By the third week of March, 1996, Robb’s condition was deteriorating fast. The family was alarmed. Robb’s brother Jim arrived from California for a visit and the family got together at Lorney and Hattie’s house for a reunion.
It was difficult seeing Robb on the couch, hardly moving, not smiling, so different than he had been a few weeks ago. He managed to cuddle his new niece, Allison, the daughter of Robb’s brother Rich and his wife, Angie.
Robb also managed to sit up for a while and flash me a goofy grin.
You can keep Robb’s legacy alive by donating to the DeLaCerda House, a nonprofit providing housing and support to homeless HIV and AIDS clients in the Quad Cities. Just go to www.delacerdahouseinc.org and click on the “Donate” button at the top of the screen.
Robb is sedated, but when he wakes up and sees me he grins, waves, and says “Howdy.”
Has something ever happened in your life that made you stop and realize you had achieved some personal growth — that you had changed over time without realizing it? It happened to me 20 years ago today – on March 13, 1996, when I visited Robb in the hospital.
Robb checked into Genesis because of severe headaches and a continued inability to keep food down. When I arrived, his sister Peggy was there, keeping him company.
After she left, before his parents arrived, Robb and I were alone. I interviewed him, and that is when he told me he was no longer going to fight with AIDS. The disease had won. The fight was over. Now, the mission was to remain comfortable.
He was telling me this and had to stop to vomit into a container — I think they call them “kidney dishes.” I turned my head. I didn’t want Robb to be uncomfortable, and I hate throwing up worse than almost anything, so it was tough seeing him go through it.
After he threw up into the container, I took it from him and started to carry it into the restroom to wash it out.
“You don’t have to do that,” Robb said. “The nurse will do it.”
But I told him that was okay. I went into the restroom and poured the contents into the toilet. I felt strangely clinical, not squeamish or repulsed as I would have expected. As I was pouring it out, the realization struck me — my education was complete.
Robb eating dinner next to me in his home 11 months earlier in April 1995.
Eleven months earlier, one of the first stories I shot with Robb involved him cooking dinner, and when he asked me to join him, I froze, thinking that perhaps I would catch HIV if I ate with one of his forks. At the time, I told myself to shut up, and I forced myself to eat with him, but it was not easy. On that evening in April 1995, I had only seen Robb three or four times. Now, after all we had done together since then, I didn’t even hesitate to take the dish he had vomited in — with my bare hands — to empty it, unafraid.
Knowledge is a powerful thing. It chases ignorance, fear and intolerance away. I washed out the tray and took it back into the room. At that moment, I focused on Robb and the story I had to shoot, but later, I spent some time contemplating the changes Robb had been guiding me through in a very quiet way.
From April 1995 to April 1996, during the year we spent together, Robb went on an amazing journey, but he was not the only one. I believe that every person in his life was changed by the experience of knowing him, and watching the brave way he faced his illness and his death.
The video I was shooting represented my own journey. I would never again fear AIDS, and I would never again be able to dislike anyone because they had a different sexual orientation. You can take the boy out of the intolerant South, but you can also take the intolerant South out of the boy. All it takes is the knowledge that human experience provides. This was Robb’s gift to me, and he did it just by living his life, with me on the other side of the camera.
The story you see on TV is not always the complete story, and that’s the way it was on March 13, 1996 — the day Robb Dussliere decided not to fight AIDS anymore.
If you would like to keep Robb’s legacy alive and support men and women who are homeless while fighting HIV and AIDS, please go to the DeLaCerda House’s website — at www.delacerdahouseinc.org — and click the Donate button.
Robb suspects wasting syndrome, but gets a CT scan to rule out Kaposi’s.
In early March, 1996, Robb suspected he had wasting syndrome, which happens when the body begins shutting down. But to rule out Kaposi’s Sarcoma, a type of cancer that is common in AIDS patients, he went to Genesis Medical Center for a CT scan.
Robb had been having trouble breathing, especially while lying down. He looked very thin and was continuing to lose weight, but he maintained a realistic perspective. He wanted to know exactly what was happening, staring good and bad news in the eye without blinking. He knew so much about AIDS that he seemed to view his own illness in a clinical way.
