£8.99
Before the Monkeys Came
Introduction
"Before the Monkeys Came" is a 2001 winner in the Writers Digest Self-published Book Awards, Literary/Mainstream category. Frank watches as his friends are drafted to fight a war no one believes in, or he helps them escape to Canada when their student deferments expire to avoid serving in the rock and roll war. Never having to choose, being forever 4-F (unfit for military service) has robbed him of the chance to make his own political statement. Frank was born with hemophilia, a hereditary disease passed from mother to son. His blood doesn’t clot normally, so even a minor bump to a knee or elbow joint often becomes a serious bleed, ultimately causing crippling, muscle atrophy, and extreme episodes of intense pain.
Childhood and Medical Advances
As a child, frequent hospital stays were the norm, and missed school routine. The needles, transfusions, and traction are the only therapies being performed in the fifties and early sixties when the average life expectancy of a boy with hemophilia was fifteen. With the first significant advances in cryo-precipitate (clotting factor removed from whole blood, spun in a centrifuge, and frozen for later IV injection), the first real help arrives by the mid-sixties. Later came Factor VIII, manufactured from whole blood from blood banks like the Red Cross, and the technology for quick intravenous treatment that worked significantly better than anything that came before, promises a more normal life for those born later than Frank and the other men already significantly impaired. But Frank's crippling is stabilized by Factor VIII and he finally sees hope.
The 1976 Blood Contamination Crisis
The comes 1976, the bicentennial year and the year of AIDS. Drug companies' poor quality control and the FDA's lack of oversight allowed millions of contaminated blood to be processed into Factor VIII and other blood products and distributed to the hemophilia community without regard to the possible infections it could cause. Not warned until 1985, eighty to ninety percent of hemophiliacs who infused Factor VIII during those years become HIV positive. A third of them would die of full-blown AIDS within a year, hundreds of spouses will be infected, and their children before the spread is controlled.
Frank's Story and the Impact of the Crisis
Frank's story is only one of thousands of people caught in this terrible web. The treatment that once held such hope and promise for a healthier life becomes worse than the disease it tried to help. Frank faces heartbreak, loss, new injuries, and further crippling as he tries to face down his demons and find a way just to
