning to deal with issues of aging on top of living with HIV/AIDS.
View Full Caption
DNAinfo/Tara Kyle

Chelsea’s Gay Men’s Health Crisis, one the country’s earliest advocacy, care and prevention centers, has responded to the ongoing issues in the lives of aging New Yorkers with HIV/AIDS by expanding its programming for people like Lister.

One of the chief challenges for the population is comorbidity, the phenomenon of dealing with multiple health issues unrelated to a person's HIV/AIDS status, according to Janet Weinberg, GMHC’s chief operating officer. Lister, for example, has had a stroke, high blood pressure, prostrate surgery and joint aches — typical age-related medical issues that can complicate the lives of those with HIV/AIDS.

To tackle that, GMHC now employs an on-site pharmacist to keep an eye out for potential interactions among drugs prescribed for a variety of disorders. They also make sure staff nutritionists are trained to cater their recommendations for a geriatric demographic, and operate support groups to help clients over 50 understand the changes in their bodies.

“A lot of our lumps and bumps, it’s not always HIV related,” said Juanita Chestnut, 51, an HIV-positive resident of Chelsea. She said she values attending group sessions because, “it gives me a chance to see the difference between HIV and aging.”

Besides the physical hardships associated with aging, Weinberg says she also worries about her aging clients' emotional issues including isolation and loneliness. She said GMHC’s cafeteria, which offers one meal each workday, is packed in large part with people over 40 or 50 who are searching for a sense of community.

Many are confronting what Weinberg calls a double stigma.

“It’s a stigma of HIV, and it’s a stigma of getting older,” Weinberg said. For clients who are also homosexual, she said, “It’s a trifecta that can lead to total depression.”

Lister said he attends daily meals at GMHC “come rain, shine, sun or sleet,” and believes the sense of loneliness stems from not having the money he once had to socialize outside the center.

While he used to own and operate a catering business, he now survives on disability payments that, after rent is paid, leave him with a discretionary budget of only $11 a day. Instead of going to dinners and movies with friends, he now records television shows to pass the time.  

Other older New Yorkers with HIV/AIDS find that they have to divert funds once used for entertainment to hire someone to clean their house or pick up groceries.

“The money you would spend socializing, you now spend paying someone to do things you can’t do anymore because you’re getting older,” Lister said.

But even with all the new challenges, GMHC is trying promote a culture of joy among its older clients, through efforts including a social marketing campaign celebrating sexuality after 50.

The idea, according to Weinberg, is to celebrate the opportunities that come with living a longer life than anyone once thought possible.

“When I was young, I was more careless because I thought I was going to die right away,” said Chestnut, who was diagnosed with HIV on April Fool’s Day of 1990 and continued to use cocaine through the next five years.

Now, she channels her energy into lobbying and activism. Her efforts include the creation of a support group for women of color at GMHC, and a day job performing outreach and intake for homeless people through Chelsea Housing Works.

Lister is determined to help get the word out about prevention and living with AIDS as a means of memorializing the many friends he saw waste away in the early days of the epidemic. He learned of his own HIV positive status in 1989 and received an official diagnosis of full-blown AIDS in 2001.

“I didn’t think I’d be 40,” Lister said. “I’m very proud of being 56.”