Peggy Alston said she has good days and bad days living with HIV. But she copes with the situation by helping others with the disease.
If she is having a bad day, she prefers to go out and find an activity to do.
"You have to find something to do, not focusing on your problem all of the time," Alston said. "Sitting in my house all day I was going crazy."
Alston, 62, was one of about 80 people who attended the World AIDS Day community observance at the Hannah Community Center, 819 Abbott Road, on Thursday.
World AIDS Day was started in 1988 and is geared toward not only raising money, but raising awareness about many of the issues surrounding HIV/AIDS.
"Everyone knows it's there, but so often it's not talked about," Patrick Lombardi, director of volunteer services for the Lansing Area AIDS Network, said. "There are so many issues we are dealing with.
"This is the biggest health crisis we have faced in the 21st century, but it's not portrayed that way."
World AIDS Day allows attention to be drawn to the issue of HIV/AIDS and the fact that there is no cure to something that affects millions of people worldwide, Lombardi said.
"We hear more about the bird flu," Lombardi said. "There are millions of people who are infected with AIDS and millions of people who have died from it. No one in the United States has even had the bird flu, but you hear about it everyday."
As of November 2005, 40.3 million people in the world had AIDS, according to a press release by the network.
This is a bigger turnout than the group has ever had for the community observance for World AIDS Day, said Andre Truss, prevention supervisor for the network.
The observance included different speakers, a walk against the stigma surrounding AIDS, a movie viewing and speeches from representatives for Gov. Jennifer Granholm and the United Nations Association, Greater Lansing Chapter. Behind the speakers was a display of 24 panels from the AIDS Memorial Quilt and signs with various facts about HIV/AIDS.
On campus, 500 trees had red ribbons tied around them; each ribbon had a name of someone on the quilt on it and represented 1,000 HIV/AIDS-related deaths.
"It's a powerful thing to see all of the ribbons," Olin Health Center health educator Erin Williston said. "It may be one name on the ribbon, but it represents so much more."
There was also free and anonymous HIV testing offered at the Olin Health Center. Although the testing is always free and anonymous at Olin, it was more accessible on Thursday because no appointment was needed, Williston said.
Testing is one of the most important parts of educating people about HIV/AIDS, Lombardi said.
"It's getting people to think about their health," he said.
Aside from people not being aware of the free resources available for them to get tested, the biggest hurdle facing advocates for HIV/AIDS prevention and those living with it is the stigma surrounding the disease, Lombardi said. This stigma makes people afraid to talk about it, get medication that could improve their lives and find support groups that could emotionally help them through difficult times, he said.
Talking to others and leading support groups is what Alston does to get through the difficult times. Dealing with AIDS is all about caring, she said.
"I'm glad that God made it possible for me to talk and make people know that help is there," she said. "It's just knowing how to get it."
When Alston was told she had HIV in 1999, she was blown away by the diagnosis. But instead of feeling "down in the dumps," she decided to help others.
"I want to make people feel more comfortable and know they aren't alone," the Lansing resident said. "It's important to me, the biggest problem people have is not being able to talk about it.
"I can't save everybody, but even if I save one person that's 1 million people to me."
Jennifer Toland can be reached at tolandje@msu.edu.
