BY MAURA DOWGIN
Staff Writer
JERRY WOLKOWITZ staff Dawn Breedon, Teaneck, speaks to Woodrow Wilson Middle School students about HIV and AIDS on Friday.
EDISON — Eighth-graders at Woodrow Wilson Middle School had an eye-opening experience Friday.
Many of the students said that, to the best of their knowledge, they had never met someone with HIV — until that day.
The students were introduced to Dawn Breedon, of Teaneck, during the Friday morning assembly. Breedon was diagnosed with the virus 12 years ago, she said.
Through sharing her heartbreaking and difficult story, she left the students with a message of responsibility and hope for the future. She also reinforced the importance of health and education.
"Things will happen to you. Things will happen around you. The only thing you control is what happens inside you," Breedon said.
People have the ability to overcome adversity, she told the students.
Breedon explained several of the most common ways to contract the HIV — the virus which causes AIDS — including sharing hypodermic needles, having unprotected sex, and receiving a blood transfusion from a tainted blood supply.
She also explained that people infected with the virus have impaired immune systems, making them more susceptible to common illnesses.
For instance, people with or without HIV can get a cold. However, people with HIV have to worry that the cold may turn into pneumonia because their immune system cannot properly fight the infection, she said.
The talk was not strictly facts, though. Breedon spoke about peer pressure, mixed messages and the myths that often surround HIV and AIDS.
There is a lot of pressure for teenagers to have sex, she said. The media, including television, movies, and music, tell children that it is cool and expected for them to be having sex.
"You have a lot of messages that say that you’ll be more popular if you do a certain thing," she said.
However, some choices could can affect people for the rest of their lives.
Breedon told the children that HIV can be contracted by anyone and is not limited to certain groups of people.
When Breedon found out she was HIV positive, she said she was making close to $100,000 a year, owned two expensive cars, and went on four vacations a year.
Often that is not the perception of someone likely to contract HIV, she said. However, the virus does not know or care whom it infects.
The children were mesmerized by Breedon’s story of tragedy and triumph.
Breedon’s husband contracted the disease and lied to her about it, she said. He showed her a blood test that showed a negative result.
What she did not know is that the blood test was not his.
"Unless you are in the room when people get the diagnosis, you don’t know. People lie," she said.
When Breedon was first diagnosed with the disease she was five months pregnant with her first child, she said. The doctors did not expect her to live nine months. That was 12 years ago.
Breedon had a baby boy who tested positive for the HIV virus, she said.
Only 30 percent of children born to mothers with HIV contract the disease.
When her son was a year and a half old, the court granted joint custody to both parents. Two years later, her ex-husband poisoned the baby with cyanide and ammonia and then took his own life, she said.
"My son did not die as a result of HIV," Breedon said. "My son died because of the stigma that’s attached."
After her son’s death, people started gossiping about the situation and circulating rumors about Breedon’s HIV status, she said.
"I would just try to get out of the bed in the morning," she said. "My world was gone and all they wanted to know was my diagnosis."
Breedon got through the difficult time. She is now married with a 7-year-old son who is HIV negative.
Breedon told the students that she does not know when she is going to die. However, until the time of her death, she will "seek opportunity, not security."
"When death comes to get me, I’m going to be the one on the field with the ball," she said. "I’m not going to be on the sidelines as a spectator watching life go by."
Breedon speaks to many groups of people, ranging from National Football League players to students.
Students who attended the presentation were surprised by what Breedon had gone through and the strength she has.
"It’s amazing how strong she is," said Brett Radler, an eighth-grade student.
Students also said Breedon did not try to sugarcoat any of her experiences.
"She talked to us like we were adults and that’s important," Brett said.
"It was very informative. She didn’t beat around the bush," said eighth-grader Nakiah May.
The school tries to have an HIV presentation for the students in the first week of December each year, said Donna Deter, the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade health teacher at Woodrow Wilson Middle School.
"It’s important to make the kids aware and to give them a little respect for people living with HIV," Deter said.
World AIDS Day was Dec. 1.
AIDS is becoming known as a treatable disease and therefore not as fatal as it has been in the past, she said. The program makes sure that students still know that the disease is out there and there is no cure.
Breedon spoke while standing in front of a piece of the AIDS Memorial Quilt.
Other pieces of the quilt were displayed in Edison High School, J.P. Stevens High School, Bishop Ahr High School, John Adams Middle School, Thomas Jefferson Middle School, Herbert Hoover Middle School, the Board of Education administrative building, the Edison Township Municipal Building, and the Edison Senior Citizens Center in honor of World AIDS Day, said Lisa Gulla, program coordinator for the Edison Municipal Alliance.