"We all have the ability to impact one another's life. Life is full of making human connections, interacting with people, and helping one another. We all have trials and different experiences, but at the end of the day, we are here to love one another. We are here to lighten each others burdens. And when we see past ourselves that is when I think our Heavenly Parents are the happiest."
Come Back Podcast
Transcription
ASHLY
00:00
Okay, yes. So Ben, starting this off, it's just really cool to have you on because we just had Don on the podcast and he just raved about you and how awesome you are. And it was interesting how it worked out because we were gonna do Don’s episode later. And then we kind of had a mix up. And so we ended up posting it, like the day after he recorded it. And then I was just chatting with you about it. And I just thought, you know what, it would be really cool to have Ben on the podcast because Ben—or Bishop Banks—as Don, you know, prefers, to us.
BEN
00:41
Still Ben. I’m still Ben. We're good.
ASHLY
00:43
So you, you have been in the Times Magazine, you've been, tell us all the places that your story has been published?
BEN
00:53
Oh, gosh, I mean, so New York Times Magazine, Time Magazine, I have actually rang the bell for the NASDAQ stock market to close the stock market on World AIDS Day. The President of the United States was when he was giving a speech for releasing, like a new policy invited my wife and I to the White House for that,
ASHLY
Oh my gosh!
BEN
I've traveled traveled to colleges from like Stanford and Berkeley and UCLA, to Texas, in Chicago, and oh, gosh, I mean, you know, Ivy League schools like Columbia, and I spoke at Rutgers and even locally, you know, colleges in DC, like George Washington University, my alma mater, James Madison University, is where, you know, my wife and I went to school, VCU, in Richmond University, Richmond, so it's been classroom settings, it's been different groups and everything like so. Yeah. I mean, it's been out there, like student newspapers. It's been in, like, local newspapers, been in radio, TV, different things. And like I said, I'm still just Ben.
ASHLY
02:07
Yeah, yeah. Right. But your story, I mean, it's super important, because I think, I mean, well, we'll get into it. But that would be like life, obviously, just really challenging to be able to grapple with what you've been through, as, you know, just getting through that. And so I'm really, I'm really curious to hear how that affected your spiritual growth. And, you know, where your testimony was at during those times? And, you know, so yeah, let's just jump into it and start from the beginning.
BEN
02:39
From the beginning. But yeah, so really, my first thought is thank you for this platform. Because I think it's really important, like you say. I mean, as Satan uses his deception, and he uses his partial truths, and kind of deceiving people. I think that there's so much out there that is negative in the world, and we need this to be a positive impact and a positive influence. And I know that you were truly inspired to do this, and to give the opportunity. I mean, I listen to your podcast every week, and I've been doing it for months. And it's really like a fast and testimony meeting, like every week. It gives people that opportunity. And so I enjoy it. But I have never been like someone who has left or stopped going. But the impact that I have started when I was two.
04:00
So at the age of two, and this is 1981, Southern California. My dad was in the Marine Corps. So we were near Balboa Hospital, which is a naval hospital in San Diego. And I went in for the hospital and I had like a clean bill of health. Everything looked good. And then three weeks later, it's a word that no parent ever wants to hear: your child has cancer. And I was diagnosed with stage five—which there is a stage five, my wife and other people don't believe me. But when I show my medical charts, I was diagnosed with stage five, Bilateral Wilms’ with mets to both lungs. And so what that was is I was diagnosed with cancer on both my kidneys that had spread to both my lungs. And they just looked at my parents and said it's gonna be a miracle if your son lives through surgery. Not lives through treatment, but if he actually lives through the surgery. Immediately, you know, my mom is a convert to the church. But my dad’s side of the family, if you go through genealogy, first members were baptized in the 1830s in Upstate New York. Joseph Smith Senior was giving some of my relatives their patriarchal blessing. They were in the Kirtland Temple during the dedication. If you read the Joseph Smith papers, some of my relatives are in the book. And, you know, they traveled to Missouri, they traveled to Nauvoo. One of the first you know, the pioneers that came with the actual, the Hunt company in the Martin handcart company, and multiple companies that came across the plains. My great grandmother was one of the children that was carried across the river by the three teenage boys that perished because of the service that they provided. The really cool thing is, so many generations on my dad's side, and my mom’s a convert, but they both have very strong, you know, faith in the power of the priesthood. And so my home teacher, just because my dad didn't want to administer a blessing and say HIS WILL versus the Lord's will. And so, I received the priesthood blessing that said that the Lord has the power over life and death. And if it be his will for me to survive, that I will continue my earthly mission. But if it was my time to pass on, that my family would accept it. And they knew that I completed my mission and received my body here upon the earth. So that was like the first of, you know, building of the testimony. That was the first block that really laid the cornerstone. And I had 15 hour surgeries, where they actually had multiple doctors that came in a rotation. Unfortunately, my right kidney was a complete tumor, I had a 15 inch by 11 inch tumor, and it was growing rapidly. And then they did a partial what's called a partial left nephrectomy, where they took out a one inch and a two inch tumor out of my left kidney. And then I went through 15 months of chemotherapy, and I went through 15 months of radiation therapy. So my hair fell out five different times. You know, I joke with my mom because it came in curly, it came in red, it came in blonde, it came in and I was like yep, that you want me to have curly red hair. And she's like, “No, whatever.” But what I'm stuck with is this kind of jet black hair, this isn't you know, natural. That's what I was gifted with. Based on the treatment I was born with, really light brown hair, I dropped down to about 20 pounds, like if you just touched me I’d bruise, and I received a third blood transfusion because during treatment, my platelet count dropped so low that I started bleeding through the pores on my hands, my face and my feet. And I was three years old at the time, and I can still remember that pain.