As the end approached, Robb was teaching me about courage in a way that I may not have thought deeply about at the time, but as the years have passed, I have been amazed at how calm and centered he remained through it all.
If you would like to keep Robb’s legacy alive and support men and women who are homeless while fighting HIV and AIDS, please go to the DeLaCerda House’s website — at www.delacerdahouseinc.org — and click the Donate button.
Robb made everyone laugh, and he thought the world of nurse Sandee Millage.
By the end of February 1996, Robb had lost six pounds in a little over a week, so he went to Dr. Katz’ office. Dr. Katz wasn’t in, but his nurse Sandee Millage was there to see him.
Robb’s fatigue was worse and he was visibly going downhill. His mother, Hattie drove him to the doctor’s office at Genesis Medical Center in Davenport, across the river from his house in Rock Island, Illinois.
Despite feeling badly, the opening shot in this story still makes me smile. I was carrying the heavy camera gear and walking backward down the hall, so Robb began clowning around, motioning people behind me to look out. I remember squinting with one eye through the viewfinder and trying not to laugh.
The twinkle in Robb’s eyes was replaced with concern.
Robb was able to smile and joke a little bit during his checkup, but there is one moment in particular, when he looks up at Sandee when she takes a blood sample, that the illness is mirrored in his eyes. The haunting “sick” look is so different than the twinkle he had in his eyes 10 months earlier, when the series began.
A weary Robb puts groceries away. In February 1996 he was losing most of what he ate.
Twenty years ago this week, Robb Dussliere was losing hope. He was fighting fatigue, losing weight, and not keeping very much food down.
He was also horrified by the presidential campaign, and some of the hateful rhetoric from Republican candidates like Pat Buchanan. In February 1996, Buchanan was Donald Trump and Ted Cruz rolled into one. Because he was too tired for a lot of activity, Robb spent more time on the couch watching TV, especially the political coverage.
It’s ironic that Pat Buchanan’s hateful speech at the GOP convention in 1992 was the last straw that turned me into a flaming liberal. Now, as I went to Robb’s house to record this week’s feature, we sat and watched some of the coverage on CNN and both agreed that we didn’t like much of what we were seeing.
Robb peels an orange while Buddy looks on with great interest.
Buchanan lashed out at gays in the 1996 campaign. Robb was the first gay man I had ever really known, and after spending 10 months working on this series with him, the Buchanan rhetoric that disgusted me four years earlier now made my blood boil.
It was now impossible for me to hate someone just because he or she had a different sexual orientation. Hearing words of intolerance like this coming from a candidate for president did not go over well.
But most disturbing of all was how, week by week, I was seeing Robb’s spirit crumbling. When I began the series the previous April, Robb and I were cordial and friendly, shaking hands when I left each shoot. But by the time I shot this story, I could not leave without giving him a hug.
You can keep Robb’s legacy alive and help support homeless HIV and AIDS clients in the Quad Cities by donating to the DeLaCerda House. Just go to www.delacerdahouseinc.org and click on the “Donate” button on the right side of the page.
During the final year of his life, Robb Dussliere had two top priorities:
Reach out to the public to educate people, particularly young people, how to avoid HIV and AIDS.
To open the shelter for homeless HIV and AIDS clients in the Quad Cities — a shelter that is still operated by the DeLaCerda House.
Robb flashes a goofy smile at the end of his final public appearance near Valentine’s Day, 1996.
Near Valentine’s Day, Robb and Beth Wehrman, executive director of the AIDS Project Quad Cities (now called The Project), met a group of high school students at WHBF-TV, where we broadcast the “Robb’s Life” series.
I didn’t realize it would be his final public appearance. He looked good. A little skinny, but good. And he flashes me a goofy smile as the students are leaving the studio, so I guess I hoped that meant he was doing okay.
Looking at this old, primitive news set (by today’s standards), a lot of memories come back. This is where I first met Beth Wehrman. We did the public affairs program, called “4 Front” at the time, about the AIDS Project a few months before I met Robb. Because of that interview, she decided to approach me with the idea of doing “Robb’s Life” after the number one TV news station in town — KWQC — turned down the idea in 1995.
