Back in 1996, Beverly Cooke was a single mother of two children who considered herself a fairly conservative person.

She went to the emergency room one day feeling like she was going to faint. Cooke was given a series of tests. Then doctors told her that she had HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

"I can't have it," Cooke said. "You know I teach Sunday school. I can't have it."

Cooke told her story yesterday to about 50 people who attended a program at Forsyth Medical Center in observation of World AIDS Day 2008.

Several doctors and others involved in dealing with and treating HIV/AIDS spoke about the state of the epidemic. About 1,032 people in Forsyth County have the disease, although about 30 percent of them don't know it, said Patrice Toney of the Forsyth County Department of Public Health.

She now feels fine, Cooke said, and she is on medication to control her disease. But in the days after being told that she had contracted HIV, she refused medication and waited to die.

Dr. Michael Morgan, an infectious-disease specialist, said that even though HIV/AIDS has been around for almost 30 years, misinformation and confusion about the disease abounds.

"This is not a disease that has to be a killer," he said, in speaking about one of the biggest misconceptions about the disease.

Doctors are nowhere near coming up with a cure or a vaccine to prevent HIV/AIDS, he said, but many people can expect to live a normal lifespan, if they begin treatment before they develop full-blown AIDS, Morgan said.

Omar Perez, an HIV/AIDS advocate who was infected with HIV in 1987, said that progress is being made, but that life with HIV/AIDS is still difficult.

He said he lives with frequent nausea from the medications he takes, and he suffers from neuropathy, which either comes from the virus or from the medications.

Still, Perez said that people would have trouble guessing that he has the disease from his appearance.

Cooke said that dealing with the fears in her mind can be more difficult than dealing with any physical challenges brought on by the disease.

Her disease is under control, and she does volunteer work with the health department and with Union Baptist Church's AIDS Ministry.

"It's OK to live," she said. "It's OK to have hope."