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It’s strange to say: I was living in Sydney in the 1980s when the newspapers, every week when they came out, they had dozens of people dying from HIV. I didn’t know of any of them, and so I must have been moving in a completely different circle of friends. Whereas other people, they knew […]
Categories: Age 55-59, Asia-Pacific, Male • Tags: Australia, CD4 count, comorbidities, exercise/fitness
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Edward: She used to follow me around all the time. I was 15, she was 11, so I looked at her like a kid, like my little sister, and she became my best friend. Andrea: We lived in the same neighborhood in New York. Long Island. I’ve always been in love with him, […]
Categories: Age 50-54, Age 55-59, Female, Male, North America • Tags: Couple, United States
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Ron: I found out my status when I was incarcerated, as a result of seeing a dentist. The dental hygienist dropped one of the tools and it pricked her on the leg. And as a result of their protocol they asked everybody who had saw the dentist that day to take an HIV […]
Categories: Age 55-59, Female, Male, North America • Tags: Couple, United States
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HIV has a– una connotación mala, negativa. Pero para mí, creo que HIV has given me everything. Everything. A new life. A change, a dramatically change in my life. In Spanish we say, I gave “un giro de 360 grados.” “A 360,” and my life now is very full, I feel very… full. Once, my […]
Categories: Age 55-59, Male, South America • Tags: Ecuador
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Ann: I kept it a secret for a decade that I was positive. It would have cost me my job in my state – we don’t have job protection. And the only way you could fight it is take it to court, but when you take it to court it becomes public record, […]
Categories: Age 50-54, Age 55-59, Female, Male, North America • Tags: United States
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Getting old is a bitch. You go to bed feeling one way, and you wake up and it’s something else. Aging with HIV, you’re never really sure what it really is. And as a woman, I don’t know if it’s just the aging, if it’s menopausal, if it’s the HIV. And I don’t know how […]
Categories: Age 55-59, Female, North America • Tags: United States
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I thought I might want to have a baby and I was 43, and I knew I would have to get tested before I would do that. I am unmarried and I’ve never been married, so I was sexually active. I lived in Africa for some years, where we know that the epidemic has higher […]
Categories: Age 55-59, Female, North America • Tags: United States
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It’s still not the same. I mean, speaking for myself, I’d rather have HIV than some cancer, right? But for others it’s still, they can cope better when you say you have a cancer than this HIV thing. In the back of people’s heads there’s probably still this, it’s an icky illness, because it has […]
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It has totally changed my life. Before, I was a free spirit and, you know, loved to date. I still like men and dating someone, but that’s not such a focus anymore.
Categories: Age 55-59, Female, North America • Tags: United States
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When you’re going through menopause, and you’re a seasoned woman, and you’ve been through three really serious relationships and the last one you thought would be forever, and to wake up alone, and… it’s hard. It really took me a long time to get over that depression. You know, I covered it up with super-volunteerism.
Categories: Age 55-59, Female, North America • Tags: United States
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I believe some people are born with their glass half full, and some are born with their glass half empty, and mine is kinda full and brimming – more than full. So I would say that I have kind of a positive outlook. I’ve been positive since 1988. I learned about my status when my […]
Categories: Age 55-59, Male, North America • Tags: Canada
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I found out about my HIV status 20 years ago, that was in 1990, I think. And, how I found out is when I had a cough, a persistent cough that didn’t go off. I was given medication for a while. And every time that I stopped medication, the cough would come. And then I […]