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Disability originates from HIV

The story of 47-year-old Frank Burgett and his disability begins innocently enough, in 1980, when at age 19 he fell directly onto the point of a football while playing around with friends, badly rupturing his spleen.
"So he had to have emergency surgery," said Starlene Burgett, Frank's wife, in a telephone interview from their Sacramento, Calif., home. "In the process, the hospital gave Frank a blood transfusion."
Now fast forward to 1988: The hospital urgently asked to test Frank's blood, saying the transfusion he received in 1980 may have been contained the virus causing AIDS. And it did.
"This was January 1988, and Frank and I were engaged to marry that April," said Starlene. "Frank had to tell me he was HIV positive. He was scared I'd call off the wedding. But we married anyway."
When Frank began having a continual low-grade fever in 1990, a doctor treated him with the first approved HIV drug. The Burgetts kept their situation a secret until the mid-1990s, when they boldly told their entire church at once.
Starlene said, "The church was very supportive, and loving, and wondered why we hadn't said anything earlier. There was no rejection."
Through 2000, Frank was able to work full-time. Then, while on an AIDS awareness bike ride from northern California to Los Angeles, he suddenly began losing feeling in his hand and couldn't bike in a straight line.
In time, doctors diagnosed him with progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), which a National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke website reports is a fatal brain disease caused by a virus found in some AIDS patients, which triggers dementia and movement problems.
"The effect (of PML) is like a stroke," said Starlene. "Frank lost the ability to use his right hand and arm, and to spell and work with numbers. He can't drive or work anymore." Frank had been an architect.
The Burgetts have coped well in part due to help from family, a next-door neighbor, and church friends who drive him to various places while Starlene works full-time.
"With as many handicaps as Frank has, he's still making a difference in people's lives," she said, referring to his speaking at schools and volunteering as a church special event photographer. "Though on paper it may seem he isn't able to do much, a lot of people find him very inspiring."
Contact danieljvance.com [Blue Valley Sod and Palmer Bus Service grants make this column possible.]

Divorce decrees enforced in several ways

Q.:  I am divorced, but have not been receiving my court-ordered support payments.  What can I do?
A.:  A domestic relations court keeps the authority to enforce its divorce decree orders.  You may file a motion with the domestic relations court asking that the other party in the divorce be found in contempt of court for failing to comply with the court order to make child or spousal support payments.  The motion requires the offending party to appear before the court and explain why he or she should not be held in contempt of court for failing to pay support.
If someone is held in civil contempt of a court, he or she must first be given the opportunity to correct the situation by paying all back support money. However, in the case of continuing violations, the court has a great deal of latitude in dealing with these violations, and may even impose a jail sentence. Also, in addition to the civil contempt remedy, in certain cases a prosecuting attorney may decide to file criminal non-support charges. Furthermore, if you are the person who is owed support payments, you may be able to get a judgment against the non-paying party and get the support payments through collection procedures. Money owed to the non-paying person, such as income tax refund checks or bonus checks, may be confiscated in order to help satisfy the support obligation. Courts also may award reasonable attorney fees and costs to one seeking to enforce a court order. An experienced domestic relations attorney or the local Child Support Enforcement Agency should be consulted concerning the options available.
Q.: What can I do if the person owing support has moved to another state?
A.: Reciprocal laws now apply in all states. These laws allow one state to enforce another state's support orders. An attorney or the local Child Support Enforcement Agency should be consulted.
Q.: What can I do if I am being prevented from having parenting time with my children, even though the court ordered the parenting time?
A.: Enforcement of parenting time is often a more complicated process because it may involve not only the relationship between parents but also between parents and children. Parents who feel that a current parenting order is no longer in the best interest of a child should ask the court to modify the order and not simply refuse to comply with it. If you are the parent who has been prevented from exercising parenting time with your children, you may file a motion that would require the other parent to show cause as to why the court-ordered parenting schedule is not being followed. If a non-residential parent later seeks to change a prior parenting order, one of the factors the court must consider is whether the custodial parent has continuously and willfully denied the non-residential parent court-ordered parenting time.
Law You Can Use is a weekly consumer legal information column provided by the Ohio State Bar Association. This article was prepared by Robert A. Koblentz, a Columbus attorney. Articles appearing in this column are intended to provide broad, general information about the law. Before applying this information to a specific legal problem, readers are urged to seek advice from an attorney.

The Law of Gravity ought to be repealed. Yeah, I know it keeps things attached to solid ground so we're not all flailing fruitlessly in space, but other than that, gravity serves no useful purpose at all.
Other than a bag of Oreos, gravity is a woman's worst enemy. Around middle age, everything starts sagging like a slow-moving mudslide. We know that eventually our breasts are going to blend into our stomachs and no one will know whether we are coming or going unless we are wearing a belt buckle. It's like the grill on the front of a Mack truck.
Let's face it, in middle age, the hair on our heads starts to evacuate like there's been a fire drill and relocates itself onto our faces. Never before has an item been so constantly our companion as our tweezers.
Sagging hairy jowls, grandma's mustache, and a jutting unibrow; we have all the markings of a Neanderthal. It's no wonder that the beauty industry is thriving. We are desperate to reclaim the face and body we know we already had somewhere. It's there, we just have to find it.
Where is it? Gravity claimed it. Oh gravity, thou art a heartless witch!
I was shopping for a suit for a special occasion recently. Everything I tried on looked as though it belonged on someone much taller and 60 pounds lighter. I looked like a Weeble.
I thought, "Where is that fabulous rack I used to have twenty years ago? The suit looked like I had swallowed a throw pillow and it got stuck halfway down.
As I wandered around the store bemoaning my dumpy state and wishing gravity would go find another planet to live on, I came across the lingerie department. The undergarments I was forced to consider bore no resemblance whatsoever to what I had always thought was lingerie.
These were what my mother calls "foundation." Well, I thought, I suppose if you want to build a brick house, you have to start with a good foundation. They were made of whalebone, titanium and, I suspected, a material that might be used in the after-burners of the space shuttle. These hearty undergarments could squeeze and tuck twenty years off my frame if I could just get into one. Ladders should be installed in the changing rooms so that you can simply leap into them.
The first one I tried on winded me with the effort and then I couldn't suck in enough air to keep me from falling into a dead faint. Perhaps I was a little too optimistic on the size.
The second one I tried on made me sigh in relief. There's that rack! I knew it was there somewhere! Welcome home old friend! The only problem was that now my breasts looked like they were equipped with nuclear warheads: Like Madonna in her cone costume. Hmm. Nope. I don't think so.
The third one was little more subtle in the warhead area but was completely see-through. It was like it was saying: "I may be something your grandmother would wear, but I've got sex-appeal!" That's what I like: Undergarments with attitude. As if I would ever let anyone see me in that.
Liposuction, Botox, collagen injections, anti-wrinkle lotions, cellulite zappers, and underwear that finds your twenty-year old body. I may not be able to fight gravity alone, but at least the "The Resistance" is on my side.
You can reach Laura at lsnyder@lauraonlife.com Or visit her website www.lauraonlife.com for more columns and info about her new book.