Five Quarts by Bill Hayes

Author:Bill Hayes
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Nonfiction
ISBN: 9780345482150
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2005-01-25T10:00:00+00:00

Dr. Ehrlich never actually got to view the drama within the blood. But what was to him the most likely scenario involving the most likely suspects can now be clearly photographed with an electron microscope, the same technology used to produce those ugly mug shots of minute insects, with their bulbous compound eyes. The electron microscope, thousands of times stronger than the traditional compound microscope, has also captured images of a tinier but more horrific bug: HIV, the virus that does its damage to the immune system by hijacking helper T cells and forcing them to churn out as many copies of itself as possible, a process that kills the cells. I remember the odd sense of relief I felt upon first seeing the micrograph of HIV on the cover of Time magazine, dated August 12, 1985, one month after I’d moved from Seattle to San Francisco’s Castro district, ground zero of the epidemic. It showed the virus, magnified 135,000 times, attacking a T cell, according to the caption, although the grayish clump looked more like something pulled from a vacuum cleaner bag. There’s the culprit, I thought, staring at the black-and-white photo. Now we just need to annihilate it.

I’ve since seen many similar images, some taken at magnifications three times as powerful. Like the dazzling shots of far-off galaxies taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, the original black-and-white micrographs are often colorized to highlight specific features of the virus. Three-dimensional computer graphics provide even finer details of HIV’s internal and external architecture. I know that these images have been invaluable to scientists in their growing understanding of HIV and in crafting new models for fighting it, but, to me, the greater the complexity of the virus, the bleaker the chances seem of surviving it. The discovery of a cure feels farther off in my lifetime and unlikely in Steve’s.

During rough patches, Steve admits that his life seems to creep forward in three-month intervals, alluding not to the turn of seasons but to the stretches between his getting blood work, the panoply of tests that measure the virus’s activity and how well his immune system and organs are holding up. The findings provide an assessment of his current drug regimen and help determine the course for the next twelve weeks. Seeing his doctor for the results is always anxiety producing.

Thinking back fourteen years, I don’t remember Steve ever having a slim patient file, although at some distant point in our shared past that must’ve been the case. Now it’s a thick sheaf that’s plopped onto the desktop at the start of each appointment. Once the pleasantries are over, Dr. Hassler opens the file and the three of us huddle over the latest labs, a three-page printout of more than fifty separate tests. The results run down the center of each page in one of two columns: WITHIN RANGE, under which most of Steve’s liver and kidney function results, for example, are listed; and OUTSIDE OF RANGE, where the grimmer numbers, T helper percentages, white cell counts, and the like, are clustered.

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