It was 1990. I was 25 years old and I didn’t think my life could get any worse. I had just finished college and my financial situation was worse than dire. The country was in the midst of an economic depression. A long dismal winter had just given up the ghost and to top it all off I was in the middle of a horrific break-up with a vengeful girlfriend.

 

Of course, it was pathetically naive of me to think that life couldn’t get any worse, and life wasted no time proving that fact. My relationship with this beautiful, vivacious, urbane woman had begun most promisingly. We had courted very romantically by letter and phone for six months before ever getting together. I was still at University when we first met and we were separated by a distance of about 1200 miles. We started off as friends and the love between us grew slowly with all the optimism and passion we expected. Sadly, what was so wonderful by distance was a nightmare up close. When my classes ended and I flew down to move in with her, it took no time at all for things to go very, very wrong. Our sex life was hot despite the fact she told me she had herpes. She said that she could tell when she was getting an outbreak and as long as we refrained from having sex at those times, it was cool for us to have a natural unprotected sex life. I believed her, and she certainly sincerely believed this to be the case. She had only very recently gotten the disease herself from a man she had casually slept with who didn’t tell her he was infected.

 

We got along in bed much better than we ever did out of bed; the tall beautiful fair-skinned princess, and her tall Black dread-locked artist. The sad fact was that we didn’t get along at all. Instead of creating harmony, we created war. And I must say that I am to blame for much it. I was at a time in my life where my tolerance for certain things was very low. I was very angry about how the world was treating me and I certainly didn’t enjoy the treatment I was receiving from my beloved. But, I definitely contributed more than my fair share to the discord. Once we were in the same space together, the chemistry between us was bad, bad, bad. The relationship ended after a mercifully short time leaving us scattered, raw and dumbfounded.  

 

Two days after the notorious breakup, we were reunited by a particularly cruel twist of fate. Less than 48 hours after swearing I would never see her again, was sitting beside her in the waiting room of a hospital. She was looking at me with a combination of guilt, sadness and white-hot enmity. I didn’t know how to feel or what to say to her. I was floating around out in space trying to get a grip on the situation.

 

You see dear readers, I was in the midst of what I would later find out to be my first herpes outbreak. It had started out as an itchy irritation on my foreskin, but had quickly turned into a raging swelling colony of tiny lesions. I was overwhelmed by the pain and all the flu-like symptoms typical of first outbreaks. I had no idea what was happening to me. I do remember hoping at the time that it was anything but herpes or AIDS. I even considered syphilis or gonorrhea to be preferable. The doctors said they couldn’t tell what it was that I had, and insisted that my ex-girlfriend of two days come in with me, so we could both be tested at the same time.

 

Even though we both hated each other at the time, I remember feeling sorry for her. I knew even then that if it proved true, that she had given herpes to me, she would be devastated. So there we were, with all those mixed emotions dreading the worst and hoping for the best.

 

The doctors tormented us by making us wait about a week before the test results would be back. They had taken a swab of my lesions and sent it off somewhere. When the phone call eventually came in, the news was good. I had tested negative for herpes. The doctors said they still didn’t know what it was that I had, that possibly it was just an infection of my foreskin from having rough sex. I was over the moon with relief and wasted no time in calling her to tell her the good news. For one brief moment, we actually had something positive to share together. That test result was a big reprieve for both of us. Sadly and ironically, it turned out only to be a reprieve for one of us.

 

To her credit, she had been upfront with me. At the time, I really had no idea what the implications and risks were. I was however, prepared to take the risk. I just had no idea that this would literally be a very ironic last interaction in what had probably been the worst relationship both of us would ever have in our lives.

I went on with my life and forgot all about herpes. But herpes didn’t forget about me, not for a second.

I got another outbreak two months later and then another one a month later. The mysterious outbreaks settled down for a time but would always come back. I still couldn’t get a diagnosis from the doctors. Two years later, I couldn’t take it anymore and stormed into a different hospital demanding to know what was wrong with me. At this hospital, the doctors were more competent and took one look at my penis and told me that it was obvious that I had herpes. They confirmed this with their own cotton swab test. There were no blood tests for herpes available in Canada at this point in history. They told me that false negatives were common for herpes because if there wasn’t enough virus present on the skin at the time of the test, you would get a negative result even though you had herpes. They told me there was nothing they could do for me, and that I would have this disease for life and that my sex life would never be the same.  

 

I wanted to call my ex-love and blast her for what had happened. I didn’t have the heart to throw this in her face. So I never told her that she gave me herpes.  

 

 

I felt cursed like some Old Testament character. Sure I had been an asshole, not unlike most men my age, but I had definitely not been enough of an asshole to deserve to be punished by the Gods this way. This was definitely overkill in all meanings of the word.

 

 

Yes, I was now one of them. I had no real idea of what being one of them really meant. To find out, would take years and many experiences, both liberating and devastating.

The Doctors in their white lab coats are NOT going to save you!

Why am I telling you all of this?

by Christopher Scipio