The San Francisco Examiner - November 5, 2001
Tanya Pampalone Of The Examiner Staff

But it wasn't until the 40-year-old airline executive couldn't get out of bed for an important meeting that he knew the HIV diagnosis he received two years earlier had finally caught up with him. Ballantyne had to quit his job -- a demanding, high-stress position that he held for 15 years.

For six months, he slept, took his AIDS cocktail medications and did little else. When he started to feel healthy again, one of the first things he wanted to do was get back to work.

On the suggestion of a friend, Ballantyne went to the Market Street offices of Positive Resource Center, a benefits counseling and employment organization for people with HIV. Since 1992, the group has been helping HIV-positive people re-enter the workforce providing workshops on everything from how to run your own small business to when to disclose status to an employer.

For those who can tolerate the medications, HIV is no longer a death sentence. Each year, HIV-positive people are re-entering the workforce in higher numbers and, like Ballantyne, many are eager to get back to work -- tough to do in a job market reeling from a bad economy.

Earlier this year, the Employment Development Department decided to help out. It implemented its Jobs for All program in San Francisco and dedicated it entirely to people living with HIV. The program helps disabled people statewide find employment.

Adam Klein heads the local program and works from his PRC office several days a week. He meets with clients daily, helping them find jobs by targeting their interests, contacting employers and helping them write resumes and cover letters.

But finding a job for someone with HIV goes beyond getting any job that comes along. Their lives have been forever changed by their diagnosis and the satisfaction they get out of their work is not luxury, it is crucial to their health that they enjoy their job. Klein's clients also have to worry about what benefits that they might lose if they become employed and they are concerned with health coverage and how fatigue impacts their life.

"It is not a workstation fix-it," Klein said. "It is not a matter of creating a ramp. They have to go from 'I'm going to die' to 'Oh my God, I'm going to live.' "

While the AIDS cocktails are helping some live closer to normal lives, there are some severe side effects like fatigue, nausea and diarrhea -- even for those who are working well on the medications.

For Ballantyne, it's the support and confidence he gets from working with Klein, who he meets with every week, that is providing the most help. As a former marketing and business planning executive for the same company for 15 years, it was a long time since he had written a resume.

While the blue-eyed, soft-spoken Scot is eager to work, he is nervous. Next week he will take a course on the fear of going back to work. Positive Resources, he said, seems to know exactly what is coming next for their clients.

That has a lot to do with the group's program coordinator, Mark Misrok. He understands because he went through the same thing. Misrok was diagnosed with HIV in 1989, in the days before protease inhibitors.

"When you have your mortality in front of your face and thought you had this (death sentence) and that has been reversed, it's not unusual for values to change," said Misrok. "People with HIV might have more specific goals -- and as employees they may be the most motivated and focused people that you can hire." Chris Orwigg is one of those people.

When he was diagnosed in 1995, he was devastated. But after spending a secluded four years in Redding with his family, he decided to go back to school. His diagnosis, he says, came with a poignant gift.

"It gave me permission to slow down, and explore and pursue the things I really care about," he said from his sparsely furnished Sunset apartment, which is filled with books on Plato and Faust.

The 34-year-old who recently graduated from the Pacifica Institute in Santa Barbara, where he studied mythological studies and depth psychology, went to PRC a year ago to get re-oriented into the workforce.

He calls the organization a "touchstone."

"They know who you are, they know what it is like to be in denial and they understand the whole strange anxiety ... that you feel healthy but you are not sure what you are capable of," Orwigg said.

For Ballantyne and Orwigg, the struggle they face every day is not only about getting back to work, it's about getting on with life.

E-mail Tanya Pampalone at tpampalone@sfexaminer.com
011105
SE011101

AEGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All information contained on this website, including information relating to health conditions, products, and treatments, is for informational purposes only. It is often presented in summary or aggregate form. It is not meant to be a substitute for the advice provided by your own physician or other medical professionals. Always discuss treatment options with a doctor who specializes in treating HIV.

Copyright ©1980, 2001. AEGiS. All materials appearing on AEGiS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of AEGiS, or the party credited as the provider of the content. .