ASHLY
Mmmm.
08:12
BEN
And that was the most excruciating pain I've ever felt. There's no way to really describe that. But my body thrived. My body took the chemo. Like I mean, it pounded me hard, but it actually gave me you know, strength as my body accepted these poisons more or less, to rid the cancer from my body. Slowly over time, I started to go from multiple hospital visits to once a week, to once a month, once a quarter, every six months. And then I finally got up to the point where I only had to go see the oncologist like once a year, just for a regular physical checkup, just you know, to rule out anything that may have returned. And so it was easy for me to see the scars on my body. And to know what I physically went through, you know, I have a nine inch scar on my abdomen, I had a drain tube scar, you know, that's about an inch and a half on my side, I have a scar on my wrist from where I kept pulling the IV out. So they actually stitched it in and I still pulled it out. I had IV in my jugular vein, I had oxygen. I mean, and so I could see the trauma that my body received, and I knew what I had come through and I knew that the Lord does have the authority and the power to heal a person. But I think as we read, especially in the scriptures, you know, my testimony was strengthened a lot of times I think, especially in Luke. Luke is my favorite book of scripture. You know, he's a physician. He focused on a lot of the healing. But I think with the healing comes hope. I think, you know, as the Savior healed the leper, or made the blind— it was that He physically healed their body. But He spiritually healed their body and He provided hope. One of my favorite things to tell people and share is, I believe love is the most powerful word in the English language. But hope is the second most powerful word in the English language. Without hope, there's no future, there's no tomorrow. There's nothing to look forward to. And so I had those reminders on my body of like, what I was healed of, what I made it through, what I survived, you know, here. They said, “You won't— it would be a miracle if you lived through surgery,” and here years have gone by, and I continue to excel in school and, you know, have very minimal side effects. You know, here like, I mean, I'm not wearing glasses now. But, you know, I started wearing glasses, like in kindergarten, I had to have tubes in my ears, because I couldn't hear very well. And so like, I remember, like my kindergarten teacher telling my mom like my best student can't see or hear. And it was all a result of a lot of the treatment that I received. I remember when I was, so I was 12 years old. And for me, like I would always have to wake up really early, drive a really far distance to the military hospital, to see the oncologist and get, you know, blood work done and get a physical and get checked over. And it was just like, for me, it was like another appointment. It was May 22, 1991. It was the end of my seventh grade year. I woke up early, drove through Washington D.C. traffic and got to the hospital up there. And the doctor, because my dad being a marine, it was the same doctor that saw me when I was first recovering and getting done with treatment. So he's like, “Oh my gosh!” Like, “You've grown, you put on weight! Your hair is back!” I mean, all these all these wonderful things. And he's like, “Oh, we'll just do a quick physical and send you on your way.” My mom is like, “Nah, you know, his platelet count was off,” and says that “We really need to do bloodwork, we need to check and make sure everything is right in the body.” No big deal. Like I've been, you know, like, put my arm out, you know, go ahead, take as much blood as you want, like, go for it, you know, like no big deal. I've been doing it for the last 10 years, like what's another, you know, needle needle stick and a blood draw. And so few days passed. And I remember, I came home from school, and I walked up the stairs and I turn the corner. And my mom was sitting on the edge of the bed crying. And I'm like, innocently, 12 year old, “Mom, why are you crying?”
