You may not want to read this

I’m going to share some intimate medical and marital information now. I realize that not everyone wants to hear this from others so you can skip the rest of this entry if you prefer. I’m normally not too much of an exhibitionist with my private life. I do know that some things I’ve been through have been made much more mentally manageable when I hear of other people’s attitudes they were able to present while going through harsh times. So here we go. My pap test was abnormal and there was a suspicious lump in each breast. Great. I was angry. I was a little scared but at the core I was angry at the world. Why this year? Why not last year or next year? Why now when so much is hanging on it? Why me?

Here’s a little background. Doug wanted to become a father. I had no interest in motherhood. We foolishly married knowing this about each other. It came to a head one fall. We argued. The first and last argument we have ever had. I think I even remember offering through tears to step aside if he wanted someone else. We went round and round for hours and were exhausted. Finally he suggested separating (not a real separation, just for the afternoon). I didn’t like the idea of parting during such a vulnerable time. So I found us a project to do together. We wrapped Christmas presents that we had stockpiled throughout the year. This took us a couple of hours, distracted us and settled our minds. The compromise we reached, by the way, was I would go off birth control for a year to see what happened. If unemployment and the application process to the Foreign Service was Doug’s longest year, this was mine.

I tell you that intimate story to continue telling of my emotions during the medical screening. I prayed that I would be healthy, not for selfish reasons but because I had already had a hand in preventing one of Doug’s dreams from coming true and I did not want to stand in the way of this one.

It turned out that I was diagnosed with what is considered a sexually transmitted disease. I was shocked. I was disgusted. I am faithful to Doug. Doug is faithful to me. I was told that it can lie dormant for years blah blah blah. I was also told that I likely got it from Doug. That I couldn’t believe. I may have contracted it from the #*!!%*& piece of &&*(^$# who raped me on my 40th birthday. I was even told that it can be transferred by a toilet seat. A toilet seat!?!?!? I found that one really hard to believe. But listen to this: I have a theory. For those readers who gross out easily, skip to the next paragraph now. Okay, ye strong-minded readers, hear this. I think that these automatically flushing toilets need to be outlawed and removed from all public bathrooms. Just two days ago I sat down to winky-tink and before I even began, it flushed - spraying me where I did not want to be sprayed (not that there is anywhere I’d accept being sprayed by a toilet). I stood up halfway, waited, sat back down and relieved myself. As I stood up, it flushed again. It flushed a third time while I was washing my hands! (No one else was in the bathroom.) I’m not a doctor, scientist, biologist or whatever one should be to spout such opinions but I’m convinced that germs live in toilet bowl water and that is one way disease can be spread. I did see a medical show that warned women to stand before flushing to avoid risk of gastrointestinal something-or-another. So it stands to reason that HPV, VD – who knows what - gonorrhea or other diseases of that sort could be spread the same way. I don’t know for sure. I’m not a doctor; I only play one on line.