Yeah, my first name is Chet. I was diagnosed in 1990. At that time, it was pretty pretty scary. I mean, the nurse told me that my T-cells were like 9, and you know, I didn't have much longer, that's more or less what she told me. And it's really hard to describe what you feel at that time because you're looking at mortality. I would say the first day after I was diagnosed, when she told me, was pretty rough. But the next day, I said to myself, 'well, I mean, let's see where this disease is going to take me, and where I'm going to take it.'
I will never have children. I know that. I've accepted that. So my cats are my kids. I love them to death. I come home and they run to the door and they're just happy to see me like I'm happy to see them. They give me...anybody, anybody who has a life-threatening disease, I encourage them to get some sort of animal because they bring you pleasure, they just bring you pleasure. I can't tell you how good it feels to have those cats at home! I clean their litter box out every day and I put a mask on, and I put this certain type of gloves on because from what I understand, there are certain chemicals in the litter itself that's not very kind to [an] HIV person. I make sure that the litter box itself is completely cleaned out everyday, you've got to, and I don't mind doing it because that's what you have to do.