A Follow-Up to Friday's Post

It was a rational decision that I made in partnership with A to tell all about our new discovery. We decided that I would talk about it online because there isn't really anyone we could discuss this with outside of best friends and obviously other people we might have shared it with or borrowed it from. However those people certainly aren't going to be sympathetic nor happy to hear from us.

Whilst I'm certainly not saying that what happened wasn’t preventable and anyone who has never enjoyed the experiences of an STD: please use protection. I am saying that there is an unfair taboo placed around those who have the less dangerous ones – as if to say well you brought it on yourself, so suffer!

That last sentence pisses me right off! The only unprotected sex I have had in the past five years is in two long-term sustained relationships. Outside of that there hasn’t even been a slip-up or breakage. I didn’t bring this on myself, I took a risk that a vast majority of my age group takes. Furthermore, I took responsibility for my reproductive health: regular visits to the doctor, regular pro-active testing and so on. Even when I experienced symptoms (and let me tell you, the symptoms were vague) I went to the doctor and was told that all results were negative. Now, I ask you – how the heck am I supposed to deal with that? Sure, I could have immediately dragged A to the Dr's and said here, check him out. But my tests were negative, I had no adverse symptoms, I let sleeping dogs lie.

When the doctor explained what I had this last Friday, I immediately came home and sat down for a chat with A. We were both really upset by the news and I cried a lot. We talked about whether one of us had cheated and I felt that we could trust each other and that neither of us had.

I would really like to believe that my husband was the lovely gentleman who shared it with me because otherwise it means that I have been infected far longer which could have caused damage to my reproductive system (and previous readers will know how important that is to me). Obviously he doesn’t want it to be him because he never ever wanted to hurt me in that way (and has also been in very few relationships).

We are both taking a tetracycline every twelve hours for ten days. At the end of this ten days we will be cured of upper respiratory infections, skin and soft tissue infection, cholera, malaria, syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, malaria and Lyme disease (to name but a few). We obviously cannot drink while on medication and if anyone please has any ideas for excuses for this when people come around for dinner – I would be very grateful! We are also not allowed to have sex for a week after the end of the medication which means that the 25th of December really will be a long time coming...