That shit was nothing.
I recently had a bit of a rash on my belt line. Whatever, no big deal. But I've been seeing this girl that I actually like and it might have freaked her out so I decided the best course of action would be to get a doctor to look at it and get some sweet ass rash cream. Because, you know, when you work construction, you sometimes get a rash where your tool belt meets the buckle of your pants belt. Or at least I do. Or at least I thought.
"That's herpes"
Seemed kinda callous. Worst bedside manner ever.
"You sure?"
And that's when the guy realized I didn't have herpes...previously. So he asked me some questions. "Is it itchy?" No, it hurts. Like a friction burn. "Is it anywhere else?" No, just there. Where my belt digs in. "How many sexual partners you have?" (English wasn't his first language). What, like right now, or in total? Now, one ongoing. In total, fuck me, I don't even know. "Have you had any flu like symptoms recently? " No. And then I noticed the guy on his iPhone as he was filling out whatever sheet was on the clipboard and just kind of blacked out again.
So, they do a swab test and send it to the lab. The next week was kind of fucked as I was trying to come to grips with two things:
1.) Possible herpes
2.) How does such an assclown become a doctor? Like, you need a certain type of personality for that shit and that guy should have been weeded out in first year.
I went about the week as per usual. The rash ended up being exactly like a friction burn. Exactly. Except it wasn't. It was totally herpes.
I got the test results back yesterday. The second doctor I saw had a far better bedside manner and was pretty awesome in general. Here's a very scientific picture of where it is:
As the picture so clearly illustrates, it's not actually on my junk. It's like half way between my junk and my belt line...where the bottom of a belt buckle would fall. This doctor went out of his way to point out that it was a shitty roll of the dice in this case: It doesn't matter if I was wearing condoms: they don't go up to your waist. So, how does this kind of thing go down? Well, a break in the skin. From an aforementioned belt buckle digging in, from shaving in the area, ingrown hair, or from whatever. The guy then cited the stats on herpes. A fucking lot of people have it, and a lot of people don't know they have it. AND type 1 (traditionally oral) and type II (genital) aren't really confined to specific areas. They fucking swap, so motherfuckers are out there with type 1 on their junk and type II on their lips. Either way, it was a shitty roll of the dice and there was pretty much nothing I could have done.
I talked to the chick I was seeing at the time, being all like "Hey...maybe go get checked out. I might have gotten this from you". She was amazingly cool about it and I'm still kind of seeing her. I say "kind of" because I wouldn't be surprised if it was more of a case of her being understanding and thinking "Well, I don't want this guy to go kill himself. I'll let him down easy once it's all set in". That's probably the worst part because I actually like this girl quite a bit, which is pretty unusual for me.
So, where do I go from here? Well, it's not that big of a deal, but it's tough. I mean, the fact that it's not on my lips or my junk is either the best or worst part about it. See, the shit usually only comes back in the spot where it initially started. And it's GENERALLY not contagious when it's not on the surface. I don't know if it's because the skin is different or whatever, but it never got to that gross open sore/whatever stage that people talk about with cold sores/ g-herpes. Literally more like a friction burn or maybe even a bit like a chem burn. Small blisters, and then healing. The physical aspect isn't really anything that traumatizing, and I'm sure far less painful than actually having a cold sore on your lip....it's just like chaffing. The shit side is the social stigma. I mean, I'm not a piece of shit so I'm going to have to tell girls that this is going on before sex. Every time. Whether it's there or not (it's not always recurring and hopefully it doesn't come back). If I got, say, lip cold sores, it wouldn't be an issue but there's a certain stigma associated with this shit anywhere else on your body (and trust me, I'm happier with where it is than on my lip). So, casual hook ups...probably out.
I've been kinda wrestling with the idea of telling everyone I know or doing the usual and keeping it under wraps and I'm still not sure. Like I said before; shitty roll of the dice. I don't feel any shame or anything.
And that's that. Y'all be careful out there because it's a dangerous game we play. All in, I'm not that bad off. Shit's not on my junk or my lip, and if it wasn't that bad the first time (typically by far the worst), then it's hopefully either not going to come back or won't be bad at all. It was out of my hands and fuck, it's not the HIV. Plus, I've slept with a lot of girls, I might as well leave some for the rest of you. I'm determined to find a way to turn it into something positive, or at least trick myself into doing so. I'm pretty sure I'm going to walk out of this with huge arms and awesome abs. Fuck, who am I kidding, I already have that shit on lockdown.
