By Roseanne Trost
My first AIDS patient. The 80s. Lots of fear. Misunderstanding. I hoped he could not see the horror on my face. Actively dying. Emaciated. He moaned, as I turned him in the bed. “So sorry,” I murmured. I moistened his lips. He whispered, “There must be a special place in heaven for someone like you.”
Shortly after Rosanne Trost, RN, MPH, began working part time as a hospice nurse, she met this AIDS patient. She encountered many patients with sad situations, but this dying young man, all alone, has remained with her through the years.