12:29
And she said, “The doctors called.” She’s like, “You're HIV positive.” And I immediately froze and went numb. And I collapsed into my mom's arms. And I don't know how long it was from when she spoke those words,
12:48
to when I remember her just rubbing my head and holding me tight saying, “It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay.” And so here unknowingly, one of the blood transfusions that saved my life from cancer was contaminated with HIV. Blood wasn't tested for HIV until 1985. And so Southern California, early 80s, it was like, that's where the blood transfusions came from. And so now I went from seeing oncologists to seeing an infectious disease doctor. I went from having a disease that is socially accepted, there's a cure, to now living with a disease that's highly—especially in the early 90s, there was stigma and discrimination. Now at the time, people were getting kicked out of school, they were having bricks thrown through their window, they had things burned in their yard. I mean, just my whole world got flipped upside down. And I remember I received another priesthood blessing. And now I'm in Virginia. So we're California and Virginia, two separate men. And this tells me how true this priesthood is that's been restored upon the earth, is almost word for word, the same blessing that I received 10 years prior. But this time it said, “You'll live to see your blood be cleansed. And you'll live to see your posterity.”
ASHLY
14:24
Oh my gosh. Wow.
BEN
14:26
So I was like, Okay. And that, you know, and it's crazy to think because, at 12 years old, I never thought it would take—and we'll get more into this, but 22 years. It was one month shy of 22 years when my daughter was born. I had to wait 21 years and 11 months for that blessing to be fulfilled. And I'll tell you, we operate in God's time, not in our time. But I never lost hope. I never lost faith, for testimonies of, I will live to see my posterity. And the joke with my wife was like, you know, she's been very supportive, like we've been together for like 24 years, but she was like, “Okay, now that our daughter is born, does that mean that you're gonna die?” Like no, no, it just means the blessing has been fulfilled. At that time, so shortly after that, Magic Johnson came public, and he was one of the biggest names, most celebrated people. And so it was talked about, but it wasn't talked about very positively. And so here, I had to go through that whole summer between seventh and eighth grade, fighting for the opportunity to attend public school. Like my parents pay taxes. Like, there was no reason why, I wasn't a threat, I wasn't posing any problem. I was a straight A student. And here, the superintendent a few weeks before the start of school, finally said, “We will give you permission to attend public school. But we're not going to tell anybody in the school except for the principals, the nurse, the guidance counselor, your P.E. and your science teacher in case something happens, like when you're doing an experiment, or, you know, playing sports.” They’re like, “Other than that, nobody. And we don't want you, and we're not giving you permission to keep your medication in the clinic, because we don't want anybody to know a student in our school has HIV.” So here, I had to take AZT, which is a highly toxic medication every six hours.
ASHLY
Hmm.
17:05
BEN
And I had to plan it to where I would do it around my lunch schedule. So I would on my way to lunch, pop into the restroom, go into a stall without any water, just put the capsule in my mouth, swallow it, and come back out. And I always had a plan. Like because most eighth graders don't have to worry about something like that. They worry about like, who they're gonna sit with at lunch. I had to worry about how am I going to keep this a secret? And then how am I going to get my medication taken without anybody knowing? And so I was like, Oh, I have to wash my hands before I go to lunch. That was my backup plan of like, Why do I go to the bathroom, every time before I head into the cafeteria? And so all through middle school and all through high school, like not a single person knew. And through social media and through other avenues. Like I've reconnected with old classmates, and they read my story, and they read about what I'm doing in my life. And they're like, “I never knew!” and I'm like, “Right? I never told you.” And they're just like, “Wow,” and I'm like, “But you don't understand, eighth grade was so hard, with all the loneliness, feelings, the you know, the jokes about Magic Johnson.” And I mean, there was times, I just wanted to scream out, “I HAVE HIV!” But that wasn't a reality. I couldn't do that. I had to protect my siblings and protect, you know, the people around me. And that feeling prepared me for moments when I served as bishop. I wrote shortly after the pandemic. So like, obviously, viral pandemics don't bother me. They don't scare me. I've been living with one for 42 years now. And not to downplay COVID any, but I was called by a person, it was President Monson was the prophet at the time. But when I was 19, I still prepared to serve a mission. And it was President Hinckley, President Monson and President Faust— my bishop received a letter and a lot of people, and it's always, how I love semantics. I love reading. But the letter said, unfortunately, due to health concerns, you're not going to be able to serve a full time mission. Anybody who has HIV or has had HIV cannot serve a mission. Now this is in the 90s. But I took that as like, “Oh, has had! Has had, right there. Like they put it in past tense! Obviously, they’re prophets, seers and revelators. They know what's going on.” But, you know, President Monson was part of the First Presidency that said, I can't serve a mission, but now as an HIV positive individual, like I was able to serve as bishop and I had members of the congregation—they're like, “Oh, are you the first HIV positive bishop in the church?” And I'm like, “I don't know. Like, Maybe? It's not a big deal.” But as I served, the pandemic started, and I mobilized the ward very quickly and was able to talk and stuff but I was able to share— and I'm gonna read it because I don't want to mess it up. I shared a spiritual thought. One of the things that we did was we shared spiritual thoughts from members of the congregation. We would send it out to the whole ward. But I sent this one:
