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He could give up, but he won't for the Mail Tribune / Heidi Hiaasen Jim Powell lost his partner to AIDS last year and now is battling a full-blown case of the illness himself. Even before he got AIDS, Jim Powell led a tough life By HEIDI HIASSEN Dim light sneaks past the guard of the Venetian blinds. It battles the stagnant air to cast gray, flat shadows on the scarce objects in the tiny hospital room. Jim Powell lies motionless in bed, his hands resting gently on his round belly. The shadows accentuate his sunken features. His bushy eyebrows and beard, nose and cheekbones jut out awkwardly. He is a living caricature of the man he once was. Powell's eyes suddenly fly open. Intense and forget-me-not blue, they add the only spot of color to the scene. A war rages inside his body, and his eyes remain one of his last allies. AIDS has captured the rest of his body. AIDS stormed his pancreas the night before - a surprise attack that came at the end of an emotional day. Powell had let down his guard that morning remembering his partner. Patrick had lost his own war with AIDS barely a year ago. The two had been together for 10 years when Patrick died. But his death wasn't Powell's first experience with loss or grief. In the month before his hospitalization, he had been trying to piece together his life story. Sometimes the pieces don't fit, because of medication or confusion or sadness. These are the pieces Powell talked about in the days before his attack, pieces he feels are true. He was born in San Jose on Nov. 30, 1962, and wore braces on his crippled legs - a birth defect he attributes to his mother's drug use while pregnant. When he was 6 weeks old, Jim and his older sister went to live with his grandparents. His younger brother joined them a few years later. On the Christmas Eve after the boy turned 6, his father suddenly took the kids away from their grandparents for good. Life with his father, however, was bad. Jim moved in with his mother, and had a sense of "home" until the day his mom went through his room and found his address book. She discovered her son was gay. Furious, she left Jim's packed bags on the curb. He was 13. That year the court granted him emancipation from his parents. He was left alone to make his way through the world. He worked at Denny's restaurant as a dishwasher and lived in a rooming house. He worked in a retirement home as an assistant cook and met a girl named Lisa. Even though they were only 16, the two married and then divorced two years later. At 19, Jim Powell met George, a 60-year-old man who ran a janitorial service in the Santa Clara Valley. They lived and worked together until George started getting sick in 1989. He had pancreatic cancer, and Powell took care of him until he died in 1991. They had been together 10 years. When George's will went into probate, it turned out he had left Powell a lot of money. It made George's family furious. "I was the only one taking care of him," said Powell. Feeling harassed by George's family, Powell decided to move away with a man he had known years before and re-encountered after George's death. Powell and Patrick moved to Medford that August. A few months later, Powell noticed a strange rash on his body that refused to go away. His doctor suggested an HIV test. "I had never thought of the possibility of having HIV," said Powell. "I always had unusual rashes as a child." Patrick refused to let Jim get tested alone. On Christmas Eve, both found out they were HIV positive. "We were very shocked, very surprised. We didn't know which way to turn," said Powell. "We cried for a while. We held each other for a while." But they didn't linger in self-pity. They immediately started researching the illness. Then they began to help educate others about HIV. Patrick ran an outreach program for gay and bisexual men. Powell volunteered in the office of the county health department. He has several videotapes of himself speaking in support of Oregon's death with dignity law. In the clean, singlewide trailer the men shared, a plaque from the Jackson County AIDS Task Force recognizes their efforts. It hangs beside a portrait of two strong, smiling men. But the portrait deceives. By the time it was taken, Powell's body had turned on him. In 1993, Powell spent 10 days in the hospital with a 107-degree fever. He had full-blown AIDS. He continued to volunteer but often became sick. The first time his pancreas gave out, it took his liver and kidneys too. He spent 45 days in the hospital on the edge of death. Then he got diabetes. His list of daily medications grew to 19 and ranged from several specifically for AIDS to a pain medication and an anti-depressant. Patrick's virus advanced to AIDS in 1996 when his T-cell count went below 