My family and the few friends I told were as shocked

My family and the few friends I told were as shocked as my doctor because I didn't fit an AIDS stereotype. At the time of my diagnosis nine years ago, I was a successful 55-year-old career woman. Before that I had lived a conventional, traditional lifestyle: I'd been a virgin on my wedding night in early 1959 and I remained monogamous during 23 years of marriage. But then, in the early 1980s, I was divorced, and for the first time in a quarter century I was dating again. I didn't consider myself promiscuous. I didn't frequent the singles bars. I went out with men my age who, like me, had been married and were divorced. And in those days I knew little about AIDS, only that a mysterious, fatal ailment was affecting the gay community.

It didn't occur to me that I would put myself at risk by engaging in unprotected sex with an attractive, intelligent, amusing man of many interests, a man who had been a close friend my entire adult life. But that's what happened to me at the end of 1985 at the age of 50. Infection with HIV.

Following my diagnosis, I withdrew. I did not have the courage to put myself in situations that might be painful -- where I might experience discrimination, rejection, or prejudice. I lived in partial isolation, spending time mostly with family and the friends who knew my condition, who were supportive, compassionate and non-judgmental.

Four years passed. I took my prescribed antiviral drugs and I was blessed: I stayed well. But I remained shamed and humiliated, still hiding the fact of my HIV status. Encouraged by my son and my friends, I decided to put another face to the epidemic -- an old, wrinkled face -- to demonstrate that HIV does not discriminate, that "it's not who you are or how old you are, but what you do and don't do in regard to transmission of HIV." It was not easy. I had to become semi-comfortable with looking out into an audience and admitting: "I live with a stigmatizing sexually transmitted disease."

In the years since my diagnosis, I've gone from professional journalist -- an interviewer -- into media interviewee, from private person to public activist. In the autumn of 1995 a group of us, gathered at the first National HIV/AIDS and Aging Conference in New York, founded the National Association on HIV Over Fifty (NAHOF). The aging community needs to be educated on transmission, prevention and available services. The education of the professionals, the health care and social service providers who minister to seniors, is also crucial. First, they must be taught to recognize that the disease can and does exist in the elder population; then the providers should begin to initiate discussions about sexuality and sexually transmitted diseases, explain prevention, even encourage HIV testing.