Five days of horror

It all started on Thursday. My girlfriend went for a routine gynecological checkup. Only that it didn’t turn out to be so “routine”. The doctor discovered genital warts and a very dangerous looking lesion on her cervix. He ordered an immediate pap test to determine the nature of this lesion, and mentioned that dreaded “C” word (cancer). What followed for both of us were five days of horror. Five days of waiting for those damn results. Five days of tossing and turning in bed not being able to sleep. Five days of spending endless hours online trying to read everything available on cervical cancer. Five days of looking at cancer images and freaking out.

And for me these were five days of realizing that my girlfriend may have cancer because of me. I read all about the HPV virus, the virus which is known to trigger cervical cancer. I learnt that HPV is sexually transmitted. I learnt that HPV causes those genital warts. I learnt that women who have many partners or whose partners had many partners are at greatest risk. I learnt that condoms do not provide 100% protection against the HPV virus. My sex addict past came back to haunt me. Over the years I had been with all these prostitutes, who knows what I may had contracted from them. And who knows what I passed on to my girlfriend.

The tests came out yesterday. We breathed a huge sigh of relief. There was no incidence of cancerous cells. However the results did show the existence of several abnormalities and infections. For me this was a sharp reminder of the consequences of my destructive past. What for me seemed to be a cheap thrill, put other people’s lives at risk.

I’m reaching out to all those people who may have been exposed to HPV. Get yourself tested for STD’s. And to all you women, whether you are sex addicts, partners of addicts, or prostitutes do regular pap tests. Spread the word. You could save lives.

~ by exaddict on September 24, 2008.