Miami Herald - Wednesday, July 29, 1998
Ken Rodriguez, Herald Sports Writer

"It was 10 degrees and the wind was blowing at 60 miles per hour," says Greene, 37, who lives in Charlotte, N.C. "My mother is a diabetic. We were both dizzy and about to pass out, but I said, `Mom, we are so close. I don't want you to die, but I want a picture of the crucifix on top with Jesus covered in ice. I've never seen a frozen Jesus. Just try, Mom, just try.' "

Greene and Jackie Lookabill reached the top, snapped a picture and began making their way back down, cold and hungry.

"There was a snack machine at one of the gondola stops," Greene says. "We burst out laughing when we got there. This was like the perfect commercial. One woman with AIDS, another with diabetes, and we are saved by a Snickers bar."

Laughter resonates in the face of death. Greene, infected with HIV in 1986, confounds experts, defies medical opinion. She lives.

Her story continues to draw attention from Hollywood: beautiful model, emerging actress and cum laude college graduate meets swashbuckling, daredevil auto racer and falls in love. He proposes three times. She finally says yes. They consummate their relationship in a hotel suite overlooking Central Park.

He infects her with HIV.

Then abandons her.

It has been 11 years since Greene learned she was HIV-positive. Nine years since her ex-fiance, Tim Richmond, one of auto racing's biggest stars, succumbed to AIDS. Nine years since Greene called Richmond on his deathbed and said, "I forgive you."

Greene picked out her casket. Arranged all the details of her funeral. Then, in September 1996 -- six months after doctors gave her six months to live -- Greene took the money she had saved for a casket and bought a plane ticket to Europe.

"I wanted to celebrate," she says.

Jackie Lookabill and her daughter flew to Scotland, visited Germany, drove a rental car into Switzerland. They took a series of gondola rides up a mountain. After the last stop, with the windchill factor at 50 below, they climbed a long, icy slope toward the frozen Jesus.

"It took 20 minutes," she says, "but it was the longest 20 minutes I've ever known."

The miracle isn't that she made it to the top. It's that she lived long enough to try. When Greene tested HIV-positive in September 1987, doctors gave her two years. On Feb. 14, 1990, she married former Falcon Crest star and South Miami High football standout Danny Greene.

Fascination with her story lingers.

"I have had at least six offers to do a Movie of the Week," LaGena says. "But I just don't really know that the story could be told exactly the way I would want it. I don't think I'll ever do a Movie of the Week."

The concern is that Hollywood will mute or minimize the most important part of her life -- faith in Jesus Christ. Until recently, Greene shared her testimony all over the country -- in churches, schools, on college campuses. Now she ministers to men and women who come for advice -- victims of incest, abuse, marital infidelity and those living in secrecy with AIDS.

LaGena would do more, but she can't. A new AIDS cocktail of protease inhibitors has lengthened and complicated her life. Her weight has ballooned from 92 to 140 pounds, thanks to fatty stomach deposits that make her look pregnant. Her cholesterol has soared to dangerous levels. She suffers from a sleeping disorder and Restless Leg Syndrome: Her legs involuntarily move in a bicycle motion.

"I've gone through stages of social withdrawal, of feeling discouraged at times," she says. "There's the daily grind of pills [44 a day] and insurance forms, and it just wears on you."

Most statistics show that the longest the protease inhibitors have worked before the body builds a resistance is 2-1/2 years. If she follows form, her body will build a resistance to the drugs by the end of September. The prognosis does not daunt.

"All of the women I know who were infected at the same time I was have been gone for years," she says. "I have outlasted every prediction."

Yes, she has. The last time doctors gave LaGena up for dead, she found her way atop a mountain.

Editor's note: The Herald reported in 1996 that late auto racing star Tim Richmond infected a number of women with HIV before he died of AIDS-related complications in 1989. Only one of those women, LaGena Lookabill Greene, went public with her disease. She is believed to be the only victim still living.

CAPTION: photo: LaGena Lookabill Greene (a)
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