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Against
the Odds –
The
Story of Dawn Averitt Bridge
In 1988, my
parents gathered us in a room on our screen porch
for a family meeting. These things were never about something
good and so my mind raced through a catalog of all of the
bad things I’d done recently and tried to settle on
the one big deal that was about to be my undoing. I
had just turned 18 and my younger brother, just 15,
looked even more concerned than I.
We sat down and it was
quiet for several minutes, then my mother began to cry. My
sister, Dawn, dropped the bombshell; she had just been diagnosed
with HIV. I don’t remember a whole lot more
about the discussion that day because nothing else seemed
to be of any importance. We were a classic middle class conservative
white family from Stone Mountain, Georgia and we hardly knew
what HIV was. The doctors had told Dawn, then 19 years
old, not to read anything because the information
was too complex, and not to tell anyone because our family
would be outcast from our conservative community. The
one thing we knew for sure was that Dawn was going to die,
and probably soon.
The next four years
were characterized by a nearly normal family life but with
a pall over every event. Each celebration now took on the
morbid realization that we were celebrating not just
another birthday or Christmas, but another birthday
or Christmas with Dawn. Much like the passing of myriad anniversaries,
each event marked another milestone in our
lives waiting for the day that Dawn would become really sick.
During our period of
silence, Dawn took a job working on Capital Hill in
the office of Sam Nunn and found herself embroiled
in the “Gays in the military issue”.
She was the front line target for groups like ACT UP who called
her a bigot and screamed that she was afraid of them and of
AIDS. Little did they or anyone know how truly afraid of AIDS
she was, but not of them. Dawn was a rapid progressor and
was diagnosed with AIDS early on and her T-cells went on a
steady and relentless decline while the virus, undaunted
by AZT, just kept replicating, building an army against
her immune system, thousands of new viral clones every day.
Sometime in the early
nineties, Dawn’s desire to live took over her
fear of dying and she became a voracious consumer
of information about the treatment of HIV disease. What
she discovered was an almost complete absence of information
about women and HIV. She managed to find and enroll
herself as the only woman in one of the very early protease
inhibitor trials in New York and our family was fortunate
enough to be able to pool our resources and send her there
a couple of times a month for treatment. The results
were extraordinary. Her T-cells climbed to near normal
levels, her retro-virus army was sent packing, and we began
to dream about family anniversaries we’d never
expected to celebrate.
Obviously inspired by
her recovery and emboldened by her experience navigating the
system on Capital Hill, she set out to help other women find
the same life-saving support she had found through access
to information and through advocacy. She applied for
a nominal government grant and started W.I.S.E. (Women’s
Information Service and Exchange), the first women’s
organization in the U.S. designed to provide information and
advocacy for women living with HIV disease. This program became
immensely popular in the growing community of women facing
this challenge and was eventually merged with Project
Inform in San Francisco as their women’s program.
In 2000 Dawn completed
a life long dream of hiking the Appalachian Trail
home, from Maine to Georgia, complete with her dog,
our younger brother, her boyfriend (now husband),
and her triple drug therapy. She finished in Georgia on the
twelfth anniversary of her diagnosis with HIV. We
found ourselves celebrating yet another unexpected anniversary,
an anniversary of life rather than death, a celebration of
living and of the magnificent triumph of one woman’s
refusal to go quietly.
Since then, Dawn
Averitt has married her trail mate Brad Bridge (now
Dawn Averitt Bridge) and given birth to my beautiful niece
Madelyn Grace who is HIV negative. She is
pregnant with what appears to be another healthy little girl.
The trail gave Dawn a new lease on life and the freedom to
think big about her place in this world. In 2001, she asked
me to join her in an effort to build a resource for
women that would finally address the barriers
to access and understanding the complex information in the
world of HIV and AIDS. An organization that would
help women advocate for themselves in their treatment and
that would connect them to others suffering through the silence
and stigma of this invisible killer. This past September her
leadership and tireless efforts made this resource a reality
we call The Well Project (www.thewellproject.org).
I ask you to join us,
her family, in celebrating Dawn’s life. She celebrated
her 35th birthday on December 12th , her 15th year
surviving this disease, and her admirable success
in giving back to the world the best she has to give.
Think
HIV isn’t your problem?
Think again.
- In
2002, 2 million women worldwide were infected with HIV.
- Half of all HIV infections occur in people younger than
25 years of age.
- In the United States, over 40,000 people are infected with
HIV every year; at least 30 percent are women.
Change the way
you think about HIV.
Send
this to a friend and start talking.
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 Richard
Averitt,
Chief Operating Officer, The Well ProjectRichard joined The Well Project
in early 2002 to help his sister, Dawn, evolve the vision of TWP into a
sustainable public service organization. He now acts as Chief Operating
Officer for The Well Project, and is responsible for the organization’s
strategic and fiscal wellbeing. Richard has been creating and managing businesses
for 10 years as either a partner or proprietor in various industries. He
is delighted to apply his business knowledge towards a cause that will benefit
real people, in very real ways, in their everyday lives. |
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 Dawn
Averitt, Founder and Chief Executive
Officer
Dawn is the founder
and Chief Executive Officer of The Well Project. Prior to
envisioning and dedicating her time to building TWP, she spent
years as a prominent HIV treatment advocate and public speaker.
Her expertise spans a wide spectrum of HIV related issues,
ranging from general AIDS awareness and pathogenesis of HIV
disease to complex treatment-related topics. She also founded
WISE (Women’s Information Service and Exchange), which
is now the women’s program at Project Inform.
It is Dawn’s belief
that through access to information, treatment and care, we
will stem the tide of HIV disease that threatens the well-being
of women, our societies at large, and the global community
as a whole.
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Dawn and Madelyn Grace
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