STD

When a man gets an STD, usually there are some symptoms. Burning, itching, etc. When woman gets one, often times there is nothing. They can go on for months or years without knowing anything is wrong.

For me, it all started with a burning when I wiped and a funny smell to my urine. I went to the doctor thinking I had a UTI. They ran a couple of tests and just to be safe did some STD tests. At the time I just went along with it. Didn't think anything of it.

Then I got the call. The one that tells you that you have positive proof that the one you are with has been unfaithful. I remember my mind grasping to try to understand it. Questioning the doctor on how I could have gotten it. Poor woman probably was just shaking her head, wondering how I could be so naive as she explained to me that no, I couldn't have gotten it from a toilet seat. It came from sex with someone. Someone who was supposed to be sleeping only with me.

When I hung up the phone I cried. Then I called him. I remember it like it was yesterday screaming into the phone at him that he had given my chlamydia while I drove the 30 minutes from my place to his place to confront him in person.

After I got there some words were exchanged but really, at that point, what can you do. I remember going out to his driveway, sitting in my vehicle and just sobbing. Wishing for all the world I could make the hurting stop. At some point he called me, asked me what the heck I was still doing in his driveway. Basically told me to leave.

This man, the one I thought I loved, was essentially telling me that my pain meant nothing. That it was time for me to go now. So I left, went back to college with a heavy heart.

As it turns out, for him all the symptoms were there but he was just too afraid to tell me so he waited. Hoping it would just go away. For him it took a course of antibiotics. For me it took much much more.

I battled a raging infection that would not go away for over two months. I was on round after round of antibiotics. Once a day, twice a day, three times a day. Finally two days before Christmas the doctors tell me the only option left is IV antibiotics. I am admitted into the hospital on December 22nd and spend the next two days hooked up to really strong antibiotics in an effort to kick what had not turned into PID.

When it was all over, when the infection finally left my body I was left with one thing. The knowledge that if the infection had damaged my tubes I may never be able to have children. The one and only thing I KNEW I wanted from my future and now, I was uncertain if it would ever happen.