Well over 20 years after being infected with HIV Sherry Saltus is living proof that the deadly disease can be contained.

But the 49-year-old grandmother has buried friends weaker than her and wants people to learn from her mistakes and avoid the lifestyle which saw her daily dicing with death.

Ironically the former prostitute and heroin user caught HIV from a blood transfusion during child birth not from drugs or the sex she sold to pay for them.

And though she might feel well today the disease nearly did for her, making her a walking corpse as her family planned her funeral.

Weak though she was her spirit was far stronger and Ms Saltus clawed her way back against all odds.

Recalling the death grip at the beginning of the decade she said: "I didn't think I was going to make it, I was cheating death, I truly was.

"You know how a person looks like in their coffin? I was like that, the living dead. If you touched my arm the indentation would last."

Her hair was dropping out, she suffered appetite loss, sleepless nights and cold sweats. "My immune system was going down fast and I was hospitalised."

But there was nothing medics could do so she was moved to hospice Agape House. "My family were planning my funeral, telling me 'Don't worry, you will get the best funeral'."

Written off by friends, family and the medical profession she still had high hopes she would survive it. "I kept myself busy, with art work and writing."

Visions took her to the land of the dead, said Ms Saltus. "I was on the inside of myself, I went through some very awesome experiences.

"A woman in white leading you through the wilderness I saw all that. I knew there was life after death."

But instead she chose to enjoy what she terms "life after death here on earth".

She added: "The spirit of God pulled me through, he said keep coming. There was a voice inside me which said 'it's not time for you yet'.

"I kept myself motivated, every time something positive happened I knew that more life was coming into me. I am not a quitter.

"At one stage I couldn't walk, I couldn't see, I was cross-eyed. But as weak as I was I would still try to walk, I fell down and lost a lot of blood."

Because of her earlier experience she refused a transfusion.

"Before you knew it I was walking, I didn't quit. Other people gave up but I kept fighting, I didn't care about myself at one stage until death hit me in the face but I said 'I choose to live!' Then life became so important to me."

Now Sherry Saltus is probably fitter than most people her age she runs from St. George's to the airport at weekends, while on weekdays she cycles to her early morning cleaning jobs. Healthy food is always on the menu at her St. George's home.

Once she took 17 pills a day but now she takes just two Kaletra tablets, slightly less than the recommended dose, but this is a woman that knows her own body.

"I feel healthy, I weigh 124 pounds, I don't want to go higher than that as I was always a small person."

While it's difficult not to feel inspired by her fight back, that's not her message.

She worries Bermudian women, children even, are on the road to ruin and she knows why.

As someone from a broken home who was shuttled between five different foster homes in her childhood she knows teenaged girls look for love with the wrong people.

"We have children without parenting, kids have a 'don't care attitude' and they may end up with the virus. I can say wear a 'condom, wait take your time ladies', which I tell them."

But she fears the safe sex message gets drowned out amid massive emotional problems.

"Girls are having children because they are not loved, they are having children to feel love. That doesn't last long, the children are given up for adoption."

And the trauma those young mothers are going through because they lost their child too often ends up in dangerous promiscuity.

"I know, I was one of those children. So I try to talk to those children with an upbringing like myself. I speak their language. I tell them guys don't want you, they want a little hit from you and then to toss you to the side."

The fact Ms Saltus got HIV from a blood transfusion is irrelevant to her.

"I used heroin and cocaine, I was messed up. I was out there having sex with all kinds of people, throwing my body to anyone who would have it for money for drugs, walking up next to people I didn't know.

"Had I not have got Aids through the blood transfusion I would have had it anyway because of the lifestyle I was leading drinking, passing out, anyone could have taken advantage."

Asked about regrets about the way her life has turned out with contracting Aids she counters: "I didn't have such a good life before I contracted it.

"I thought I was glamorous, young girls used to look up to me in my high heels and short mini-skirts but I dropped the ball. Now look at me."

She keeps her own company and rarely goes out.

While she admits she could easily have got Aids through partying, in order to manage the disease the partying has to stop dead.

"I have a school friend who has the virus but because she is still drinking it is not working for her. When you have the virus you have to stop cigarettes, drugs and alcohol they don't go together."

And the sex ends too, certainly in her case.

"It's been 17 years since I had any sex, that's not so hard because I just want to be loved. That's a hard part that goes with the situation too, everybody knows you have it and they don't want..'

Her voice trails away but for her the most important thing is the next generation and getting them to hear the safe sex message.

"Every summer a group of children come out of school, they get dressed up real sharp, looking really pretty, the boys look handsome and then it's all sex."

She said with booze and partying came promiscuity with no thought about wearing condoms.

"Some of these individuals have the virus and won't tell the girls they do it purposely. They want to take someone with them, that's the mentality."

Ms Saltus has written a short, blunt book called 'The Struggle Continues' warning girls about predatory boys and unsafe sex.

"It speaks their language, to get them to snap out of it, to grow up. You cannot talk to these young children today in a soft tone. Some don't know the difference between right and wrong.

"Everyone is in a rush today, I tell them just take a good look before you jump into the sex. Don't have sex with people you don't know. But it seems the situation has got worse in Bermuda.

"I can relate to other people searching for something they have so much pain inside they don't know how to deal with it.

"They are throwing in alcohol and drugs. We can talk about Aids and condoms but when we can't deal with our own inner problems we have nothing to stand on."