20:31
About five, six months after the pandemic started after temples shut down, you know, meeting services shut down in person and everything like that. And so I said, “May 22, 1991, I remember the day as if it were yesterday. It was the day for my 10 year checkup for cancer. It was the day to celebrate being cancer free for 10 years. It was the day my 12 year old self had my world flipped upside down. It was the day I was diagnosed with HIV, which I received through a blood transfusion that saved my life from cancer. At 12 years old it became part of one of the biggest pandemics of all time, a lot of unknown still existed more than a decade after the first diagnosis. In 1991, it was a time when people reacted in fear, panic, or even hopelessness. I spent many days and nights feeling alone. But how could I feel alone in a home with eight other siblings at the time? I felt like nobody could understand me, nobody could feel the pain I was feeling. I felt so isolated because I did not know anyone like me. I spent many days sitting alone in a tree covered cove behind our house, where a little creek fed into the lake. I had always been at peace in nature, so I would usually sit on a log and listen to the creek slowly pass by. Every day in the cove, I'd pray and find a scripture to read. I remember reading Ether 12:14. It reads, quote, ‘Wherefore whosoever believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God.’ At that moment, I realized there's always hope, even at a time full of fear and panic, there's always hope.”
And so that that scripture has kind of guided me in going forward. My patriarchal blessing has also been a very, very strong, strong influence in my life. I remember, I received it on July 4, which was really cool. And I was 14 years old. And I met with a patriarch, before I received my blessing. And he didn't know much about me, but I know he's called of God. I know he's inspired. And right before he laid his hands upon my head, he looked at me and said, “Look, your blessing is not going to say many things that are similar in other patriarchal blessings. You've already been promised them. They are not going to be repeated.”
23:22
ASHLY
Ooh, chills.
BEN
So nowhere in my patriarchal blessing says anything about a family, it has no mention of that. And he said that. He said, “You've been promised that already, in special blessings.” But in my patriarchal blessing, it says, “You've been given special trials and tribulations not only to improve yourself, but to improve others. Many people will be grateful for the life that you live.”
23:31
“Make sure that you share your testimony at every opportunity you get.” And my mom, and I love her, she was very aware of how much HIV was stigmatized and discriminated against that she kind of held me back until I got to college, and I kind of got on my own. And I said, “Mom, I'm gonna start speaking publicly, I'm going to start sharing what it was like living with HIV and growing up with, you know, surviving cancer and HIV.” And she's like, “Well, I guess it's part of growing up, I mean, I'm not …” you know. And the first time I spoke, I spoke on a huge panel at George Washington University for Townhall Day around World AIDS Day, and it was moderated by Miss America. They had the President's AIDS advisor on this panel. They had Scott Wolf, from Party of Five, and different movies and TV shows. They had other AIDS activists on there, they had someone from the West Wing, whose family had adopted children with HIV. Another advocate from South Africa, they had the HIV vaccine research director. And here I'm like this college kid, right? I'm like this punk kid. And that was the first time of course. Mom was like, “Is there going to be pictures?” I'm like, “Mom, do you know who's on this panel? Like, of course, there's going to be pictures taken!” And I’ll tell you how long ago— I still have it on VHS. That's how long ago that was, but it gave me opportunities because I think part of the healing process is being able to express and being able to share. And my first time that I decided to tell a friend that I had HIV, it was scary! I mean, I'm like a little scrawny guy, he's a big guy. I'm like, “What if he starts swingin’? What if he wants to, like, hurt me?” And I really thought, “I'll tell him at my house. I'll have my family as backup. If I start …” you know. So I started sharing, he just started crying and crying. And I knew that he, I mean, the questions started: “Are you going to die? Are you going to get hurt? Are you going to …” And so I knew that he accepted me. And that gave me the momentum. It was when I spoke at McNeese State in Lake Charles, Louisiana, I was actually invited by the NAACP student group to speak. And the students came up afterwards and were like, “I enjoyed your testimony.” I was like, “It is!” I'm testifying of the goodness of the Lord and like, how He's blessed my life, and He's preserved my life for a purpose. And, you know, and I think we all have the ability to impact one another's life. I mean, that's life. Life is full of making human connections, interacting with people and helping one another. We all have trials, we all have different experiences. But at the end of the day, we're here to love one another.
