Play Protected, Stay Protected

Has dealing with HIV empowered you in ways you wouldn't have expected?

Dealing with HIV has empowered me in ways I didn't expect it to. First of all, I never thought in a million years that I would be sharing something as personal as being HIV positive, and yet I'm not only sharing, I'm teaching others about the effects of living long term with HIV/AIDS. I know the battles we face in trying to educate certain populations on the do's and don'ts of putting themselves at risk for HIV and other STDs.

Before the days of medication I never really planned things too far in the future. One year in advance was my stopping point, and the rest was left up to chance. Then one year turned into two years, and then two years turned into ten years, and today by the grace of God, I'm still here, alive and well and educating others.

There were many life related events I never thought I would live to see, like my two children getting through school and then going on to collage, the birth of my first grandbaby, and all of the people that supported and prayed for me along the way. All of it was truly a God sent and totally unexpected. With all the mis-education about HIV/AIDS, here I stand today healthy, full of life, and back on the forefront of HIV education and prevention. I feel I was empowered and living well with HIV by all of the positive people that embraced, supported and truly loved me over the years.

Even if HIV was curable today, I would still wear protection when it came to sex. There are too many additional STDs out there, and I wouldn’t want to take chances with my body and/or life. I feel doing things unsafe can expose you to a host of other infections that can alter ones life plan. The best side is the safer side when it comes to sex. There are more STDs becoming resistance to treatment, so exposing yourself by having unprotected sex can not only hinder your HIV treatment, it could also pass a strain of a virus to you that may turn out to be untreatable. So the short of it all is that, "If you play protected, you stay protected"!