Tee-hee

All of us involved in the AIDS response were constantly attending conferences, workshops, retreats and trainings, especially from the mid-80s to the early 90s. The basic information about HIV transmission and prevention had primarily stayed the same since 1984, but there were always updates about treatment options, AIDS-related illnesses, and psychosocial issues.

I attended one workshop where the presenter, Annette Goodheart PhD, described herself a ‘laughter therapist.’ The audience was made up of clinicians, patients, mental health folks, researchers and numerous kinds of volunteers. Honestly, most of us were zoning out as Dr. Goodheart presented a series of slides comparing the similarities between the musculature of crying and laughing. Many in the audience rolled their eyes.

Really? The ‘chemistry of tears?’

It was just too California, even for those of us who lived there.

At a certain point in her presentation she asked if there was anyone in the audience living with AIDS who’d be willing to come up on stage with her.

There was a long uncomfortable pause before someone in the back of the auditorium called out, “Okay, I will.”

We all watched a terribly thin young man roll his IV pole slowly down the aisle. Several people helped him up onto the stage, and then he painfully shuffled out into the center and sat down next to Dr. Goodheart. Annette thanked him for coming up and asked if it would be all right to ask him a few questions about his AIDS diagnosis and how he was dealing with it.

He nodded in agreement.

She said her only caveat was that at the end of each of his answers, would he please add the word, “Tee-hee.”

We all sat with our arms crossed, shaking our heads, looking down.

This was SO inappropriate!

“I’ve been diagnosed with pulmonary KS and microsporidiosis,” he said.

“Tee-hee.”

Everyone in the audience winced in discomfort.

“I’ve never heard of microsporidiosis. What is it?” she asked.

He paused before saying, “Sometimes it’s called the ‘diarrhea of death.’ . . . tee-hee.“

I started to get angry. She was putting this poor person with AIDS on display and using his terrible story to demonstrate what?

She continued to ask questions and he continued to respond, always with ‘tee-hees’ at the end of his statements.

At a certain point he said, “I’m so lonely. I think my lesions scare people off . . . tee hee.”

He smiled just for a moment, and then continued his sad litany.

“I’m having so much diarrhea, my entire apartment smells like . . .”

He paused for a brief moment before he said, “Poop . . . tee-hee.”

And then he laughed a little and she laughed with him.

“Poop?” she asked?

“Yes! Poop, tee-hee,” he said, and then he really began to laugh.

I fought my own laughter back until he said, “When I couldn’t afford the rent on my apartment anymore I moved to a smaller studio where no pets were allowed and I had to give my cat away, tee hee!”

Annette asked the cat’s name.

“Little Polly,” he said, “Tee hee,” and started laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe and then the audience burst into laughter too.

It was all so appalling and yet so terribly funny.

Hundreds of us laughed with him about the dreadful things he was going through. Each awful detail of his story become funnier and funnier until my sides ached. I laughed so hard I cried.

Rarely had I shed so many tears in public, and never in front of so many strangers.