I feel like I've fucked up.
So Mrs. Lego and I hooked up about 3 years ago. I didn't really know anything about her except she was American and I'd never made out with an American before. Hey, that sounds shallow, but I was 22 and drunk. We hooked up and the more I found out about her, the more I liked her. Less shallow. Sure, she wasn't perfect, but I enjoyed being with her. But then she had to go back to America and there was no way we could be together for 2 years. I thought that if I said I wanted to stay together, she'd cheat on me or at least it'd breed so much resentment she'd eventually split up with me, so I said I wanted to be in an open relationship. Except I didn't. And by the time I got the balls to tell her I didn't, she was fucking someone else.
That really hurt.
2.5 years pass and she suddenly appears in London saying she wants to get back together. She says she's learnt what love is, and I had it, and she wanted it. I wanted to get back together too. I thought it'd be a way to undo some of the pain from last time. So we hook up and I cautiously start to fall in love with her again. I decide she's the person I want to give my virginity to, but I wonder if actually I just wanted to lose my virginity and she was there. Whatever, I did it. And we did it a lot for about a week.
So she sends me a text this week. "My cervix is sick :<" She's been to the gyno and she's had an abnormal pap smear. It could be nothing, but they take a biopsy. It's not nothing. She has moderate displasia. It's the appearance of pre-cancerous cells in the cervix. It's not cancer, but it can become it. It's caused by HPV, which is an STD. She got it from one of the 15 or so people she slept with in the 2 years since we first got together. One of the stream of people she slept with in the search for true love, and one of the many meaningless hook-ups that stabs my heart and makes me feel depressed every time I think about it.
So she doesn't have cervical cancer. But she has HPV. 50%+ of women have HPV at some point in life. That doesn't make things feel much better. I spent a lot of this evening freaking out about the statistic that 90%+ of people who have cervical cancer also have a high-risk strain of HPV. I was worried about what it meant for her and what it meant for anyone else I have sex with in the future. Having read into it a little but more, I realise that now that it's manifested itself, there's a chance it'll go away of its own accord and we can get on with our lives, together or otherwise.
So there it is like a shadow in front of me. I feel a bit stupid about the whole thing. I mean, geez, I was 24. I knew she'd slept with a lot of guys and yet I took her word for it when she said she was clean. I guess it says something that I trusted her.
I'm not quite sure how long this HPV fiasco will go on for, but hopefully not too long. It's not HIV, thank fuck, but it's still not great. It certainly brought home what it must've felt like in the 70s/80s to suddenly realise you'd got it and not really know anything about it. Thank God for the internet.
So Mrs. Lego and I hooked up about 3 years ago. I didn't really know anything about her except she was American and I'd never made out with an American before. Hey, that sounds shallow, but I was 22 and drunk. We hooked up and the more I found out about her, the more I liked her. Less shallow. Sure, she wasn't perfect, but I enjoyed being with her. But then she had to go back to America and there was no way we could be together for 2 years. I thought that if I said I wanted to stay together, she'd cheat on me or at least it'd breed so much resentment she'd eventually split up with me, so I said I wanted to be in an open relationship. Except I didn't. And by the time I got the balls to tell her I didn't, she was fucking someone else.
That really hurt.
2.5 years pass and she suddenly appears in London saying she wants to get back together. She says she's learnt what love is, and I had it, and she wanted it. I wanted to get back together too. I thought it'd be a way to undo some of the pain from last time. So we hook up and I cautiously start to fall in love with her again. I decide she's the person I want to give my virginity to, but I wonder if actually I just wanted to lose my virginity and she was there. Whatever, I did it. And we did it a lot for about a week.
So she sends me a text this week. "My cervix is sick :<" She's been to the gyno and she's had an abnormal pap smear. It could be nothing, but they take a biopsy. It's not nothing. She has moderate displasia. It's the appearance of pre-cancerous cells in the cervix. It's not cancer, but it can become it. It's caused by HPV, which is an STD. She got it from one of the 15 or so people she slept with in the 2 years since we first got together. One of the stream of people she slept with in the search for true love, and one of the many meaningless hook-ups that stabs my heart and makes me feel depressed every time I think about it.
So she doesn't have cervical cancer. But she has HPV. 50%+ of women have HPV at some point in life. That doesn't make things feel much better. I spent a lot of this evening freaking out about the statistic that 90%+ of people who have cervical cancer also have a high-risk strain of HPV. I was worried about what it meant for her and what it meant for anyone else I have sex with in the future. Having read into it a little but more, I realise that now that it's manifested itself, there's a chance it'll go away of its own accord and we can get on with our lives, together or otherwise.
So there it is like a shadow in front of me. I feel a bit stupid about the whole thing. I mean, geez, I was 24. I knew she'd slept with a lot of guys and yet I took her word for it when she said she was clean. I guess it says something that I trusted her.
I'm not quite sure how long this HPV fiasco will go on for, but hopefully not too long. It's not HIV, thank fuck, but it's still not great. It certainly brought home what it must've felt like in the 70s/80s to suddenly realise you'd got it and not really know anything about it. Thank God for the internet.