Listening to medical facts was not enough. People wanted one hundred percent guarantees.
My family and I held no hatred for those people because we realized they were victims of their own ignorance.
Even at church, people would not shake my hand.
Eventually, I won the right to attend school, but the prejudice was still there.
How could these people in the public eye not be afraid of me, but my whole town was?
Most recently my battle has been against AIDS and the discrimination surrounding it.
On December 17, 1984, I had surgery to remove two inches of my left lung due to pneumonia. After two hours of surgery the doctors told my mother I had AIDS.
People would get up and leave so they would not have to sit anywhere near me.
The first five to six years of my life were spent in and out of the hospital.
This brought on the news media, TV crews, interviews, and numerous public appearances.
