Based on an interview study of 25 Ohio women in HIV/AIDS support groups, this is a study of how the women make sense of the disease in their lives. The book combines data, method, analysis and interpretation.

Educator Patti Lather and psychologist Chris Smithies observed and chronicled support groups for women diagnosed with HIV. Whether black, Latina, poor, or middle class, the women in these groups share the common bond of living with HIV/AIDS, and they describe how it affects their lives in terms full of practical reality and moving poignancy, as they fight the disease, accept, reflect, live and die with and in it.