Hope, Love and Fear Maintain Their Vigils on the 3rd Floor

Just a couple of years ago, the 24-bed AIDS unit that takes up the entire third floor of Sherman Oaks Community Hospital was booked to capacity most of the time. On some days there were as many as 40 AIDS patients, with the overflow housed in other parts of the hospital.

But one morning this week, the patient list attached to a clipboard at the nurses station on what is officially known as the Immune Suppressed Unit, or ISU, numbered only 11.

“There are many more options for patients, now, in outpatient care,” said Denise O’Neil, director of the unit, as she hastily ate a breakfast of oatmeal out of a plastic foam bowl at the beginning of the day shift. “We can keep people healthier for longer periods of time.

“They don’t have to be admitted for everything that goes wrong.”

The patients who do end up on the third floor are generally divided into two groups. The smaller group is made up of those having their first bout with an AIDS-related infection. They need to be stabilized and put on a regular care program.

The far bigger group is of patients who have--at least at that point--used up their outpatient options.

“When they come to us, they often have multiple opportunistic infections that need more care,” O’Neil said. “They come to us when it’s more serious.”

In Room 310, Jon Gilroy, 43, listened to classical music coming from a portable radio on his bed stand. Gilroy, who had short reddish-blond hair and bright green eyes, lay in his bed with his sheet pulled up to his neck, covering the catheter that had been surgically inserted in his chest two weeks ago in the hospital.

Jon had not been able to eat solid food for weeks. Using the catheter, he infuses himself daily with a nutrient solution. “It’s really not much trouble to do,” he said with a bright smile. “My boyfriend died about five years ago. I learned back then how to flush the lines.”

Jon had been released from the hospital after his surgery, but came back on Saturday because he was running a fever that would not go down. “It was pneumonia,” he said, quickly adding, “but not the bad kind. They found it was bacterial.”

Dale Carnegie could take lessons in positive thinking from this guy.

Lying in this room, with its walls painted in soothing light blue and white, Jon, who got his first serious infection due to the HIV virus more than eight years ago, looked to be at peace.

He knew his repeated trips to the ISU were not a good sign. He was at peace with that.

“This time, I won’t be going back to work,” said Jon, who was an administrative assistant at a law firm specializing in health issues. “It’s a big change. Up until now the disease was not interfering with my life all that much.

“I’m going to really miss those people at work.”

Jon was not about to end on a down note.

“I’m still tied into the office computer system from home,” he said. “The boss insisted on it. I get so much E-Mail, it takes me all morning to answer it!”

Out in the hallway, the day shift was getting into full swing. Two patients well enough to exercise were taking their morning constitutionals down hallways adorned with dozens of signed theater posters and artworks that have been donated to the unit.

Alongside them, both patients, infusion needles still in their bodies, pulled IV roll-along carts.

It was a scene from a plague that has become everyday life on the third floor.

In Room 309 a dark-eyed, lithe woman dressed in street clothes sat on her bed next to a red canvas suitcase. “I’m going home today,” she said, explaining that she had been admitted about a week before because doctors were worried about stomach pains she was having.

A former dancer, this 30-year-old woman, who still looks to be in terrific shape, had her first serious AIDS-related infection in October. It had been a struggle since then.

“I had fatigue before, but this past year it hit like a bomb,” she said, nodding.

The great solace in her life is her baby, who is not infected with HIV.

“That,” she said, “would just be too much for me to take.”

In Room 326 was Cary Bobier, 42, one of the founders of the Los Angeles chapter of ACT-UP, the AIDS activist group. The group has a rowdy reputation, but lying in his bed, with his trim salt-and-pepper beard and light brown teddy bear at his side, Bobier was far from the world of policy debates and demonstrations, referred to as demos in movement talk.

“I used to feel guilty that I wasn’t going to the demos, but I made up for it by speaking at universities and to other groups,” said Cary, who lost 20 pounds in the last several weeks. At his side was his lover, Mark Sprecher, 39, who sat on the bed and rubbed Bobier’s leg to comfort him.

The conversation was interrupted by an AIDS Project Los Angeles volunteer stopping by to see if Cary wanted company. Seeing that Cary had Mark and other visitors, the volunteer made small talk for a moment and excused himself to go on to the next room.

“I think it’s fabulous that those volunteers are here for the people who don’t have anyone,” Cary said.

Mark, who had the puffy eyes of a man who had not gotten much sleep lately, took his lover’s hand. Cary smiled at him.

“I am so damn lucky,” Cary said.