Meet Lance
Lance grew up in a small-minded town in southern Oklahoma where HIV was not talked about. He lacked access to sex education and used drugs in his teen years, which put him in a high-risk group. He entered college and the drug use and promiscuous sex peaked. Lance did not get tested for HIV until he was on a summer vacation at his parent's house in New Mexico. The day he found out he was positive was the day his world came crashing down. If it wasn't for his family, he is sure that day would have been his last one alive. He got through those first few months, took a semester off from school and thought he had his life under control. When he went back to Oklahoma to start school again he hit another wall. In Oklahoma the dollars were present, but Lance felt that the programs were impossible to work with and he was getting sick. In three months he went to the emergency room three times and he was the plague on campus. At this time he was still heavily using drugs and trying to end his life. Lance knew that he was on a major downward spiral. One day he decided to take a chance. He gave up his scholarship, sold everything he had, and bought a one-way ticket to Los Angeles with $45 in his pocket and two suitcases. He moved into a transitional living home not knowing what to expect. When he got there he was surprised to see that the medical programs in California were like night and day compared to Oklahoma. The second day in Los Angeles he was enrolled in ADAP and had his labs done. He was told that his T-cell count was almost to the point of AIDS and that he had hepatitis B. A month after moving to Los Angeles, his mother died and his health took another major dive. He was put on meds and now can say, "I am undetectable and have been clean for over a year. It was a very hard road that I have traveled to get where I am, and I am still not where I want to be. I have my health and I can look in the mirror and know that, no matter what happens--I will survive." "I am a survivor.”
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