200, but he remained healthy. "He helped me through every one of my sicknesses," said Powell, his eyes filling with tears. "I don't think I would have made it without Patrick's help." Unfortunately, Patrick couldn't help himself. In 1999, when his sister died from diabetes, an illness Patrick also had, he began to surrender. His grief overwhelmed him. His body became weak. "People get tired and eventually say they are ready to go," said Powell. "Once they get that in their heads, they just slowly go." Patrick slipped into a diabetic coma one morning in May 2000, eight months after his sister's death. That afternoon, Powell said, Patrick gently motioned him to the bed. "He gave me a hug. All at once I couldn't feel a heartbeat any longer." Last August proved bittersweet for Powell. He traveled to Suttle Lake near Sisters for the "Strength for the Journey" camp. The camp, sponsored by the Oregon-Idaho Methodist Church conference, brings people who live with HIV/AIDS together for four days. He and Patrick had looked forward to the camp each year for six years. This time, Powell traveled alone and planted a tree in Patrick's memory. But the memorial didn't ease Powell's pain. With each day, he became more ill. Each time Powell returned from the hospital, he missed Patrick's companionship. Powell stopped volunteering because of his health. He unhooked the battery to his car, relying on a taxi to take him to appointments. He was unable to work, and the Ryan White Fund, Medicare and the Oregon Health Plan paid his medical bills. His pancreas stopped working again last April. He spent 10 days in the hospital but his body rejected all foods. To get nutrients into his body, workers installed a peripherally inserted central catheter, a sort of long-term IV that allows the patient to leave the hospital but still get nutrients. Powell relied on that to supply his nutrients and insulin for more than six weeks. He drank water and juice and ate an occasional soda cracker to control his blood sugar. Every night, Powell would flush both lines with sodium chloride and heparin. From the refrigerator, he removed what looked like a heavy gallon Ziploc bag filled with buttermilk. Powell connected a tube from the bag into a pump and then another from the pump into his arm. After testing the pump, it started pushing the liquid into his arm. It would continue to do so until the next morning. After starting the pump, he would lay out six syringes needed the next morning: four to clean the lines and two to inject his bag with vitamins and insulin. The bag then went into a blue backpack that Powell carried around for the next 12 hours. The humming of the pump often kept Powell awake, leaving him too much time to think about Patrick. Each day moved closer to the anniversary of his death. He knew what he had to do to find peace. Powell spent May 26 alone in his trailer. Alone - except for the many hummingbirds that visited his yard. "Patrick loved hummingbirds," said Powell. "He was sending a message of 'Hey you're going to be OK and I'm OK too.' " Four days later, a friend drove Powell to the top of Lithia Park, a place that had held special meaning for Powell and Patrick. Powell walked up to where water cascades from a dam to the creek below and dumped half of Patrick's ashes into the cold, swirling water. Alone at the edge of the creek he cried and wondered why AIDS beat Patrick first. He asked himself why he was still here. What was his purpose? Patrick was only sick at the end, and he had been so sick all along. He had been at death's door so many times he had stopped counting. Stepping out of the shower that evening, he had no warning - just sudden, intense pain, as if someone was trying to pull his pancreas out. A neighbor took him to the emergency room that night and doctors admitted him. Powell rests in the hospital bed. His eyes fly open and he rings for a nurse. An IV line has to be inserted into Powell's arm. The vein has collapsed, preventing any medication from getting into his system. Pain runs through his body. After 20 minutes, a nurse comes in to insert a new IV into Powell's hand. The morphine travels into his vein and slowly starts to numb the pain. It appears his life story will continue. Jim Powell has fought for doctor-assisted suicide and filed a do-not-resuscitate form at the hospital. He has lost almost everyone he cares about and watched his partner die. He could give up, but he won't. "I feel like I need to let the community know and understand what AIDS does," says Powell. "Otherwise I would have left this earth a long time ago. I would have been dead by now." Besides, he has a goal: Powell wants to take the rest of Patrick's remains to the "Strength for the Journey" camp in August. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.