Chicago Tribune - July 19, 2006
Miriah Meyer, Tribune staff reporter, mmeyer@tribune.com

Yet on weekends the tall and wiry athlete can be found running 18 to 20 miles a day on his hometown streets of San Francisco, pushing through the pain and exhaustion that are inherent to marathon training. In the Gay Games marathon Saturday, Devin hopes to cover the 26.2-mile course in under 3 1/2 hours.

"Running helps me realize that right now, today, I'm healthy," said Devin, 50. "And that's the biggest thing, because in a few years I may not be able to do this."

While many athletes at the Gay Games endure similarly tiresome training, those with HIV also deal with the effects of powerful drugs and the knowledge that they carry an incurable disease. But Devin and others said their passion for sports not only keeps their bodies fit but also serves as a reminder there is still life to live.

When Steve Harrington tested positive for HIV in 1990, he gave himself five years. "I had lost probably half a dozen ex-boyfriends. I had lost 50 to 60 friends," he said. "I just knew that in five years, I'd be dead."

The 51-year-old Massachusetts resident, however, has survived well beyond his grim expectations, playing basketball in every Gay Games since. "I knew that I needed to keep as healthy as I could, and basketball was a prime component of that," said Harrington.

Now, he said, "Basketball helps keeps me alive."

Because HIV quickly builds resistance to drugs, doctors use an array of medications to treat individual patients.

"It's sort of like an old Chinese menu, where it's like two from column A and one from column B, but it's obviously not that easy. Each class and each medication has its own side-effect profile," said Dr. Robert Garofalo of the Howard Brown Health Center, which serves the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community in Chicago.

These side effects--nausea, vomiting, rashes, sleep disturbances and damage to nerve endings, just to name a few--can be debilitating for anyone.

"But for an athlete to have to train and overcome those things, it's a huge challenge," said Dr. Daniel Berger, director of the Northstar Medical Center, which specializes in HIV/AIDS research and treatment. "They have to overcome the fatigue these drugs can cause, the diarrhea, the depression problems."

To help his athletic patients, Berger mixes each patient's medicinal cocktail to account for his sport of choice. For example, he avoids prescribing drugs to runners that may damage the nerve endings in their feet.

The drain of competition on the body makes all athletes susceptible to common infections such as colds and flu. For HIV-positive athletes, this susceptibility is an even bigger hazard.

"Because they're an athlete and because they're HIV-positive, it puts them doubly at risk for progression and further complications," said Berger.

Jim Ballard, a competitive swimmer since high school, has been HIV-positive since the 1980s and set two world records in masters swimming at the Gay Games. But last year he was hospitalized twice for an infection and lost 30 pounds. He decided it would be better not to compete this summer in Chicago--his first missed Games since 1986.

"I have a priority system in place that pretty well protects me from these disappointments. The first one is I would like to survive. The second one is I would like to feel good. And the third one is then I'll think about swimming," Ballard said.

Feeling healthier, Ballard started swimming again three weeks ago. "I attribute a large part of why I'm still here to the fact that I do swim and I do exercise," he said.

That view is shared by diving legend and four-time Olympic gold medalist Greg Louganis, who announced his HIV-positive status in 1995.

"I feel that getting into the gym is as important as taking my medications," said Louganis, who stays fit by doing spinning, yoga and resistance training. "That's a part of my medication the way I view it."

Louganis, who spoke at the Games' opening ceremonies, also said participation in sports can help people cope with HIV. "What I find is that the ones who have other things going on in their lives are the ones that survive longer because they're involved with living," he said.

Doctors treating patients with HIV also recommend exercise. "Not only are athletics empowering for HIV-positive people, but it also helps get their virus under control," Garofalo said.

P.J. Stahl, a personal trainer at the Halsted Street Multiplex, said working with HIV-positive athletes requires sensitivity.

"It's important to talk about how the individual feels each day," said Stahl. "I'm willing to push a client to the extreme, but when dealing with something like HIV, you have to understand that pushing them to their limits and having an individual get a flu or cold is something that shouldn't happen. So you have to make sure that they maintain that healthy balance of pushing themselves when they have the energy to do it."

One of his clients is Doug Bates, a man with HIV who weighed just 125 pounds in November but is now back up to 160 and will compete for gold in Wednesday's bodybuilding event. "Mentally and emotionally, he is one of the strongest people I know," said Stahl.

Many HIV-positive athletes said the rush of competition makes the rest of it worthwhile.

"One of the reasons I love to compete is because when I get on the blocks, it doesn't matter if I'm positive or negative when it comes to the finish line," Ballard said of swim meets.

"Your status is irrelevant. It's all about what you do in the pool against the clock. It's one of the few places you can truly forget about being positive. And that's a wonderful feeling."

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