SISTER ROMANA MARIE RYAN

SISTER ROMANA MARIE RYAN ROMAN CATHOLIC NUN

Religious organizations have varied widely in their attitudes oward the AIDS epidemic and toward people with AIDS, sometimes reacting with sympathy, sometimes with hostility (see card 90). Sister Romana, who contracted AIDS from a blood ransfusion, overcame the stigma of the disease, found solace in her faith, and died with dignity in the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church.

Born in Waukon, lowa, Sister Romana Marie Ryan became a nun in 1938, when she joined the teaching and nursing order the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1970 she went to San Francisco, where she lived and worked as a kindergarten eacher for the rest of her life. On a field trip with her class in 1983 she broke a leg in a way that required surgery, and during the operation she received a blood transfusion contaminated with HIV.

Although she developed classic AIDS symptoms fairly quickly, ike many women with HIV and AIDS (see card 84), she was not correctly diagnosed until her disease was far advanced because it did not occur to her doctors that a celibate nun could have an llness that was at that time associated primarily with intravenous drug users and male homosexuals. Hospitalized for tests, in January 1985 she stoically accepted the diagnosis of AIDS, expressing concern only for others. According to her parish priest, Sister Romana prayed daily for the donor whose blood had nfected her and for all people with AIDS, and prayed that a cure for the disease would soon be found. On February 13, 1985, she died of AIDS-related pneumonia. She was 66 years old.

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