Today I woke up in agony it was 10:30am and my phone was ringing it was Jai Mininovic the Young Spokesman for Australians for Constitutional Monarchy asking me to be involved in a new education programme. I had been waiting for this call for over 15 years from when I joined and committed myself to the protection of our constitution. I heard myself actually telling him of the pain rather than being my tuffguy self of "yeah the papers made it sound worse than it is how can I help you?".

The morning improved with me guzzling my medications and taking my injection, then spoke to my great friend Peter Everat ( who i get to watch each day on Ready Steady Cook) about an upcoming interview we are doing for a Christmas issue of the Good Week Magazine called 'the two of us' about of long friendship and shared love of the outback. Soon enough the drugs had kicked in and I'd been the lucky recipient of several more well wisher calls from mates.

Then just as I started to get very hungry and frustrated at being stuck in the bedroom for what was probably 30 hours my good mate Stevie arrived with lunch, DVD's and carried me out of my 4 walled prison to the next room which seemed like a whole new world complete with  big screen TV.

While Stevie prepared a 'lets not turn David into the blimp while he is bedridden' lunch, I channel surfed (yeah I'm an expert at that now) and came across Oprah secretly hoping it was the 'Sound of Music' reunion show, I was pleasantly surprised to see it was a different kind of reunion. This one was centered around the town of Williamson West Virginia in the very different time of 1987 when Oprah did her show there following an evacuation of the towns swimming pool when a local Michael Cisco who was living with HIV/AIDS in a community gripped by fear.

Oprah was revisiting the town to see how things had changed, it was a great expose on how some people learn and some people hold desperately to hate and ignorance as if they were somehow chalices that ensure everlasting life.

One of the most vehemently ant-gay members of the audience of 1987 was a man who had not changed, he continued to hold true to his opinion that Cisco and people with HIV/AIDS belonged in gay communities, or colonies not in the general community or in his home town with his family. Despite his sisters (Cisco since died of his illness) trying to allow the man to understand that he was best around his family during that time the now talk back radio host would have none of it insisting gay people are best cared for by other gay people not their families or communities that they grew up in and have friendships amongst. I found this totally illogical and doubt this man would say the same to his mother if she were suffering cancer and others were telling him she belonged thousands of kilometers away in an old peoples village away from him her family and all those that she knew.

There were others that were ashamed of the way they behaved in reaction to him 23 years ago and asked forgiveness from Cisco's sisters. Most said they just 'didn't know'...how to react and what the facts were. Another man who was very strong in his bigoted language also asked forgiveness from the sisters, although continuing to be a devout Christian he said he hated himself for being so unchristian that day and for not following his Saviour's teachings. He did however continue the line that he believed being attracted to the same sex was wrong, but it didn't give him the right to hate him or hurt him.

The comments of the audience members gave me so much to think  about. Mainly about how I have grown and learned in my 30 years. I am ashamed of my ignorance all those years ago when I truly believed that HIV/AIDS was God the nature working to rid the world of of prostitutes, rapists, Gays and drug users. The sad truth is a huge population holds desperately to that view that i fortunately learned was untrue. I learned that prostitutes have the highest use of safe sex options, that rapists often use condoms to hide their crime and worse if they don't the true victim is the innocent person they have violated and that Out Gay men actually have a very high use of condoms and that it is men who are forced to identify as straight and undertake high risk behaviour and then return to their wives and lastly drug users are everyone, your doctor your lawyer your neighbour. It is not right to point the finger and say that you deserve death. It is not right for anyone to caste judgement on other people, after all who does that make you? No one is free of wrong doing. There I was casting my judgement on those with HIV/AIDS and yet I was hiding who I was and not even being honest with myself.

It reminds me of what Jesus said regarding those free of sin can cast the first stone in an execution of a sinner...the truth is no one has the right to even pick up a stone.

My opinions as with many are not the only things to have changed in the 23 years since the first Oprah Show at Williamson, life expectancy has increased from 18 months to 22.5 years from people with HIV in the US however sadly over 20 million people have been taken by the terrible disease and currently 35 million people have the illness most in Sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia where the life expectancy is closer to 1987 levels in the US.