ASHLY
Right.
BEN
We're here to lighten each other's burdens. And I think when we see past ourselves, like, that's when I think our Heavenly Parents are the happiest.
27:10
ASHLY
Yep. I love that so much. I have to say that, while you're talking about yourself in eighth grade, the thing that I'm thinking of is your mom. Because, my daughter, she was at school, and one of the kids in her class said something rude to her. And it had been like a while, you know, ago that it happened. But one night, we were just, she was laying by me. And she said, Mom, and she told me what happened. And I was like, “What?! Excuse me?” And she said… you know. I said, “What did you say back?” And she said, “I said, ‘Oh.’” I just, when you were talking about that, going to the bathroom to take your pills, I just thought about what your mom had to have been going through, as a mother watching her child have to endure such horrible trials. And I just, oh my gosh. Just, I mean, just to watch your eighth grade self, go through something so hard, and have to worry about keeping it a secret. And that just seems like, I don't know, that is so hard. And I think, I don't know, just to see how God can work all things to the good of those who love Him. And He's taken this horrible thing that you had to go through, and He's turned it into something amazing, because you've been able to share your story with so many people and make such a huge impact.
BEN
28:45
I will tell you, so sometimes while we're going through the trial, that's the hardest. You don't understand why. God doesn't always share the whys with you right away, you know, He wants you to try to figure it out. And you know, He's not going to leave you, but He will give you the space to figure it out. And while I was serving as bishop, there was an eighth grader, one of the youth in the ward that was really really really struggling, like self infliction, like some harm, self harm, depression, isolation, feeling lonely. And I just sobbed with him. I just bawled with him because I was able to share that moment of how I felt in eighth grade. And this youth is my buddy. Years later, that moment, I knew I suffered that in eighth grade to help him while he was struggling.
ASHLY
29:49
Wow, that's so amazing.
BEN
29:53
Yeah, it's like I said. I received the blessing that I’d live to see my posterity and you know, 22 years. I had to wait 22 years! And because I had to wait for what we call science fiction, and then 10 years later it becomes science. And so, you know, the process that we use, I'm not gonna go into a lot of details, but it's actually illegal in some states, just because of what happened in the early stages of the research and stuff like that, where some women ended up with HIV, because of the procedures and the process that it took. But my daughter biologically is my child.
ASHLY
30:33
Wow. How did that, tell us more about that?
BEN
How much detail do you want me to go in?
ASHLY
Well, as much as you feel is appropriate.
BEN
30:46
I'm gonna lay out there, you could take this how you want, okay. If it makes the cut, it makes the cut. So, we wanted to have a child. And so it's called the serodiscordant couples. So I'm HIV positive. My wife is HIV negative. Okay. And so, let me back up. So when we started, so she's the same age as my younger sister. And so she knew me through stories at like girls camp, and like friends that were mutual. And if you ask her, she was like, “NO WAY would I ever marry the teenage Ben Banks.” I was very stubborn, I was pretty quiet. But I liked to be left alone, because I needed to be in my thoughts. And it was a struggle, living with HIV as a teenager. You know, just “Where do I fit in? What's going to happen?” “What are we going to …” It was just a lot going on. But her freshman year of college, I'm a little bit older than her. One of our mutual friends who I've known for many years, hung out, whatever like, introduced us. And it was like, you know, young single adults playing volleyball. I was about ready to serve, and she's like, “Hey! Meet my friend Casaya!” And I'm like, “Hi.” Of course, I look back, and I'm like, man, first impression? That was not love at first sight. Right? Like, just get out of our way. I'm trying to serve. Like, I'm trying to play volleyball here. “Hi. How you doing? Nice to meet you.” You know. But over time, we started emailing and talking to one another. And, you know, we ended up like … I went down to visit my buddies at the college that she was going to. And I'd been going the previous years before, but you know, it's funny, I had just wrecked my car, totaled it, and I needed to borrow my mom's vehicle. And I’m like, “Mom, I’m going down to JMU.” And she's like, “Tell your buddies to come home.” I'm like, “No, Mom, it's about a girl.” You know, this is not about, you know, this. And so, you know, we hung out that weekend, and by the end of that weekend, before I was driving back home, we were dating. And we've been together ever since. And, you know, of course her parents— “Okay, he's got HIV.” And the moment that I knew like that we— because we dated for four and a half years before got married.
