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By BOB NOCEK bobn@leader.net
Thursday, February 03, 2000 Page: 1A
Christopher Robinson, the teenager whose public battle with AIDS moved and
enlightened Northeastern Pennsylvania, died Thursday at Geisinger Medical
Center in Danville.
He was 18.
Robinson was 13 when, in the Times Leader series “Christopher’s Secret,”
he revealed he had been infected with AIDS through blood transfusions he
received for hemophilia. He found surprising acceptance, and he made it his
cause to educate others about the disease, even as it wore him down.
“When I first decided to go public, I did not know how people would
react,” Christopher wrote in 1995, a few months after the first story was
published. “I realize now that the world isn’t such a bad place – or at least
this area isn’t so bad. And I hope people continue to learn about AIDS and how
to prevent it.”
Robinson’s stepfather, James Rebarchak, said the cause of death was a
bacterial infection. Arrangements are pending.
He was born on Thanksgiving Day 1981, at a time when an unusual combination
of diseases was beginning to show in gay men in New York and San Francisco.
Within two months of his birth, the first case of the condition that would
come to be known as AIDS was diagnosed in a hemophiliac and traced to the
blood supply.
Christopher, of Mountaintop, was a hemophiliac, and needed injections of
the clotting factor that his blood lacked. In 1982, when his mother learned of
the mysterious illness that was killing hemophiliacs, she was concerned.
Doctors told her not to worry. Seven years later, she received an unexpected
letter in the mail. Christopher’s blood had tested positive for HIV.
Christopher was told when he was 9 years old.
“He cried and cried,” his mother said in a 1995 interview. “He asked if
he was going to die.”
His parents told only immediate family and a few close friends.
Christopher’s friends and classmates didn’t know. He didn’t want them to. Not
yet.
But his secret wore on him, and in the Aug. 20, 1995 edition of the Times
Leader, he revealed it.
“I am carrying a great burden,” he said in that first story, “and I am
tired of it.”
Suddenly, AIDS was visible in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Robinson made public appearances at AIDS events. He spoke in auditoriums
packed with high school students, nervous all the while.
“(The series) enabled him to shed a phenomenal burden,” said Times Leader
Development Editor Chris Ritchie, the series editor since its inception.
“Once it came out, people responded to him. It was phenomenal.”
In September 1996, he addressed a crowd of more than 1,000 at the Wyoming
Valley’s first AIDS Walk: “I beg everyone to get educated, learn how to
prevent this disease from spreading. I can’t tell you how hard AIDS is on
myself and my family. Make the choice. Don’t make it hard on yourself.”
Like his peers, Robinson wore oversized shirts and a baseball cap pulled
down to his eyebrows. His Great Dane, Skye, was nearly as tall as Christopher
and probably weighed more, and they often shared his bed at night.
He played Nintendo and listened to rap music – DMX was a recent favorite.
He loved movies of all sorts and joked that he had rented every tape in the
video store during a long stretch of illness at home. He was a fan of the
Atlanta Braves and Washington Redskins and once visited the Redskins’ training
camp and met several players.
He hated talking on the telephone, but chatted on the Internet for hours
with friends.
Robinson’s speaking appearances and medical treatment required that he
travel often, and he enjoyed flying, playfully mocking his mother’s
nervousness about it. Last January, he visited Boston for a speaking
engagement. He loved that city and wanted to live there someday.
Robinson dreamed of becoming a veterinarian – he wanted to study at Cornell
University – but he missed school frequently. A teacher suggested a scientific
field might not be best. So he began to consider studying law, which also
excited him.
The powerful drug cocktails that have helped many AIDS patients didn’t work
for Christopher; his strain of the virus proved resistant. Some drugs caused
side effects serious enough that he had to be hospitalized several times.
Last year, he was hospitalized several times for life-threatening
infections, and his continuing illness frustrated him.
“This has been going on for such a long time, and he’s not feeling
better,” his mother said last year. “He said he’s just so tired of being
sick. … He’s really getting worn out.”
He is survived by his mother and stepfather, Dawn and James Rebarchak; his
father, Jack Robinson; brothers Matthew, Jamie, Adam and Eric; and a sister,
Savannah.