Every day Redmond resident Shaun Heuston is greeted by 18 pills, large and small, green and white, in a tin canister that he keeps on the shelf next to the window in his mobile home.

He takes six or seven of them before breakfast, lunch, dinner and before he goes to bed. The pills numb his lips, leave a copper taste in his mouth and make him throw up.

But above all, the pills promise every day to shore up Heuston's immune system and battle HIV/AIDS, which would eventually allow another illness to kill the 42-year-old.

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