Drug User’s Son Gets Note : Boy Born With AIDS Cheered by President
It was no ordinary get-well note displayed in the window of 3-year-old Michael’s room at Loma Linda Medical Center on Friday. It was a letter from the White House.
“I know that you have been very brave through some difficult times,†President Reagan wrote the boy. “The people who have worked with you have been most impressed by your strength and cheerfulness.â€
A hospital spokeswoman said that Michael, the son of a drug user, was born with acquired immune deficiency syndrome. He has been in and out of the hospital and arrived for his current stay on Aug. 2.
Reagan wrote that he appreciated the boy’s concern about the starving children of Africa and assured him they were being helped.
It was not clear how the President knew that Michael, who is almost 4, was worrying about the children of Africa. But the boy’s aunt, Carmen Gallegos, said through the hospital spokeswoman that her call to the White House may have had something to do with it.
Also, she told a foundation that fulfills wishes for seriously ill children that Michael wanted to talk to the President about a few things.
In any event, the word apparently got through.
Gallegos said her nephew watches news and documentaries on television (“he’s not a cartoon kidâ€) and that three or four weeks ago he said he wanted to talk to Reagan about such matters as the President’s own illness and about the hungry children of Africa.
Michael was told that Reagan was very busy. Would he settle for Nancy Reagan? He wouldn’t.
Nor did he have to.
Nurse Linda Tarbell of the pediatrics intensive care unit described Michael as a “brilliant†child with more personality and intelligence than many adult patients. She said several weeks ago it was noticed that he was not drinking his water. When asked why not, he said he was “conserving†it for the African children who were thirsty.
When the letter from the White House arrived and was read to him on Thursday, she said, his eyes widened with pleasure. He had his aunt post it so that hospital staff members couldn’t miss it as they passed his room.
“Everybody who’s had any contact with him is really taken with him,†said Joyce McClintock of the hospital’s community relations staff. “He’s very intelligent.â€
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