AIDS IN A SECOND-TIER CITY

'As people progress through HIV, they may come to Chinese medicine too late."

Chinese method of seeing several clients by several practitioners in one large treatment area. Because of the great demand for services, a client must first get on a waiting list. Waiting list status provides the client with some services like nutritional and herbal counseling and access to full services when there are cancellations. As space opens up, clients move from wait list status to full access of all services. Most clients will average two appointments a week, others more. Fees are a nominal $10 a visit.

AAHP emphasizes the importance of early intervention with HIV care. Because of the range of services provided, a total holistic health care regimen can be maintained. "We're important," says Langer, "because what we do has very little secondary effect. In fact, people come to us in order to treat secondary effects from other drugs and therapies." But what about traditional western medicine? "Clients must have a primary care physician," says Langer. "Most clients continue to use Western medicine, but have incorporated other methods to supplement that care. We definitely are supported by people's doctors. They may not be able to measure results in some quantifiable way, but they are supportive even if it's just for quality of life enhancement." AAHP has proven so successful and popular that the center had to recently move to larger facilities.

But what about here in Cleveland? What is the availability of alternative-complementary therapies?

Cleveland, as a second-tier city in the epidemic and a second-level major city generally, lacks an established tradition of embracing alternative approaches to problem solving. While there are acupuncturists in the area, there exists no structured nonprofit organization such as AAHP, providing an all-encompassing range of programs. But Cleveland has been fortunate in having an on-going community of Reiki practitioners since the late 1980s.

Reiki Master Doug Fagan discovered Reiki while "doing my own recovery work. It opened up the world to me." Fagan was instrumental in introducing Reiki to the Living Room, both as a regularly offered service and as a taught self-performed healing exercise. Because Reiki can be selfperformed and involves an intimate level of touch between client and practitioner, it can be both powerful and threatening. “At first I found a hesitancy. There were a lot of people who had a lot of issues around being touched," says Fagan.

Since Reiki can't be seen or measured in typical ways, it poses threats to the medical community as well. "I think there are more and more people who are finding that what the doctors and the hospitals are offering isn't working," says Reiki Master Randy Gearhart. "When I was recently in the hospital I had friends doing non-stop Reiki on me before surgery and after. The doctors were amazed at the speed of my recovery. I've seen clients who have been able to give up insulin completely. I even use it in my

therapy practice as a way to relax a patient or relieve stress." Fagan says that he has had several students who were doctors looking to incorporate Reiki in their own practices.

Local Reiki practitioners emphasize that Reiki is a way of life, not a religion. There is a concern that Reiki not be seen as a quack science or fodder for new-age feel-gooders. A Reiki experience is also difficult to describe in words. But Reiki can work. It can be incorporated into a daily routine: eat breakfast, brush your teeth, do some Reiki. I came away from a demonstration session relaxed, but not tired, and aware of a warm tingling all over my body. "The results can be subtle or dramatic," says Bill Kissig, another Reiki master. "An individual's intention and will are important in facilitating healing. But it's important to remember that there is a difference between healing and curing. And I don't think you can underestimate the value of a relaxed state of wellbeing." Adds Gearhart, "Letting go of why Reiki works is like letting go of the need to know why a plane can fly. We accept that. We can also accept that Reiki works."

Northeast Ohio has a healthy Reiki community. Kissig estimates that there are several hundred practitioners in the area along with a good number of teachers. Reiki classes are offered regularly by Kissig and Gearhart through the Reiki center in Lakewood; Fagan teaches privately. While there are two practitioner levels and a separate Master level, most people find the initial level sufficient. Once learned, Reiki cannot be untaught nor can its benefits be reversed. Because of its empowering aspects and its focus on the total body, Reiki can be the most powerful of alternative therapies.

This article is meant to introduce readers to some of the more prevalent resources currently being explored in other areas in the fight against AIDS. Most professionals agree that early introduction of alternative approaches is crucial in maintaining good physical and mental health. It's also true that more people with AIDS and HIV are living longer than ever before. There is constant reference to a future with AIDS as a "manageable disease." If this is true, quality of life issues will be the central concerns to those within the spectrum. But with resources limited to failing drug therapies, where is the quality of life? Time is running out. There is still much work to be done at tearing down myths and lies and getting beyond fears of the unknown.

It's been said in this series that AIDS touches upon every issue that people can face, that it challenges our preconceived ideas about a variety of issues, from material needs like housing and food, to health care, to prejudices about different cultural groups. Let's extend AIDS to a larger context and use it to blast wide open our blind worship of medical authority and our cowed readiness to hand over the control of our lives. America must destroy the false ideas of Western science and medicine as the possessors of ultimate knowledge. Only then will we all experience quality in our lives.

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Thanks for your support in 1993 and best wishes for happy, safe and prosperous 1994