On December 1st, my boyfriendâs hours got cut at work. This resulted in sympathy sex. Fricken awesome sympathy sex, might I add. Probably the best weâve had in a couple months. During this awesome sex, I had failed to point out he had a cold sore-y thing on his lip before he went down on me. My mind was in other places, understandably.
Here we are on December 11th and yesterday I was diagnosed with HSV. I havenât received test results back yet so I canât tell you which strain it is, but man oh man have I been on a roller coaster ride this last week.
Sunday morning I went to have a shower and discovered what seemed to be an ingrown hair. It hurt when I touched it, so I simply didnât touch it again. I ended up forgetting about it. Later that night, my boyfriend and I had sex again. Although afterwards, this ingrown hair was hurting terribly. It started to concern me so I tried to search whatever it could be. I didnât find much other than what I thought the impossible was - STIs - so I sent my mom a zoomed in picture of it and after some conversation we concluded it had to have just been an ingrown hair and the start of a yeast infection.
During the work day on Monday things started to progress. It burned when I peed, there were a few other little sores that popped up, and if I tried to touch them I thought I was going to scream. I try to stay on top of my health. Iâve been taught that sexual health is very important and I value the education Iâve been given on it. So, I called Health Link to get an idea of what the heck these symptoms could be. I was told to go to see a doctor. In Calgary, we have a hospital called South Health Campus and an SRH called South Calgary Care Centre. I mistook the SRH for the hospital and spent Monday night from 9pm-3am in the emergency room.
Initially, since I knew I needed to see a doctor ASAP, I had my sister drive me there and my mom tagged along. The whole way there I was thinking I had chlamydia and that my boyfriend of three years had cheated on me and the one thing in my life Iâve been able to hold together was falling apart. My boyfriend was quick to come right to the hospital as soon as he was off work. I spent the vast majority of my time with him while I was waiting.
During this waiting period I had lots of time to search my symptoms and I didnât want to admit it, but again and again herpes would pop up. I was so scared. I broke down crying numerous times in that room thinking about all the worst that could come out of being diagnosed with herpes. I remembered thinking very vaguely during sex on the 1st about his little lip issue, and I was (still am) so disappointed in myself for not putting the sexual education I have been so blessed to have to use. It started making sense, his cold sore was on his left side, my sores were on my right side. I thought his cold sore had appeared after. Boy was I wrong.
So we got in to see the doctor. Now, I was a virgin before being with my boyfriend. Up until that night I had never had anyone look between my legs other than him. I had a panic attack when the nurse told me to undress and put the gown on. Then I panicked more when I met the MALE doctor. As much as I love to have sex and am pretty comfortable talking about it, I still consider myself a virgin at heart. After I got over crying on my boyfriendâs shoulder and crying on the table and crying during the examination, the doctor said it didnât look like herpes.
Woo hoo! That was all I needed to hear!!
However, he prescribed me medicine for both genital herpes and a staph infection. I didnât think until a day or two after that hospital trip about how short of a time he spent examining and how he didnât swab for any tests.
I took Tuesday off of work due to being up so late, dealing with my new pain, and to get my prescriptions filled. Thankfully the doctor gave me a free note so Iâll get paid. He said at the end of our visit that if things didnât clear up I would need to go to an SRH. Noted.
And guess what? Things didnât clear up, in fact they progressed. Not 24 hours after the ER trip, I started to swell on the right side of my clitoral hood. At first it was minor, I tried to ignore it. Then it got painful. It swelled up even more over night. I couldnât sit or wipe or walk comfortably. So I gave Health Link another call after realizing it wasnât going to magically disappear like I wanted it to, hoping that they would say anything but the H-word. I explained everything to the nurse on Thursday morning. It was a 45 minute phone call, and she had to put me on hold so she could try to figure out what could have been wrong. Again, I was told to go to the SRH. Surprise surprise. So I went to an SRH Iâve been going to since I became sexually active. Itâs fairly quiet and comfortable. One short 5 minute wait later and I am discussing my symptoms with a nurse, and after that I was put into the examination room (with the boyfriend by my side the entire time) with the doctor.
This examination was much easier. Iâm not sure if it was because I had already had my panic attack about having herpes, or if it was because it was a woman, or if it was thanks to already feeling violated and like I had nothing to lose, or if it was because I was in a more secure environment. I didnât cry, not even a pout. She was very normal and didnât make me feel like I had done anything wrong (not that the ER doc did, but I noticed a lot more care from her). She said it did look like herpes and she did all the swabs and tests needed. I had one cut-like sore near the bottom of the opening of my vagina. It was long and one of the most sensitive sores. It caused an extreme amount of pain when opening my legs and peeing. She swabbed the length of it with a dry cotton swab with no warning. That one really fucking hurt, plus after the visit the sore had been irritated and worsened the pain when sitting.
After the physical exam, I sat up and me, her, and my boyfriend had a chat about what would happen next. I told her I had taken progressive pictures of the sores since the first one I had discovered 4 days prior. She looked at them and immediately identified it as herpes. Undoubtedly it was not what I wanted to hear, but I wasnât surprised. Once the swelling begun after I started the pills the 1st doctor gave me, I knew it had to be herpes. I just wasnât going to be that lucky.
So, here we are. One whole day into an official diagnosis. Everything that is the worst has run through my head. Iâm happy Iâve found that there is a rather large and very supportive community here on Tumblr. Hearing these peopleâs stories and reading heir blogs has already helped me immensely.
I donât know what will come of this blog. I want to keep it separate from my personal blog, as there is a lot of people that I know and there are people following my other blog who I know in real life. Iâd prefer those around me to not know whatâs going on in my sexual life. I want to share and hear stories and ask and answer questions and support and be supported here.
