Cameron Siemers
United States

Cameron with actress Courteney Cox at the 2008 A Time For Heroes Carnival.

People think that HIV is a manageable disease, but I'm here to say that it is not. When I was two years old, I received a transfusion with HIV-positive blood. At seven, I was diagnosed with HIV and for the next nine years, I struggled to survive. I had three surgeries and several bouts with pneumonia.

After six months in the hospital, I decided I had had enough of hospitals. I said that I would never go back to the hospital again. That was two years ago and I haven't been back since.

But I do still struggle to control the virus. Since learning I was infected, I have been on more than 10 different cocktails of drugs but nothing seems to work for me because the virus in my body continues to adapt to whatever drug I try. I continue to wait for a cure and there are a lot of kids out there like me, who are constantly waiting for the next medication in order to survive.

It's frustrating, especially when the drug teases me. My viral load will drop really low right away, then a couple months later it shoots right back up. My family is excited because we think this is the one, but it's not.

The bottom line is we are far from done in the fight against AIDS here in the United States. We're still fighting this thing and many of us are not doing that well. This disease is smart and if we don't continue to do research, it will win.

But I will always stay positive and believe that eventually they will come up with a drug that will work. If you don't have a positive attitude, most likely you'll lose. That's my family's motto: Keep a positive attitude.

Cameron regularly speaks to college students about the importance of raising money for more research.