ASHLY
Wow.
BEN
Yeah, it was not your normal courtship. You know, everybody's like, “When you getting married? When you getting married?” Then we got married. And then we were married for 10 years before we had a child. They're like, “When you getting a baby? When you having a baby?” But when she told me, so her mom was like, “What, if he gets sick and dies? What are you going to do?” And she told her mom, she's like, “I'd rather be with him than to never be with him. I'm not going to change that. So if he does get sick and dies, fine, but I'm gonna be with him.” And I'm like, “Okay. Hook, line, and sinker. Done.” Like, this is it. We're gonna do it. But we knew we were gonna have a family and my wife had faith in the priesthood blessing that I did receive when I was 12.
34:28
And so we had to figure out, “Okay, where can we go?” And we looked at the East Coast. And we found two places. One was Bedford Research Foundation in Boston, Massachusetts, and the other one was at Columbia's hospital, University Hospital in New York City. And so we're like, alright, well, we found two, kind of close, you know, short flight away. So you call one and I call one. So she calls Bedford and it's like, goes straight to voicemail. No way to talk to a person. It's a clinic, it's a laboratory. So she leaves the message. I call Columbia and they're like, “Thanks for calling Columbia Women's Resource.” Like, you know, I'm like, “Oh, jeez.” I'm like, so I kind of explain, “I have HIV. My wife doesn't. We'd like to have a child.” They're like, “Hold on,” and they transferred me. And then they’re like, “Hold on.” I'm sure they thought I was prank calling them. And I'm like, because I called the Women's Resource Center, I'm like, “I'm a dude, my wife's the girl, I get it. But she flipped the coin. She got the other one, I got this one.” And then finally, so we got information, we ended up going with Bedford Research Foundation. And so in order for us to have a child, what they want to do, in the safest way at the time that we found, was do what's called sperm washing. So we actually, it was crazy. So they sent us a FedEx box. They gave us everything to collect a sample, and they're like, “You need to FedEx it overnight. Don't worry, prize bull owners have been doing this for years.” And I'm like, “Did you just compare me to a prize bull?” I'm like, “All right.” I was like, “I can handle this.” And they're like, “If they ask you what's inside the box, you tell them preservatives.” And I'm like, “All right.” So basically, I drive to the local FedEx, which is like 15 minutes from my house. And the one time that UPS, FedEx, the post office doesn't ask me for what's inside, because it already had the label on there, like “Just put it on the counter.” And I'm like, oh, man. So they send it up there. And so what they do is they —kind of like centrifuge with blood. So they spin it, and they separate it. And so they take the sperm out of the semen sample, because all the white blood cells and everything else that's in semen will potentially contain HIV. And so they tested for HIV, and they require two samples. And so we did it again. So they basically preserved it, they froze it. And then they FedExed it back down to Richmond, Virginia. And so through artificial insemination, and so my wife, so that wasn't covered by insurance or anything like that.
37:05
But my wife, through the artificial insemination was all covered. And so after the second attempt, she's like, “Ah, man,” and I was like, “Hey, it's, you know, it's gonna take five tries, it's gonna be on the fifth attempt.” And she's like, “Why?” She's like, “It's only 20% chance.” I'm like, “I know, but like 20% plus 20% plus 20%, plus 20 and 20, that is like 100%.” And she's like, “No, it's only 20% each time.” But sure enough, after the fifth attempt.
ASHLY
Wow.
BEN
Yeah. So, you know, through the whole process, we had a doctor, and this is how everything lines up. So I was calling Virginia, Andrology IVF center, and they're like, “No, you have HIV, we can't store your sample, because we actually can't keep it with the rest of them, because of potential transfers and switches.” And so I was calling Baltimore, D.C., I mean, I was calling hours away, trying to see if any of them would take it. They're like, nope. So this doctor just happened to come to VCU from Washington D.C, and was doing this process. And my wife works at VCU. And so here, this guy is in the VCU Women's Health Center in the building next to Virginia Andrology and IVF center, and calls him up and says, “No, it's already been tested, it's HIV negative.” They immediately took it.
ASHLY
Oh, my gosh.
BEN
So I know. So here, this doctor just happens to start here. VCU. He's already familiar with this process. He calls the center and says, No, he's good. Wow, in the building next door, and all of these things, like, boom, boom, boom, just like fell in line. And nine months later, or 41 weeks later, my wife worked Friday, a full clinic, saw her patients, and she had to be back at VCU on Monday at 8am. And Finley was born Monday at 8am.