Robb and Beth Wehrman talking to students on the old News 4 set.
Beth was a kind, caring human being, and she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders as she saw one client buried after another. She had to have known Robb was not long for this earth.
I was news director of WHBF-TV at the time, and added Robb’s Life to my daily frantic duties. I was also a single dad (divorced) with two teenage daughters living at home. Looking back, I’m not sure how I managed it all.
Usually, I came into the station by 8:30 a.m., held a news meeting where we decided what we would do that day, then helped to keep all the pieces running and the balls in the air, putting out fires and regrouping constantly to make sure the news was filled by 6:00. I often served as assignment editor if he was out sick or if he had moved on to a bigger station in another market.
I got into news because I wanted to write. My love for video attracted me to TV, but somewhere along the way, I went from being a reporter and anchor to being a producer and then a news director.
Beth and Robb on the old “4 Front” set.
It was a fate worse than death.
WHBF was my third station as news director. I always seemed to be hired at the last-place station, where morale in the newsroom was poor, the reporting staff was inexperienced, the budget was small, and the equipment was more primitive than the competition.
Instead of being consumed by reporting and creativity each day, the news director has to worry about competing with the other stations in town, but mostly he is consumed with which anchor is throwing a tantrum, which videographer has put a dent in a news car, how you are going to hire kids with talent for their first jobs in TV, pay them starvation wages and endure their mistakes while coaching them to improve their skills so they can move to a bigger market and earn more money, leaving you behind to hire another kid at starvation wages to endure his or her mistakes as you worry about why the anchors won’t come to work on time and why half the staff dislikes you simply because management brought you in as news director.
It is a strange life choice to be in TV news, especially in management.
In Cincinnati, where I was a news producer working with Jerry Springer for a while at WLWT, I was told I should be in management because of my “people skills.” I didn’t realize that going into management was exactly what I didn’t need. I should have been doing stories like “Robb’s Life.”
With Robb broadcasting live on WHBF-TV in 1995.
You’ll have to forgive me for the digression. Looking back at the year I spent with Robb, I am sometimes disappointed that this marked the end of my TV career instead of a new beginning.
“Robb’s Life” usually meant an additional 10 hours per week, but it was my chance to flex my reporting and creative muscles and to be a role model for my young reporters, showing them now to shoot, report, and edit a series by pushing the creative envelope. Some of the young folks got it and some of the anchors got it, but occasionally, a reporter or videographer or anchor became jealous that my work was receiving notice and awards. In some ways, it was a no-win situation. In other ways, I was doing the best work of my career, and I didn’t give a damn what some of the more insecure people in the newsroom (there are always a few) thought.
Each week, Robb and I would decide what was happening in his life and I would take the camera gear (it had to weigh nearly 50 pounds back then) and I would follow him around, then look at everything I shot and edit it into something coherent that told the story of the week, keeping his life story moving forward.
It added a lot of pressure to my week, but it was a labor of love by this point. I didn’t know how long the story would go. I wish it had gone on for a lot longer. When Robb appeared at WHBF-TV on this day, he had two months to live.
As I coped with the newsroom, the series, single parenthood, and trying to salvage a social life (I became engaged a few days after this story was shot), I would go home and think that what I was going through was nothing compared with what Robb was going through. He always had the hardest part of this deal, and I never lost sight of that for a second.
You can still support the DeLaCerda House and keep Robb’s legacy alive. Just follow this link to the DeLaCerda House website and click on the “Donate” button on the right side of the screen.
Robb throws his hands in the air, frustrated that he just lost his lunch.
By February 7, 1996, Robb’s body was not tolerating the AIDS drugs he had started during the previous weeks. He was energetic while sitting on the couch, but weak when he engaged in activity.
More troubling was the fact that he was losing a lot of the food he was eating each day.
Despite feeling badly, Robb was still directing the renovation of the shelter for DeLaCerda House, which would provide transitional housing for homeless HIV and AIDS clients in the Quad Cities. Getting the shelter open was Robb’s main mission in life, along with staying alive.
