STORY: "The first week since I realized I had it, it was mostly flu like symptoms. So, I had an intense fever, full body chills, sweating through my teeth at night, sore throat, cough...I counted more than 25 [lesions] all over my body," Ford said.

Ford said the moment he spoke up about his experience he received many positive messages, but also a fair amount of "cruel unkind" reactions. "We are seeing a lot of parallels of what happened with HIV, AIDS, right, Ford says, "people who perhaps are homophobic or have prejudice or whatever, either that could be used against the queer community."

Ford said, at the end of the day, "there's no place for shame or stigma in it. It's just the way the cards fell, you've done nothing wrong."

He added, "it might be awful but it's temporary."