39:10
ASHLY
Oh, my gosh.
BEN
Either way, she would have had to have been at work. And so yeah, we went through it, but like I said, that process is illegal in some states because of
ASHLY
Yeah.
BEN
in the early process of it, early days of it. Unfortunately, some women ended up testing positive for HIV. So
ASHLY
Wow.
BEN
Yeah.
ASHLY
39:17
So what is it like today? Do you have? I mean, how does it affect your health today?
39:26
Honestly, like so I've never I've never had a sign or symptom. I've never had any other… When I was in college, I don't know how I did it. I took 25 pills a day when I was in college.
ASHLY
Gosh.
BEN
This one had to be refrigerated. This one had to be taken with food. This one had to be taken without food. This I mean, I literally had like my class schedule. And I had my “take your medicine” schedule. And I had to somehow, as a full time college kid and working like 20 to 25 hours a week and take the 25 pills. But today I only take one pill, I take one pill a day. Wow, really, they've come to the point where they can combine the different medications into one pill. But the thing is, if you miss that one pill, now you're missing 24 hours of protection.
ASHLY
Hmm.
BEN
But it's amazing to see the progress and how in the 80s, then the 90s, the 2000s, and today. It's just amazing. And over the years, I've been very blessed with the opportunity to go back to pediatric clinics and just play with some of the children that are in there, that are suffering. I can now talk to the families.
41:00
One of my pediatric social workers— this is funny, so she's Jewish. And NIH, the National Institutes of Health is where I go. And so it's federally funded. It's like one of the premier institutions in the world. So they actually bring people in for different trials in different studies. And there was a young boy who's seven years old, from Orlando, Florida, who was a member of the church. And this Jewish social worker was like, “Ben! Ben! Ben! I need you to come meet him! I need you to meet the family, and be with him.”
ASHLY
Wow.
BEN
And so even she knows my faith, and she knows, I mean, because the Washington D.C. Temple just got renovated and remodeled and basically brought up to like modern century. You know, like, if you were disabled, you couldn't even get to the baptismal font, because there was stairs down to it, there's no elevator to it.
ASHLY
Mm-hmm.
BEN
So now there's an elevator to it and stairs. But so even she knows that that's my temple. Like, that's where I go. And so she knows my faith, she knows the blessings that I've received in my life. And that, you know, even the doctors up at NIH, you know, men of science, who have to prove everything, go, because right now, one of my trials just ended. So I'm on four different trials, just different studies, like, this one—they want to look at my liver, and this one—they want to look at the psychosocial aspect and so forth. But they're these scientists, these researchers who have to prove everything, like they can't just go on a hunch. They have to, they go, “We don't know why you're still alive. But we know someone's looking out for you.” And they point at the sky.
ASHLY
Oh my gosh.
BEN
Yeah. They're like, “Somebody's looking out for you.” And they're like, “We would appreciate it if you keep coming back here, as long as you can, to allow us to study you, as long as you can. And I share with them my patriarchal blessing, which it's hard to really explain to them, but it says, my life, you know, people appreciate it. I am here, for this purpose, I have been preserved, I've been kept alive. And they're like, “Well keep doing what you're doing. Because whatever you're doing, it's working.” And I'm like, “It's not me, it's just the blessings that have been poured down upon me.”
ASHLY
43:04
Wow, that is so cool. Yeah. I mean, I can relate in the, the aspect of, you know, with my drug addiction, just so, you know, it was such a dark place. But I feel like now it's like my roadmap to getting clean and sober. And relying on the church and the Savior's Atonement to change my life has been like, you know. Other people who have kids that are going through it, or they're going through it themselves. It's like, I can give them my roadmap for how I made it through and they can—you know what I mean? So, I think that it's just really cool to see how God can just orchestrate things to be such a gift when they're actually like, they don't appear as a gift.
BEN
Right.
ASHLY
I just think that's so cool. So tell me what advice would you give to somebody that's maybe struggling with, you know, an illness? Or maybe their spouse has an illness? Or what advice would you give to them?
BEN
44:11
So a lot of it, like so it’s ABCs: your Attitude Becomes your Character. You know, if you have an outlook on life, that it's going to be horrible. Like, it's going to be horrible, like, it just is. But if you have an outlook, that life can be wonderful. It can be beautiful. That's what it's going to be. I will tell you something. My brother died from a seizure when he was 22 years old.
ASHLY
Oh my gosh!
BEN
I know we gave my mom a lot of gray hair.
ASHLY
Yeah.
