Jenny Boyce-Hlongwa was at death's door when she became one of the first patients on antiretroviral treatment in KwaZulu-Natal, and that changed her life.

Boyce-Hlongwa was the 21st person on the Aids Healthcare Foundation's first treatment and care site at Ithembalabantu Clinic in Umlazi, Durban, in 2002.

She had been diagnosed "around" 1994. Today she is an active Aids activist in Mariannhill outside Durban. "I can't remember the actual year I found out that I had HIV," she said. "I have blocked out so much from that time. I was in shock."

What she did remember was going for an "Aids" test in order to take out life cover. Not for a second did she think she would be diagnosed as HIV positive. She had just had her youngest child.

For years she said nothing to anyone. "I just tried to deal with it on my own. I found out everything I could. I started working with the HIV community. In a sense, I was bargaining with God. If I work hard enough to help people going through what I was going through, I might be saved."

But hope and information were just not enough, and Boyce-Hlongwa contracted pneumonia and then TB. By 2002 her CD4 count was in the low 20s.

Di Hoorzuk, a counsellor at the clinic, lived in the same area as Boyce-Hlongwa, and knew her status. "Di called me. One of my relatives, a nurse, told me that the [ARV] medication was toxic and she had seen people get more sick - but I was desperate. I had done my homework. I had read that people with extremely low CD4 counts could survive on treatment."

Boyce-Hlongwa was patient 21. Her husband was patient 22. "I remember we went on a Monday. Throughout the treatment we faced no real challenges. I did well, my husband did even better. When I started I had a wart infection on my face; that cleared up in a few months. My energy increased and I was able to go back to work."

The patients on the ARV trial formed a tightknit group. "Most of us have survived, I think we only lost one person. Others went on to have children. In fact, one of the women had lost all her children to Aids and she managed to have an HIV-negative baby."

Boyce-Hlongwa only disclosed her status after her first treatment. "I was still thin and weak but I felt the need to tell people. I was terrified of dying when I decided to speak up and tell people that treatment is available."

She said even if she had not told her story, people around her watched as she went from dying to being alive and healthy. "It was a story that didn't have to be told - it just unfolded in front of their eyes. Everyone knew I was dying. There were even rumours that I had died."

The story of Boyce-Hlongwa, Patient 21, is on display at the new Museum of HIV, Memory and Learning in Durban. It is the first of its kind in the country and opened at the start of the Aids conference as a tribute to people affected by HIV.