Free Ryan White - My Own Story by Ryan & Cunningham White Page B

figured out that if you believe you’re going to get better, you will. If you sit around moping and thinking, “I’m not going to make it,” then you won’t.
    So I had made up my mind. I’d been told I’d never ride a bike. Now I rode a bike and roller skates. When I broke my elbow, I was told I’d never be able to reach my shoulder again. A month after my cast was taken off, I could do that. I’d fallen out of my crib—and once I even went through a plate glass window at Grandma’s, hands first—and I didn’t bleed at all.
    I had plans, and I wasn’t about to drop them. I wanted to go to high school with all my friends. I wanted to graduate and go to Indiana University. Even though I didn’t know what my major was going to be yet, I meant to make something of myself. Besides that, being a teenager was supposed to be fun, and I meant to have some. I certainly intended to learn to drive.
    “Sure you can lead a normal life,” Dr. Kleiman told me. “There are a few things I want you to stay away from, like cigarettes and bird droppings and animals. Don’t swim in rivers or lakes.”
    I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t about to give up my plan to get my own dog. Part of being a teenager was trying cigarettes. Well, I thought, I’ll stay away from other people’s cigarettes. There were some things Dr. Kleiman just couldn’t know.
    “How long do you think I have?” I asked.
    “I don’t know, Ryan,” he said. “Besides, if I told you something like, ‘Until April,’ and then you were still alive in April, you’d never believe another word I said, would you?”
    I had to say, “No, I guess not.” Then I thought of something. “Dr. Kleiman, they’re working hard to find a cure for AIDS, aren’t they?”
    “Yes, they certainly are,” Dr. Kleiman answered.
    “Well,” I said, “I’d like to tell them to hurry up.” Grandpa and I had read that people with AIDS were lucky to live two years after their diagnosis. I wanted to be the one they found the cure for in time.
    “I bet if I live five years,” I went on, “I can beat this thing.” I grinned at my doctor. “Or I’ll die trying.”

3
    How I Tried to Go Back to School
    F ebruary had almost arrived when Dr. Kleiman finally let me go home again. Mom had left up our two Christmas trees and all our other decorations. I was pretty feeble, too weak to go out in the cold or do much besides watch TV. I still had thrush, and my diarrhea and my coughing didn’t seem like they’d ever go away. All I could do was let time go by until I felt stronger.
    “We will get through this,” Mom would tell me. “We’re not going to live in misery. Every day is going to be the best.”
    But it was beginning to dawn on me that AIDS was going to be harder to live with than hemophilia. Sometimes I felt scared, just the way I had in the hospital. Most often I was afraid I’d never feel well again. Then I’d just sit with Mom. She’d put her arm around me or rub my head, and we’d talk.
    Mom claimed I looked like a concentration camp inmate: just skin and bone. I’d dropped almost twenty pounds, and I’m not chubby normally. But I did have all my hair, thank you very much. Dr. Kleiman had told Mom that whatever she could get me to eat was okay with him. Mom and Andrea prefer salads and cottage cheese and light food that keeps weight off you. But I might go all day without feeling hungry, and then start craving pork chops, French fries, hot chocolate, and anything else in sight. Grandma started working nights so she could cook for me during the day while Mom was at the plant. She and Mom would drop whatever they were doing and cook whatever I wanted whenever I was willing to eat. Some days I wanted four or five small meals, a couple of them late at night.
    Once a month, Mom had to take me back to the hospital in Kokomo for gamma globulin therapy. That’s a dose of concentrated antibodies that helps kids with AIDS resist infection. And I had to go see Dr.