BEN
He had grand mal seizures. So he'd stopped breathing. I mean, he had seizures while he was driving on the interstate. He had seizures on the school bus. I mean, he, you know, every time he hit a growth spurt, his medicine would be out of whack, and stuff. And so both of us living with a life threatening illness became really, really close. In fact, I mean, I was actually about to take the stage at UCLA and speak in front of 1000s of students, when I found out he had died. And I still did. I did cancel—I was supposed to speak at Stanford, the next day, I did cancel Stanford and I flew home. But that hit me the hardest. And piece of advice is like, he's not dead. He's not dead. You know, his body may be but his spirit is not. And that was hard. I mean, I lived with survivor's guilt for a little while, because I'm like, God, like, I'm older than him. Like, I mean, why? Take me. Let him, 22 is still a baby, you know. And granted, I mean, I was still like, in my 20s, as well, but I was closer to 30. Fortunately, he wasn't able to serve admission as well, because of the seizures. But he wasn't, he didn't get a chance to take out his endowments. And I did it for him.
ASHLY
Wow.
46:22
BEN
And I remember passing through the veil. And in the Washington D.C. Temple in the celestial room is 12 crystal chandeliers. And they're normally peaceful and quiet. And my family that was already through the veil waiting for me to come through for my brother, all of those were “tink, tink, tink, tink, tink …” It was him saying, I'm here. I'm here with you.
ASHLY
Wow.
BEN
And so that, obviously, we didn't stop praying for my brother. Like, we knew that he was sick, we knew he had struggles. And we knew how he was going to die. We just didn't know when. But I know I'll see him again. Without a doubt, I know, I'll see him again. And those moments in the temple that Brigham Young said, “The veil is very thin.” The spirits are here on earth with us.
ASHLY
Mm-hmm.
BEN
We get those moments. And so if a spouse or a child dies… I miss my brother every single day. But what gets me up in the morning and allows me to go forward is knowing that this life isn't the end.
47:46
ASHLY
Yeah, that's so good. You've been through so much. Just so much. And it's, I mean, you have stayed strong and your testimony through all of the things that you've been through. What advice would you have for somebody that's struggling with, you know, you've you've been a bishop, I'm sure you've seen a lot of people that have struggled, but what advice would you have for somebody that's struggling with their testimony in the midst of trials?
BEN
47:59
So one of the things, for me, the viral load being undetectable, meaning it's like very minimal inside my body, is, it's the size of my pinky nail. Okay, that's how much virus, the HIV virus is inside my body. Am I going to allow that, to define my whole being? And so anybody that's struggling with a trial, like it's their pinky nail. It's the small part. The Atonement of our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, makes them worthy of the blessings to still be poured down upon them. They may need just a hug, they may need a phone call, a text message. You know, it goes back to the hope. When I was serving as bishop, and I met with members, especially during a membership council. One of the most spiritual experiences ever in my life. Because the Atonement was real. It was present. But one of the questions that I always asked every member that came there was, “Have you forgiven yourself?” And they would kind of contemplate that and go, “I haven't,” and I said, “You need to. And we'll get you there.” You know, I told him I said, “You know, bishops may be judges in Israel, but our roles aren't really to judge you. It's to judge the path, and where your progression is. We're to judge what path you’re headed on, and to help you get on the covenant path. That’s what we're judging. We're not judging you. We're judging your footsteps.” And so I think when people realize that, “I can't go back to church, like, I've got tattoos now,” or “I can't go back to church, I've done this, this and this.” And I said, “Every single person in that congregation, including myself is here, in the repair garage. This isn't a showroom.”
ASHLY
Right.
BEN
We're in a repair garage. We're getting fixed, every single one. And so,
50:37
everybody has something, and everybody has something to offer. Because you never know who's struggling. You know, people with addiction, they hide it, they hide it very well. Nobody knew I had HIV until I told them. You know? And so we all have something that we're going through and we don't know who needs to hear it.
ASHLY
Yeah.
BEN
51:01
And just, I told, like, “If you come back, everyone's gonna love you. They're just gonna wrap their arms. They're gonna be excited to see you. You're part of the family.”
ASHLY
Yep. No, I love that. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast. Your story is so amazing. And I mean, obviously, it's not our typical comeback story. But I know that there is people that are listening to the podcast that need to hear this. And so I'm so grateful that you took the time to come on with us. So thank you so much.
BEN
51:40
Oh, thank you. It's my pleasure. Like I said, keep doing the wonderful things you're doing because it's needed, and the messages. Like I said, I gain strength from the testimonies I hear each each week
ASHLY
51:54
Me too. Thank you.
