My belief in the mission of what we do keeps me going.
— Tom Menard, 55
Vice president of operations, AIDS Foundation of Chicago, Chicago
Diagnosed with HIV in 1991
Tom Menard (Illustration: A.E. Kieren)
Aging with HIV can come with its fair share of depression and anxiety. But there’s help out there. You just have to reach for it.
It’s safe to say that Tom Menard, 55, the vice president of operations at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, has been „through it.“ He estimates he got HIV as far back as 1982 but wasn’t diagnosed until 1991. „The diagnosis definitely took a toll on the relationship I was in at the time,“ he says. Then came weight loss, down to 137 pounds, with his T-cells down to 97, then the first HIV drug, AZT, which gave him anemia, then the protease inhibitors, which caused him upset stomach.