The Associated Press; Friday, December 19, 1997 01:08:00
Angie Wagner, Associated Press Writer

"You can't crush my dreams. I am the future, and I have AIDS."

--From speech at the 1996 Republican National Convention.

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- She wants roller skates for Christmas. She wears a silver nose ring. She loves scary movies.

Hydeia Broadbent can seem just like an average teen-ager, except for when she stands before a crowd and talks about the disease that will likely kill her.

"I don't mean to make people cry, but there's a reality to AIDS. You can't doctor it up," Hydeia said.

She looks healthy, black ringlet curls falling over her ears, although she is tiny for her age, at 4 feet and 60 pounds. On stage, she is poised, confident, knowledgeable.

"You can't really tell by looking at someone whether they have AIDS," Hydeia said in a recent talk to students at University of Nevada at Las Vegas. "I can walk down the street and you don't know if I have AIDS."

Patricia and Loren Broadbent adopted Hydeia as a baby, but didn't know of her health condition until she became seriously ill at 3. Hydeia's biological mother, now deceased, was an intravenous drug-user.

Hydeia (pronounced Hy-DE'E-uh) developed full-blown AIDS when she was 5.

Until then, Mrs. Broadbent, a former social service worker, knew little about the disease. As she learned, she started giving talks to local groups, to anyone who would listen to the hardship of raising a child with AIDS.

Hydeia listened -- to her mother, doctors, nurses, other patients. She soaked in all she heard.

Hydeia's public speaking career began at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., when she was 5. She picked up a toy microphone and started interviewing her mother and a social worker.

"What's it like having a child with AIDS? Is she going to die?" she asked her mother.

Speaking out was her way of dealing with the disease, Hydeia's mother believes.

Hydeia was chosen to speak on an NIH educational tape. Since then, she's made the talk show circuit, met the president and first lady, spoke at the 1996 Republican National Convention, starred in a television special with Magic Johnson and was featured on a segment on ABC's "20/20."

Her bedroom is evidence of her young stardom. Autographed pictures of President Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Reba McEntire and Janet Jackson line her vanity mirror.

She travels the country speaking to conferences and organizations -- eight engagements this year alone -- and even has her own AIDS foundation.

Hydeia, who preaches abstinence from sex, likes to show the audience what she means about the disease.

At UNLV, she had the audience of 200 stand up and shake the hand of the person in front, back, left and right of them. Then she singled out 10 people -- they had AIDS and had to sit down.

Next, those who shook the hands of the "AIDS victims" had to sit down, and whoever shook their hands had to sit down, and so on. Soon, no one was standing.

"That's how fast AIDS is spreading among young people," Hydeia said as the crowd fell silent. "You guys are the future, but we might not have a future if everyone gets AIDS.

"It's all about making wise choices. Your whole life is a choice. You can choose to live, you can choose to die," the seventh-grader said.

Hydeia hasn't been sick lately, but her mother knows that could change quickly.

By age 9, Hydeia had suffered three bouts with pneumonia and seven rounds of the chicken pox. She took AZT, but when that drug proved to have too many side effects, she was accepted into a protocol program for a new drug, ddi, at NIH.

Twice, doctors called a "code blue" on Hydeia because of a high fever and dangerously low blood pressure. She is schooled at home, mostly so her mother can regulate her sleep (she needs 10 to 12 hours) and medication.

She's one of six Broadbent children, ranging in age from 5 to 32. Her younger adopted sister, Trisha, also has AIDS, though the family knew about it. Hydeia had met her and encouraged her parents to make her part of the family.

Hydeia has watched many friends die from AIDS. One night a few years ago, she burst into her parents' room and said she couldn't die.

Her mother asked why.

"Because there's no room in heaven. It's already full," Hydeia answered.

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