Man With a Mission
words by carole walker / photograph by pete byron
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self-proclaimed “Army Brat,” William ‘Bill’ Wheeler, Jr., was born into military life at Fort Dix, New Jersey, in 1959. Like most military children, he moved around a lot when his father, a Sgt Major and drill instructor, was transferred to different military bases.
When Wheeler was 7 years old, his parents separated and he, his sister and mother, the former director of Africana Studies at Kean University, moved to New York.
When he turned 16, he had an opportunity to live in Nigeria with his mother, where she taught while on leave from a job at Columbia University. When his mother returned to the States, Wheeler chose to stay behind to attend boarding school for a year, and then came back to the U.S. to live with his father in Willingboro, NJ, where he completed high school.
After graduating from college in 1981, he pursued a colorful and varied career as a talent coordinator, production assistant, stage manager and assistant director. For 22 years, he worked in all facets of production, from commercials and video to live stage shows and film. With his wide, winning smile and affable temperament, Wheeler is well suited to work in these venues, and with all the traveling experience during his youth, he had no trouble taking on assignments on both coasts.
In 2002, Wheeler was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, and his new life’s journey brought him to UMDNJ. “My most vivid thought was that I would die of this dreaded disease and no matter how far I had arrived in society through work and education, I felt like a victim,” he explains.
As a patient, he had to step away from his sometimes fast and a furious schedule, but as he started to come to terms with his diagnosis, his mother, sister, physician and social worker encouraged him to attend support groups. He began to travel in a new circle of acquaintances, where he was identified as a natural leader.
During this period, Wheeler joined the Comprehensive Planning Committee of the Newark Eligible Metropolitan Area (NEMA) HIV Health Services Planning Council, established by the former Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act of 1990. The organization, which represents Essex, Union, Morris, Sussex and Warren counties, funds the care of people living with HIV/AIDS who would otherwise have little or no access to healthcare.
Wheeler volunteered to participate in a clinical trial, sponsored by Merck and conducted at many sites including the UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School (NJMS) Adult Clinical Research Center, co-located in the Infectious Disease (ID) Practice Clinic at UMDNJ-University Hospital. He became one of 340 patients in an ongoing study aiming to demonstrate that patients on a Kaletra-based antiretroviral regimen can experience an improvement in their lipid profile while maintaining HIV suppression when switched to an alternative antiretroviral agent. Wheeler has mixed feelings about his results. “There was no significant change in my T-cells,” he says, “but this is only my first trial and I am hopeful.”
Wheeler is also the NJMS Adult Clinical Research Center’s (ACRC) community delegate to the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG), a large HIV trials network with a site located at the ACRC. He traveled to the ACTG international meeting held in Washington, DC, last June. There he met with community delegates from all over the world including Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa as well as Boston, Houston, and Puerto Rico. Wheeler attended sessions to familiarize community members with the ACTG protocols that facilitate future protocol review. He also went to scientific review sessions on bone complications in HIV disease. He says that while he cannot speak for anyone else, “if there will ever be a cure for HIV/AIDS, it is a safe bet that the ACTG and clinical trials will be a catalyst to the end of this dreaded disease.”
In summing up his new life and the responsibilities that accompany it, Wheeler says, “When I reflect on my journey with HIV/AIDS, and make no mistake, it has been a journey, I can only continue to ask God to keep giving me strength, knowledge, insight and support.”