CAPE MAN BATTLES AIDS AND PREJUDICE

Ted Fedler has death's calling card: Day by day, the Cape Girardeau man is dying from AIDS.

Doctors have told the 46-year-old Fedler that he could die within the next year and a half. But Fedler isn't ready to sit back and wait for death.

He spends 60 to 80 hours a week directing the AIDS Project of Southeast Missouri. The organization, which he started in June 1993, serves as a resource for AIDS patients and educates the public about the devastating disease.

Fedler runs the AIDS Project from a room of his house, outfitted with a computer and printer, and a telephone. He speaks about the problem of AIDS every chance he gets.

"Doctors say I've given away two years of my life keeping to this schedule," said Fedler.

That hasn't deterred Fedler, who views the AIDS Project as a crusade. "I feel like I have a ministry to do this work," he said.

Fedler believes the work keeps him going.

AIDS, which stands for acquired immune deficiency syndrome, has destroyed his body's immune system.

Many days he has severe diarrhea. He is constantly tired. "There are some days I have to physically crawl up to the bedroom."

He has little appetite and has to force himself to eat.

But for Fedler, life goes on. "This is not an immediate death sentence," he said.

When he moved to Cape Girardeau in April 1993, he found few services for AIDS patients and an often intolerant public, who felt that AIDS was strictly a gay disease.

In the 22-county Southeast Missouri region, Fedler has found only six doctors willing to treat people with AIDS.

There are three dentists, all in Cape Girardeau, who will see such patients, Fedler said. In addition, there is only one doctor in the area who specializes in AIDS.

"Everyone else has to go to St. Louis or Memphis for care. That is criminal," said Fedler.

Doctors, he said, are afraid to see AIDS patients for fear it will drive away other patients.

Fedler, who served briefly in the Navy, gets his medical care at the Veterans Administration hospital in St. Louis.

Fedler said he has had to battle fear, prejudice and hatred in the region. Most Southeast Missouri school administrators won't let him speak to students in their schools.

But Fedler said that in the Cape Girardeau area there have been business leaders and others who have been supportive of the AIDS group.

Fedler, who is gay, has seen violence against homosexuals first hand in Dallas, where he used to live. "I've been shot at while walking out of a gay restaurant."

Fedler doesn't worry about his safety. "What are they going to do, kill me? I am already walking death."

Fedler grew up in a large family -- one of 15 children -- on a farm in southeastern Iowa.

He realized early on that he was gay, but kept his homosexuality a secret. "I grew up in a very conservative, closed-minded, intolerant community."

In public, Fedler acted like an all-American boy. He was captain of his high-school basketball team.

He admits to being a workaholic. At 18 his first job out of high school was as a production supervisor for a plant.

He was married for a time before getting a divorce.

Over the years he has held a number of law enforcement jobs, including a three-year stint in the 1970s as police chief of Kalona, Iowa, which had a population of about 1,900.

In 1982, he left a job as a police officer and moved to Dallas, where he went to work for a security guard company.

Over the years, he worked for a number of different security firms.

In June 1989, he tested positive for the HIV or human immunodeficiency virus. In November 1990, he was hospitalized with a serious type of pneumonia and was diagnosed as having AIDS.

After getting out of the hospital he moved back to Iowa, where he spent several months recuperating. He ended up staying in Iowa, supervising security operations for a Fort Madison, Iowa, riverboat gambling company. When the gambling company shut down its operation there, Fedler moved back to Dallas for a brief time.

But in June 1992, he retired from the security business and returned to the family farm.

It was there that he met his current roommate, Travis Clayton. "He is the one that turned my life around," said Fedler.

After Clayton's best friend died of AIDS, Fedler and Clayton moved to Cape Girardeau. The move was made because Clayton has relatives in the region.