By: Michaella
I have very frequently heard the phrase, “My life is over…”, but never realized the true meaning behind it until I heard the sentence, “You have herpes”, come from my doctor’s mouth last year. I remember getting into my car at the doctor’s office, and then arriving at home…but do not remember a second of the fifteen-minute drive home. I was in shock. I have what? How? From who? Is this forever? What does this mean for my sex life? Will I even have a future sex life? Will I ever get married? Can I ever have kids? Is childbirth still safe? Who will love me? How can I tell my boyfriend? Will he break up with me?
I can honestly say that this was the worst day (which in reality, turned into a month by the time all of the test results came back), of my life. I felt so lost; as if no one else in this entire world had ever been in my boat, while in reality, an astounding one out of five women ages 14 to 49 have genital herpes. What did I do next? Well, after the shock comatose feeling wore off (about 3 days, 5 bags of Lays, and two “sick” days of work later), I began to educate myself.
I read articles. Hundreds of articles. I read books. I informed myself. What did I gather? Life changing information. I learned that the majority of the time, the common “swab” testing for herpes comes back negative, even if you DO have herpes. So of course, when my swab test came back negative, I didn’t exactly jump up and down with excitement. However, because of the information I had gathered on the subject, I learned that a second test could be done- a blood test. Of course, I jumped right on this and went to get this done. Contrary to my original concerns, my boyfriend was completely understanding of the situation (even though we had been together for less than four months), and he went with me to Planned Parenthood to get the blood test as well, as this facility offers free assistance to those without insurance. (I had insurance through Kaiser, which is where I got the original “diagnosis”.)
Long story short, the blood test came back negative, as well as several other screenings, and almost a year later I am finally at ease with accepting the fact that I do not have a serious sexually transmitted disease. Do I regret the experience? Not at all. How could I be regretful? I have learned so much about my body, the medical world’s way of “diagnosing” its patients, and also a lot about the kind of human being my boyfriend is. I have learned to be comfortable with “screening” myself for abnormalities “down there”, so that I know when something isn’t quite right. I have learned that our medical offices do not take into account their patients’ mental health when related to issues such as these.
Who tells someone that they have a life-changing STD, and then sends them on their merry way to fill their 50 pill prescription without so much as a pamphlet of information on the disease? Who even prescribes a 50 pill tablet to begin with to a patient that doesn’t even need them! How harmful are these drugs on our body if they have nothing to “fight” against?
I learned that true, healthy relationships can exist. I knew the moment I fell in love with my boyfriend when I told him that I had herpes and he told me it didn’t matter and that “we” would make it through it. I knew I loved him when he went with me to get tested as well.
How can I not look at this experience as a positive one? I am a strong believer in the saying “things are meant to be”. It is a little discouraging, however, that there are a lot of other young women going through similar experiences all over the country, and who may not have done the extra research and gotten the extra tests done, other than the “physical diagnosis”. There very well be many young women who were correctly diagnosed with herpes, or other STDs, and who were sent off without any information or answers to their questions. It is our obligation as an informed and educated society to share our information with those who most need it. We also need to further educate our youth so that they know the proper precaution to take regarding protection in the bedroom so that they do not ever find themselves in this predicament. NO ONE should have to go through that experience alone.
W T F ! 
minarinko
November 15, 2011
Thank you for sharing your experience. I have kinda same experience and I do understand how you felt at the time…When I had this experience, I noticed that I am the only one who can protect my body and take care of it. Since I notice it, I tried to take care of my body more than before. Women’s body are really sensitive and once you get disease, it might effect your pregnancy. This is really important topic especially for young girls who don’t really know about those issues.
Taylor
November 8, 2011
I think that it is great that you are able to share this experience with everyone because I feel that this is a great example as to why women should fight for different tests when it comes to their health, especially when talking about STD’s. Like you, I had a similar experience. I actually went to the school clinic (which turns out to be horrible!!) and they told me that I had HPV so bad that I needed to go to my doctor fast because it was likely to turn into cervix cancer if I didn’t get treatment for it. They showed me a picture of a normal cervix and what my supposedly looked like. I ended up going to my OBGYN and, after multiple tests and weeks of waiting to hear the results, told me that this was not true and that my cervix was completely normal and that there was nothing I needed to worry about. This is just another example of why it is so important to take the results you get one step further. Thanks again for your story!!
B
November 8, 2011
Thanks for sharing such a personal experience! So many women are terrified to go to the “girl” doctor and this is on of the reasons why. STD’s are a very scary thing for someone to have to worry about but I like that you did your own research which is what many of us should be doing. You’re article was written so well!
Danny
November 8, 2011
I have to say, the statistics with this are shocking, even with all the little sex education young teens get. As a society our youth has to be informed of all this, and additionally made aware of other methods of protection rather than just no sex. period. ever. I mean get real.
JR
November 7, 2011
Thank you for sharing your story, Michaella. Someone very close to me has gone through a very similar situation like yours. Even though it didn’t affect me directly, I was just as hurt and angry that something like that happened to her. Luckily, like you, she has a supportive boyfriends. But since she and I hardly talk about her situation, I’m not sure where she stands right now. I hope that she will eventually have her happy ending 🙂
HIH
November 7, 2011
I completely agree, the amount and quality of information about STI’s is very limited within the youth community. I believe the reason why the amounts of infected women and men is so high is due to a lack of information available. People cannot protect themselves if they dont know what they have to protect themselves against and how to do it. Im glad this ended up being a life changing experience for you!
ngiyu002
November 6, 2011
I truly thank you Michaela for sharing this experience. Many people after being diagnosed with any STD would feel like life is ending, this is it! You felt that way somehow as a normal human being but you stood up for further diagnosis, that’s the part i like. Youth are not getting educated seriously about STD. Anyone doesn’t feel like it might happen to her or him. But guess what? It might happen to anyone. One upsetting part is the pills. We are being given so many pills that we don’t even need, and those pills are harming our bodies. Doctor need to take time to really explain about stuff like this since this kind of desease can give a really bad distress to anyone.
thestudent
November 6, 2011
i totally agree with u on educating youth on this kind of subject. People may think that they don’t need to know such information because they are too young and that it’s not appropriate for them to learn about. But really, they need to be educated with the right information so that they will know what to expect.
Natalie Wilson
November 5, 2011
Such an important topic! There is such a lack of information about sti’s (as yournpost beautifully documents) – couple this with all the silence and social stigma surrounding them, and what do you get? Not a good picture, especially when, as you note, the medical establishment is far from stellar in it’s approach. I am reminded of a great book by a friend and colleague about the topic, Adina Knack, entitled Damaged. I highly recommend it!
ravenyub
November 5, 2011
Michaella,
I am truly sorry to hear about your situation. I couldn’t agree more with you about how some women don’t truly know that a doctor’s diagnosis could be wrong. I feel that we (micro level) have been trained to accept and not question what the macro level (insitiutions, media, schools, education, parents, culture, doctors, etc.) tells us. Society really does need to change this, like you said you have insurance in which you pay for, they should do everything in their power to make sure women especially get the right diagnosis. These women who probably don’t take the time and research this different STIs might be taking very dangerous medication, that they might not even need. For now it seems like the micro level must rebell against the macro in order for the macro level to teach us the right things (just my opinions).