May 20, 2019 – POZ.
by Mark S. King
Coping with the fight for change
Wanda Brendle-Moss arrived at the 2018 United States Conference on AIDS (USCA), in Orlando, in a car. She departed soon after in an ambulance.
"I fell in the shower at the hotel one morning," Wanda explains to me. She has a friendly North Carolina drawl and a sunny face framed by an avalanche of silver hair. Her motherly affections make her a favorite among the many younger advocates on the scene who surround her.
When Wanda hit the floor of the bathtub, she heard a crack. It took her a full 30 minutes, wincing in pain, to crawl out of the bathroom.
She eventually made it downstairs to the conference and tried to keep her physical agony to herself. "I was there on scholarship," Wanda tells me. She takes such opportunities seriously because her USCA attendance depends on financial support. Wanda doesn't have money. If a scholarship did not provide meals, she probably wouldn't eat. But, she says, she would still go.
After someone noticed her distress and questioned her, Wanda consented to an ambulance, leading to hours in the emergency room and a diagnosis of fractured discs. She longed to return to USCA. By midafternoon, she had made it back, walking slowly down the long hallways to attend workshops, propped up by painkillers and pure grit. Continue reading on POZ...
