Funding
Testing

James Grissom
HIV Positive
Steve Sherman
Coordinator, NC AIDS Drug Assistance Program
Peter Leone, M.D.
Medical Director, HIV/STD Prevention & Care Branch
Fred Wiggins
HIV Positive
Milford Evans
Benefits Advocate
Bart Haynes, M.D.
Director, Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology, part of the National Institutes of Health

Acute HIV Testing
AIDS Funding
AIDS Research
AIDS Volunteers

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When did you find out you have HIV?
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I found out when I was five or six, one of those, and it was through eavesdropping, which little kids like to do. My mother and my doctor were talking, and they had mentioned it, and I was just like oh, I have HIV... okay, let me go play in the toy center, and it was just something in the back of my head. And later on I started to find, actually when I moved here with my uncle and my aunt I started to find out that, I learned more about it, started to learn about meds, what it is, how did it get there, where it came from, how it attacked my system and everything.

Do you tell people you have HIV?
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I actually do. I used to pick and choose who I'd tell, and I still do that to a certain extent because of an incident that happened in fourth grade, so I pick and choose, but I do tell people like if you ask me or if I find out that you're, if I'm listening to a conversation and you're just totally off key of what you're talking about I will step in and say something. And most of the time someone's response is well, how do you know? Do you have it? And my response is yes. And I guess it puts a lot of, I guess, pressure to them to say oh, you have it, and they've got to step back and stop for a minute and it gives them a chance to think about it and think about you're being a little ignorant right there.

It gives me an opportunity to talk to them, just about anything they have a question about. But I started answering questions when I was, I would say around eight I started answering questions because I had told someone in fourth grade and he just totally made a big scene out of it. The principal found out and the whole school found out, just got asked questions every day about something different.

In North Carolina, people try to exclude it or take it out or just don't want to talk about it because I'm not used to that, don't bring that here, you know. And in Maryland I thought that even in elementary school they were very open to discussing anything, any type of ideas, so I think that's one of the things that started me just to tell people in general when I hear certain things because I'd rather not have people be ignorant. Just educate the ignorant.

The people that I talk to and the people that are around me, they seem to be not well aware of it. You know, they're not well aware of how it's contracted - don't touch me with your spit. Don't spit on me. Or don't touch me. That's just like, hmm, it's not contracted through that, what are you talking about.

I feel I'm helping the world, helping mold people's minds into what it is. It's not all about you being sick 'cause I ain't sick. I don't look sick. And it's all about the way people who have it carry themselves because there can be an ignorant HIV positive person or AIDS person and there can be one who's perfectly fine with having it, knows about what he needs to do to stay healthy and better and out of the hospital. And that's the way I am, I perfectly see that you should try to show everyone else that that's actually possible rather than being sick all the time.

Are you on medications?
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I do take medicines. I take 5 medicines at night and 4 in the morning. Do that, eat healthy, that's a big thing.

I started taking meds when I was like five or six, started taking liquid medications, and my mom didn't take her meds so it never occurred to me I need to take my medicine, so I never took it. For the first year I took it, they had to have somebody come to the house to watch me take it. Otherwise I wouldn't have taken it. When I got older I started to realize I actually need to take it, and I've never really thought about my viral load.

Right now it's not a big deal. It's not a big deal at all. The only big deal to me is I gotta take my medicine, but since I've been doing it so long it's just become second nature. It's just like getting up and brushing you teeth, get up and take your medicine, and that's the only thing that really I have to do differently.

What's the biggest challenge about being a young person with HIV?
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At the teenage group, there's really no support system for us. There's very sparse support systems. There's camps which are really good, but you know, what are you going to do for the year, how are you going to get through that year? Sometimes you may be feeling just like, ugh, I wish I didn't have this and you know hearing that other person say I felt that way, too, or I understand where you're coming from is so reassuring.

Do you worry about dying?
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I actually wrote a poem a little while ago for English class, and it says in the last part that 'I want to live to be 60 or greater, you see, if it's in God's plan you see. Are you understanding me? Now this thing will be zero, undetectable, gone, c'est la vie, that's all you need to understand about me.'

I don't think about it killing me because I'm very healthy, and I go through life with that.