HW 30 - Illness & Dying - Culminating Experiential Project

The aspect around illness and dying that I decided to explore what the average life expectancy for people with AIDS in the united states was.  I wanted to explore this because I have someone close to me who has been living with this disease for about 14 years now.  I wanted to compare his experience with living with aids and how long he has been living with it to how long the average american is living with AIDS.  When I had the interview with this person they told me that they have been living with this disease and not letting it change how they lived their life.


Some information that I gathered was the actually life expectancy for an american living with AIDS.  As much as I did not want to use this source(considering it was fox news) I did not see any reason for them to lie about this issue.  The article tells us about the average life time of a person with aids.  It was actually very surprising when i found out the life expectancy.  The article states, " An American diagnosed with the AIDS virus can expect to live for about 24 years on average, and the cost of health care over those two-plus decades is more than $600,000, new research indicates."

The way that I explored this issue was through an interview with a family member with this disease.  He has been living with the disease for 14 years.  So according to this information he only has 10 years left(go forbid).  When i told him about this pole he seemed not to surprised.  He said that when he was diagnosed he was told he would'nt even live for that long.  He actually made a joke that he was "glad to know he had more time".  Although when he heard how much the health care was he was not surprised. He said that he of all people knew how expensive it was to get all the medical needs that he had to acquire.   

What I learned about this was not only do people go about this disease differently but people with this disease live for different amounts of time.  Depending on how bad it is will affect how long you have to live.  I also learned that for a disease that kills you quickly it does give you a good amount of time to live, although 24 years is not a lot of time, it is if that is all you have and your making the best out of it.  

What this shows about dominant social practices in our society is that different people go about different diseases in certain ways.  Also that depending on how long you actually have completely affects your mindset on life.  The reason this matters is because when your dying you usually want to die in peace.  When you get a exact knowledge of how long you have to live, it affects the way that you can spend that time.  If you realize you have a longer time then you have more time to do what you want when you want with who you want.  All that this is showing is that in a way, knowing these things completely affects your level of happiness.