I went over to his house to do our weekly story. Fortunately, his father Lorney was there, and while I was taping, John Brown stopped by.
This is one of the rare times that my voice was heard. When Robb was bending over the sink, I asked what happened. Then I answer when he asks what time it is.
Now that it is 20 years later, and I have had my own serious health issues, I know the feeling of frustration he displays when he throws his hands in the air. At this point, Robb’s body is rebelling, and there is nothing he can do about it.
Nurse Sandee Millage talks with Robb about possible side effects associated with a more intense drug treatment.
Things were getting a little more serious for Robb Dussliere during the first week of February, 20 years ago (1996). He had been throwing up blood, so his drug treatment intensified.
I went with Robb to see AIDS nurse Sandee Millage, who gave him such kind, compassionate care. He would make her laugh with his sense of humor, despite how badly he was feeling. Throughout this series, we met the finest people — Beth Wehrman, Dr. Louis Katz, Sandee, and others — all dedicated to helping people who found themselves struggling with HIV and AIDS.
At this point, Robb was beginning to realize he was heading downhill. I think I was still in denial, expecting him to bounce back again.
You can donate to help people who are still struggling with this disease in the Quad Cities. Please go to www.delacerdahouseinc.org and click on the “Donate” button on the right side of the screen.
During the week of January 23, 1996, Robb Dussliere went to Springfield to provide input to state agencies about the distribution of Ryan White funds to help people with HIV and AIDS in Illinois.
Ryan White, 1971-1990
Ryan White funds were named for the young AIDS patient who was befriended by Elton John and became one of the most famous early victims of the AIDS epidemic. Ryan, a hemophiliac who acquired HIV from a blood treatment, died 6 years before this story was broadcast. He was one of the first people who made the world realize that AIDS was not just a “gay” disease.
Robb’s activism was important. He knew that he was lucky to participate in meetings like this, where decisions were made that affected the lives of real people. And since he depended on some of these funds for his own rent and health care, Robb had a personal stake in the decisions being made.
Today, after all these years, people living with HIV and AIDS still need support. The DeLaCerda House, Robb’s number one charity during the final year of his life, provides housing and other support to those who need help while living with this illness. You can donate by going to www.delacerdahouseinc.org and clicking on the “Donate” button on the right side of the page.
1996 began with Robb with a little sweat and a little spackle, still working hard to get the house ready to open so homeless HIV and AIDS clients could have a place to stay. Within 5 months, the house would be named “Robb’s House” and would be owned and operated by the DeLaCerda House, a nonprofit organization.
We had been doing Robb’s Life stories since April, almost nine months. He had not expected to live to see 1996, but here he was, making the most of his time.
I was disappointed when we shot this story right after the first of the year that he had celebrated his 34th birthday on New Year’s Eve and had not told me that his birthday was coming up. I’m not sure what bothered me the most — that I didn’t know his birthday (how could I have not asked this basic question?) or that he didn’t tell me about it. My holidays had been very busy, with a new relationship that would become a marriage in September of 1996, and with a trip to Lexington to visit friends and family. But for 20 years, I have regretted not being at Robb’s 34th birthday party with my camcorder.
I would not have another chance.
In this episode, Robb also shows the permanent IV that was put into his chest for more effective medicine delivery. At this point, every day was a gift.
You can still donate to the DeLaCerda House and help keep Robb’s legacy alive. Go to www.delacerdahouseinc.org and click on the “Donate” button on the right side of the screen.
1996 began with Robb with a little sweat and a little spackle, still working hard to get the house ready to open so homeless HIV and AIDS clients could have a place to stay. Within 5 months, the house would be named “Robb’s House” and would be owned and operated by the 
I was disappointed when we shot this story right after the first of the year that he had celebrated his 34th birthday on New Year’s Eve and had not told me that his birthday was coming up. I’m not sure what bothered me the most — that I didn’t know his birthday (how could I have not asked this basic question?) or that he didn’t tell me about it. My holidays had been very busy, with a new relationship that would become a marriage in September of 1996, and with a trip to Lexington to visit friends and family. But for 20 years, I have regretted not being at Robb’s 34th birthday party with my camcorder.
Robb's Life 