Kids take AIDS victim to hearts - Chicago Sun-Times

Oh, Ryan, we will cheer.

We would like to welcome you

here.

We feel sorry for your fight,

But for every day that you are

here,

We can see a little light.

For with you, our faith grows

strong,

To see a human carry on. - 'Ryan's Poem,' by a Hamilton Heights High School student, Arcadia, Ind.

CICERO, Ind. Classmates buy him cola and chips, bake himchocolate chip cookies, walk him to classes and ask him to ballgamesand dances. Art students draw sketches for him. Others write poems.

They all help him remember to take his medicine.

The center of all this attention is Ryan White, the pluckyteenager who became a nationally known outcast at age 13 because hehad AIDS. Now 15 and living in a new town, Ryan says these are thebest days of his life.

'Everything's going pretty good,' he said. 'I'm feeling prettyhealthy. I've got a nice house and a good family.'

Positive words from a boy who has known he was terminally illsince December, 1984, when doctors told him he had acquired AIDSthrough a blood-clotting agent used to treat his hemophilia.

He lived in Kokomo then. For the next 2 1/2 years, he hadalmost no friends. He felt unwelcome in many places. He was barredfrom swimming in some town pools; when he entered a restaurant,people walked out. Cruelest of all, Western Middle School barred himfrom corridors and classrooms.

His mother, Jeanne White, won a court order to force the schoolto accept Ryan, but she couldn't remove the hostility and bitterness.When Ryan walked down the hall, some kids threw themselves againsttheir lockers in exaggerated escape. 'Watch out! Watch out!' they'dtaunt.

'I just turned the other cheek,' Ryan said. 'They just didn'twant anything to do with me at all.'

He retreated into watching television and playing with militarytoys. He badly wanted out of Kokomo.

His wish was met last May when his mother moved with him and hissister, 13-year-old Andrea, to Cicero, 25 miles to the south. Shecombined a loan with an advance from a company developing a TV movieabout Ryan to put a down payment on a three-bedroom house bordered bywoods and a lake.

Sitting at the kitchen bay window, Ryan can look out into thetrees and watch chipmunks and squirrels. In warm weather, he sits inthe patio swing and watches boats on the lake.

Classmates drive him to his new school, Hamilton Heights, inneighboring Arcadia, where he attends half-days because he tireseasily.

Tony Cook, his principal, said Ryan is doing well in the ninthgrade, taking business data processing, algebra, English and biology.His grades at midterm were mostly Bs, and the lowest was a C.

'Arcadia is so much nicer than Western,' Ryan said. 'I didn'thave any friends at all. Out here, I just have hundreds.'

One is Jill Stewart, a 17-year-old senior who is president ofthe student body and sometimes drives Ryan to school. She said the650 students at Hamilton Heights prepared for Ryan's arrival withspecial classes on acquired immune deficiency syndrome that helpedthem better understand the disease.

'I think we all have the human compassion that we should treat ahuman like a human,' she said. 'When he came, no one was planning ontreating him badly. Everyone was a little afraid deep down inside,but then we really started thinking about it. We just wanted to benormal.'

'A lot of us just feel for him in our hearts because of whathe's been through,' said Wendy Baker, a 16-year-old junior. 'We don'twant him to have to go through that again and we're trying to make iteasier on him.'

The invitations to dances and games are all new to Ryan, whotends to shrug them off. 'I'm not much into going to games andstuff,' he said. 'I'm not much on dances either. I keep to myselfmost of the time. I like watching TV a lot. That's about all I do.'

Mrs. White said Ryan doesn't know how to act in socialgatherings because they've been so rare. 'He's been out of contact ofgrowing up from 13 to now, of being around kids his own age,' shesaid. 'Because of his hemophilia, he's not been active in sports.He's just been out of contact with life.'

Ryan has been sick for much of the last three years with avariety of illnesses, including pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, coldsand respiratory and liver problems. In his last year in Kokomo, hewas tutored at home for all but about three months because of theliver problems.

Ryan, whose frail frame has never carried more than 76 pounds,now weighs 72 pounds and has a chronic cough. Most recently he's hadtrouble staying warm and keeping food down. His mother thinks AZT,an experimental drug, increases his appetite and he eats too much,upsetting his stomach.

Mrs. White continues to work in the inventory division of DelcoElectronics Corp. in Kokomo, earning $12.70 an hour. The Ryan WhiteFoundation in Kokomo helps pay medical expenses not covered byinsurance and for Ryan's living expenses when his mother must takeoff work to care for him.

Despite the setbacks and sadness, Mrs. White and Ryan do notfeel sorry for themselves or talk of what might have been.

As painful as Kokomo's rejection was, Ryan enjoyed his half adozen trips to New York for network television appearances and AIDSbenefits. The walls of his house are lined with photographs ofcelebrities who appeared with him, including Elizabeth Taylor andElton John.

Ryan spent a week in September in Los Angeles as a guest ofAthletes for Kids, a nonprofit foundation for ill children, where hehelped mark establishment of the Ryan White National Fund to providefinancial aid to children with AIDS.

'I think that's made it fun for Ryan,' said Mrs. White. 'It'ssad but he's had a lot of opportunities. If you're going to have aterminal illness . . . I mean nobody wants it, period. But we'vegot to do a lot of things. We've had a real happy life. We've beento Italy, on Italian TV. We've really got to do an awful lot as afamily.'