Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Bay Area Reporter - June 1, 2001
Katie Szymanski
For the past three years, Montez has lived in the Richard M. Cohen Residence for people with AIDS, a 10-bed program for formerly homeless men with debilitating HIV that is run by Dolores Street Community Services. Located in a beautiful landmark Victorian cottage with a backyard garden oasis, the Cohen residence provides 24-hour care to people who are coping with AIDS-related disabilities but do not need hospice care. Meals, assistance with medication, visiting nurse and attendant care, financial management, transportation, activities, and access to mental health and substance abuse services are all included.
A long-term survivor with a peaceful aura and inviting smile, Montez is quite aware that he paradoxically serves as both a role model for PWAs hoping to have full lives, as well as a spokesman for HIV-negative people who may not know all the horrors he has endured.
On the one hand, Montez is "very happy. I have a lot of good friends, and I know I'm very lucky."
On the other hand, Montez does not want younger folks to aspire to his life, although he believes he was once a lot like them in the sense that he ignored the warnings about AIDS in favor of a riskier lifestyle.
"When I first saw images of AIDS, it was a photograph of Kaposi's sarcoma, and I thought, 'Well, geez, that won't happen to me,'" said Montez of his sexual heyday in the 1980s. "I'd go to the bathhouses, and if guys looked skinny or sick, I would hesitate, but otherwise I assumed they were fine. Of course, that was denial."
Now 60 years old, Montez has lost count of all the friends he has lost to AIDS since 1981, which include his life partner, who died in 1991.
"I certainly didn't expect to live this long," said Montez, who almost didn't make it after a bout with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia in 1996. He credits a complex drug regimen - at 37 pills a day for the past several years - with his survival.
"The drugs came along and changed everything. There was no hope several years ago, because it is a terminal disease. But now people can live longer."
But Montez is careful to make a distinction between living longer and never dying, a distinction he believes the younger generation fails to see.
"I think they think, 'Oh well, if I get AIDS, my life can be saved.' But you can still die," said Montez. "You do have to take care of yourself and have safe sex."
Although the drugs have worked for Montez so far, he has seen firsthand what happens when they don't, "and it's not a pretty sight. A lot of people have multiple things going on. When your body starts to fail, it can fail in many different ways at once."
Montez still has vivid images of watching his many loved ones die, and by no means thinks that period in his life is over. But he is no longer angry, he says, because holding onto negativity is "a waste of time."
"It's been so hard, but things are going well now. I'm very fortunate to be in good health. And even as a person with AIDS, I can still find love," he said, commenting on a relationship he has had with a younger man for the past three years.
For the HIV-positive, Montez advises, "Make every moment - not just every day - special."
Lately, Montez has been enjoying the affordability of AIDS housing and using his retirement benefits to travel. He spends most of his days in the residence's garden, sunning himself on a lawn chair.
For the HIV-negative, Montez is cautionary. "AIDS is still around," he said as he sipped his juice in the shadow of several large blossoming rose bushes. "It's not something that you want to ruin your life."
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