REMEMBERING AUTUM

REMEMBERING AUTUM
BY KEVIN WACK
Blethen Maine Newspapers

Autum Aquino was just a curly-haired 6-year-old when she decided she didn't want to hide the fact that she had AIDS.

Aquino died Thursday at age 23. But the courageous choice she made as a little girl in Portland -- to stand up and dispel people's fears about a scary and poorly understood disease -- had an impact on society that continues today.

"She wanted it to be known -- and I think she spread this message very well -- that HIV can happen to anyone," said Barbara Parent, the school nurse at Hampden Academy, where Aquino attended high school.

The cause of death wasn't disclosed. Parent said Aquino appeared to be in good health in recent weeks.

Aquino was born with HIV after her mother, Theresa Dannemiller, contracted the virus from her husband. The family lived in the Bangor area until 1991, when the perky, brown-haired 6-year-old decided that she wanted to go public about her disease.

"She wasn't different from anyone else, and it wasn't fair," her mother told a reporter at the time. "I was perfectly happy hiding."

So the family moved to Portland, where they thought their disclosure would be met with greater acceptance.

Aquino enrolled at the West End's Reiche Elementary School, which held a special meeting where her mother explained the disease to about 100 parents. At the time, there were still considerable misperception about AIDS and how it could be transmitted.

The family was pleased with the way they were treated in Portland. But doctors, concerned about Aquino's deteriorating immune system, believed she would live longer if she was not exposed to common winter illnesses. In 1992, the family decided to move to Florida.

Some of the people in Lakeland, Fla., weren't as welcoming as the folks in Portland. The family faced harassment and even death threats, according to news reports. They moved back to Maine in January 1993. Aquino's mother died later the same year.

Despite those hardships, and a series of health problems that required her to take a cocktail of drugs, Aquino's spirit stayed strong.

As a seventh-grader in Hampden, where she moved to live with her aunt and uncle, she stood up and explained her condition to a room full of adults, recalled Parent, the school nurse.

"She was probably the most positive kid I've ever worked with," Parent said. "I never saw her without a smile on her face. And she had a can-do attitude about everything."

http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/news/local/4937853.html


Photography by John McNeil & Kevin Leduc (Portland Magazine)

This article is definitely worth the reading. It was published in 2002, but since the death of Autumn, it remains very relevant today.



by Alison Bulman
Photography by John McNeil & Kevin Leduc
Portland Magazine

How do you tell a 6-year-old she is going to die soon? "My mom told me there was something in my blood that made me unable to fight off colds and stuff," Autum Aquino remembers. "One of the first things I asked was if we were going to die. She told me everyone dies. We just might a little sooner."

In November 1986, Autum’s mother, Theresa Dannemiller, received a phone call alerting her that her ex-husband, Autum’s father, Jorge, was in the hospital. He was dying. A Vietnam War veteran coping with physical pain and severe trauma, Jorge Aquino had resorted to heroin to ease his suffering. Intravenously he contracted HIV. Theresa got tested for the virus: positive. Her ex-husband since Jorge, Tim Dannemiller, tested positive, and Autum, Theresa’s 17-month-old baby, had it, too.

Just five years since the word AIDS was first heard by the American public in 1981, the disease had somehow crept into Theresa’s Bangor, Maine, home and infected everyone inside with the exception of Theresa’s oldest daughter, Ja’nette.

At 6 years old, Autum was the first elementary school child in Maine diagnosed with AIDS. When her family decided to go public, near hysteria resulted. Parents of Autum’s peers transferred their children to different schools. When fielding questions at a Maine AIDS seminar the family gave in 1991, people wrote anonymous comments on index cards like, "All AIDS victims should be shot like interbred cats," and "If you get AIDS from a blood transfusion, that’s too bad, but the gays should die from it!"

Doctors and nurses refused the family care. They washed seats they’d sat in. Afflicted with perpetual illness, fatigue, and social stigma, the health of Theresa, Tim, and Autum was plummeting. Theresa made funeral arrangements for herself and her daughter after doctors told her the disease was a death sentence for them both.

After Portland Magazine published an article on the family in 1992, Theresa died August 1 the following year.

"I was 8 years old," Autum remembers. "She was going to turn 30 in a month and three days. She’d gotten more tired and sick. She stayed in more. I knew it would happen eventually. I helped her out a lot over that last week in July."

After Theresa died, they found she had toxoplasmosis, an illness caused by a microorganism sometimes found in cat feces and dirty kitty litter. It can affect the central nervous system and brain and is particularly dangerous to pregnant women and those with compromised immune systems. No one knows how she got it.

Full Article: http://www.maine.rr.com/03/portmag/aquino/