I never met Ryan in person. I did know him as an enthusiastic person through his postings. He lived, and he did it well. He was always looking ahead to what the world would bring him, or what he could find for himself. Being as ill as he was late in the course of the disease must hve hurt like hell.
Background; Ryan was gay. He was cool with that. His family accepted him, his friends accepted him, he accepted himself. Stable life, a warm and caring lover, and a hobby (RPGs) that gave him hours of enjoyment. Even better, let him share his enjoyment wit innumerable others through many a venue.
But no life goes without crisis. Ryan and his lover had a spat, they broke up. Ryan, in a fit of pique, did something fatally stupid. Which would not have been fatally stupid had it not been for an immune system already impaired, and an abcessed tooth. Ryan, in a moment of heartache and despair, got HIV. And thanks to an already weak immune system it fairly quickly developed into AIDS.
He may have lived for some time, but the perversities of life did for him. The first "AIDS cocktail" didn't sit well with him. Then bureaucracy worked to deny him the drugs he now needed to stay alive. In time things were straightened out and Ryan was on a stable drug regimen, but the damage was already done.
You see, some people can live a good long time with HIV, but only if they stay on their medication and never go off it. Otherwise AIDS develops quickly, and kills them quickly. Angelsboi was one of them.
I suspect he knew he was going to die soon. So he did as much as he could in the time he had left to, in his own small way, make the world a better place. Most importantly, he remained enthused about his ... enthusiasms.
Probably the worst thing AIDS ever did to Ryan was deny him the hobby he loved. Denied him the contact, the creativity, the adventure that brightened his life. I don't know what happened, but apparently his system was ravaged by the opportunistic infections AIDS makes possible. In the end he died with family around him, a waif, a boi brought low by circumstances ultimately beyond his control.
He wasn't with us long, not really. But when he was an active member of these forums he could bring the place to life with a single line. ENWorld really hasn't been the same since he left. It's going to be a long time until we see his like again.
Ryan Boell, my friend.
