Difficult Test

Guess what I was doing at 8:20 today? Standing outside a clinic to wait for it to open in order to get tested for STIs. Have I been cheating on MrMan5.5? Nope, I'm just finally being somewhat responsible for things I have done in the past.

Despite having sex with someone who was at the same time sleeping with others, I never thought to get myself checked. I didn't show any of the symptoms of any STIs, so I just assumed that I was clean. Well, I was wrong. Graham told me that you can often carry an STI without showing symptoms of it yourself, and spread it to your partner. So yeah, it is a bit late to get checked now, as you've probably guessed, MrMan5.5 and I have had sex already. But Graham told me that there are some STIs that can cause you to become infertile, which is also backed up by the CDC.

Chlamydia and gonorrhea are important preventable causes of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) and infertility. Untreated, about 10-15% of women with chlamydia will develop PID. Chlamydia can also cause fallopian tube infection without any symptoms. PID and “silent” infection in the upper genital tract may cause permanent damage to the fallopian tubes, uterus, and surrounding tissues, which can lead to infertility.

So it's too late to protect MrMan5.5 from getting anything that I have, but I thought since we are getting married soon, I wanted him to know whether I had anything that may cause issues down the line if we ever want to have children. It only seems fair, right? Although I told him about this, and he said that it's not a big deal to him whether we have kids or not, but I still feel compelled to let him make an informed decision before we tie the knot.

If you don't want to hear about my adventure at the clinic, stop reading now!

The clinic doesn't take appointments, so they recommended getting in early to avoid having to wait for a long time. I went inside, filled in a form with my personal details, and then filled in a survey about my sexual and drug history. I feel like my responses were a bit misleading, as the questions only asked about the past 12 months. I have only had a single partner in the past 12 months, and haven't shown any symptoms of STIs. I also don't use any intravenous drugs. I was told that I was in a low-risk category, but I don't know if that's accurate given my history. Oh well.

After that, I went to see a triage nurse, who asked me a couple more questions and then it was back to the waiting room to be seen by a doctor. I do like their system for calling people though. To keep it somewhat anonymous, rather than calling people by their full names, they say name and month of birth, "e.g. Michael, born in June." I don't know what they do when there are two Michaels that were born in June, but I guess they sort that out if it ever happens, I imagine it's pretty unlikely though.

There were posters everywhere saying that it's likely that you'll need to give a urine sample, so don't pee unless the nurse or doctor tells you that you can. I peed before going to the clinic, so I was dry! I spent most of my time while waiting chugging water from the water cooler in the hopes that I'd be able to pee again soon.

I went in to see the doctor, and took the lower part of my clothes off, lay on a bed, put my feet in these stirrup things, and spread my legs. He put a speculum inside me and took a swab. If that sounds painful, it's because it is! He stuck something inside me, and opened it up like a pair of tongs. It doesn't help when they tell you to relax while doing it, because the pain makes it difficult to relax. Getting a pap smear was worse though. I told him that I didn't need to pee anytime soon, and so if he needed a urine sample, I'd probably be a while. He said that he wasn't going to ask me to give him one, as they only use it to test for chlamydia and gonorrhea, but after reading the CDC post, those are the two that I wanted to screen for! :( I think they may have done that when I got my pap smear done though, I don't remember, though I do remember the tests coming back negative.

After that, I went in for a blood test. The room they had for blood tests was really cool, it had a Where's Wally poster on the wall, so instead of watching the nurse draw blood from you, you focus on finding Wally. The whole thing was over faster than I thought. I didn't manage to find Wally though.

Then it was all over! Was pretty quick, I think I was out of there in 30 minutes. Now that I've actually done it, I'm not entirely sure what I was so afraid of. Well, that's not entirely true, I know what I was afraid of, I was afraid of a positive result coming back. But now I'd rather take comfort in the truth, than have this worry come up every now and again. It's happened a few times, that people around me have talked about getting tested, and each time I thought to myself that I should really go, but I never manage to push myself into doing it. I'm glad I have though. Positive or negative, I am going to deal with the consequences of my actions.

Oh, and if you are thinking of going, here are some tips that a friend told me:

• Go a little bit after they just open, so you don't have to wait as long
• Drink water before you go, so that you can pee if you need to
• If you find it difficult to talk to the doctor about personal things, go into "clinician mode" and pretend that you are talking about someone else, such as a close friend.
• Bring something to do, because even if you do manage to go at a good time, it's likely that you'll still have to wait
• The one I went to was free, so if you are short on money, it is worth Googling to see what options you have in your area. They also didn't ask me to verify any of the details that I gave them, so perhaps if you are worried about being "in the system" it might be worth checking out one of these free clinics. The nurses and the doctor were really nice, there was no judgement about anything - I guess they've seen a lot. 

They told me that they will call me if anything comes back positive, but otherwise, I will have to call them to find out my results, which will be available in a week. I don't think I've ever been this nervous about getting test results before.

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I forgot to post something new that I learned yesterday, even though I did learn something, so I will do two today.

There is a website called FlyLady.net that aims to teach you how to keep a better home (ignoring the colour scheme, I am told that it can be used by someone of any gender).

The address of Monaco station is damn hard to Google for, but here it is in Google maps. ~_~