https://volunteerhub.com.au/hivaids-volunteers-a-history-project/ Palliative Care Volunteering Fri, 23 Sep 2016 10:32:49 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://volunteerhub.com.au/hivaids-volunteers-a-history-project/#comment-179 Fri, 23 Sep 2016 10:32:49 +0000 http://volunteerhub.com.au/?p=2747#comment-179 I wonder how I lived through this chapter of my life. As a young gay man I landed in Sydney and thought I had found paradise on Oxford Street….community, sex, drugs and party!. Then the virus landed and I was fast forwarded through issues I didn’t anticipate facing until perhaps I was in my 60’s and 70’s such as losing my friends and peers in a climate of fear and discrimination. Painful and scary as this time was I can see now how it somehow later on opened up doors of compassion and acceptance about myself that these days has enabled me to volunteer in late stage palliative care. Sometimes wisdom and change can come through suffering. I will always love and remember some of the incredibly courageous and special souls that shone in my life during those years.

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