Diagnosis Glitter

I am disgusting.

I am also terrified of running out of tissues.

keepyourboehneroutofmyuterus:

maehemsez:

I had an abortion.

I’m not going to tell you how old I was when I had it.

I’m not going to tell you what the circumstances around the pregnancy were.

I’m not going to tell you whether birth control was used or not.

I’m not going to tell you whether it was a wanted or an unwanted pregnancy.

I’m not going to tell you how far along the pregnancy was.

I’m not going to tell you whether there was a genetic abnormality, or whether my life was endangered by the pregnancy.

I’m not going to tell you any of those things because I think answering those questions, creating the situation from which my experience unfolds offers someone, everyone, anyone, the chance to say, “She deserved to access abortion,” or “How dare she get pregnant and have an abortion,” or find some pity in their heart for whatever piece of my situation offers them the opportunity to justify their judgment, or their sense of false safety.

When I was in high school (so many years ago) we had a speaker come to talk with us about HIV and AIDS. He told us about what living with AIDS was like. What it was like to defecate in his bed at 3am and be unable to move by himself and having to call for his parents to come clean him. To live with the stares that people gave him when they saw the sores on his arms. To be asked, over and over and over, “Well, how did you contract the disease?” He said it was a question he never answered. Because the answer would muddy his message with pity or feelings of false safety. How he contracted the disease was irrelevant to the fact that he had it.

This is how I feel about my abortion. None of the, “How did it happen?” matters. It’s irrelevant.

What matters is that I was able to access abortion when I needed to. When I wanted to. When I was pregnant and had the need to no longer be pregnant. When I was desperate to not be pregnant.

I walked past anti-choice protestors with their signs, and listened to their shouting, “Don’t do this! Think of your baby! We’re praying for you!” I pushed past them as they blocked the sidewalk.

The facility that did the abortion had, what I’ve come to understand is, an abortion doula. She held my hand, asked me if I was okay. If I needed anything. She tucked the stray hairs from my ponytail behind my ear and told me that everything was going to be all right.

When it was over, I threw up.

I have never regretted my abortion. For a long time I didn’t talk about it. In fact, I’m only just beginning to talk about it. I’ve always felt that my experience was just that, my experience and didn’t need to be shared. (I will admit, I did fear negative repercussion. I feared facing hostile judgement.) But I’m learning that things we don’t talk about – abortion, miscarriage…are things that we NEED to talk about. *I* need to pipe up when I hear someone struggling and say, “I’ve had this experience, too. This was how it went for me.”

Silence equals shame. And I am not ashamed.

This is beautiful. 

I’m proud to count maehemsez as a good friend. 

This is mostly a health update.

The valavyclovir took care of the outbreak just fine. I can still sorta feel hard bumps below the surface in one place, and I’ve had outbreak sympotms there before, so I wonder if it isn’t a little scarred.

Over Memorial Day weekend I hit the beach for a day, and thought I did a good job with the sunscreen, but burned from the knees down — probably from walking around the boardwalk in a skirt, between heavily-sunscreened periods of lying on the beach. Serious case of lobster leg. Not bad enough to blister, thank goodness, but I was taking cool showers for a few days. Sorry, legs. Also, the time in the sun didn’t cause any further outbreak symptoms (was still on the pills as of that morning), so that’s good. The next day I jumped in a hot tub with friends and had to sit weirdly in the corner with just the bottom halves of my legs out of the water.

In other health news, I’m battling a mild sinus infection. The boyfriend had a cold that lasted over a week, which means it was a doozy. Normally he fights things off in literally two days, and it makes me more than just a little jealous. Far as I can tell, I’ve caught super mild versions of it from him twice — the first in the form of a sore lump in my throat when I swallowed that lasted maybe 4 days, and now as stuffiness that’s worse at night when I’m trying to sleep and some post nasal drip that makes my throat just a bit husky. Sexy.

Even weirder, I’ve been collecting these little itchy, red spots all over the place for the last week or so. First I had a few on my right boob — and have caught myself digging into my bra in public to itch them — and then a few down my side and onto my hip, all on my right side. One on my left forearm this morning. At the same time, I’ve had strange little vesicles (tiny blisters) in various places. They look like poison ivy bwebs, but only one or two at a time. One on my shoulder, which I popped and it went away. One on my ankle, same thing. What might have been one on my neck, but I can’t be sure because I can’t see it properly. One on the top of my right pointer finger, which was annoyingly painful to touch and almost a little itchy. I popped it and it’s better, but it immediately refilled and it’s still there days later. And now, one on the meaty part of my right thumb where it becomes the palm of my hand. It looks like two pin-sized fluid bubbles right next to each other, pretty deep, and they hurt a little when touched.

I’ve google searched all kinds of things that it might be: bites from a flea, spider, bed bugs; dyshidrotic eczema; herpetic whitlow (herpes virus infecting your skin, which dentists often contract from treating people with oral herpes). Conclusion: I have no fucking clue what it is, but dear god a lot of disgusting things happen to people’s hands. Google image search is not your friend. Also, the pictures I saw of pretty much every condition I researched were of, I’m sure, worst case scenarios. After contracting genital herpes myself, I learned not to trust the photos on the interwebz, because if my outbreaks were ever anything like the ones in the pictures, I’d have chopped off the bottom half of my body long ago. Or at least been in the hospital.

Guys, I think I have a really mild case of My Body Is Falling Apart.

Anonymous asked: do you have herpes? i have type 1. I have had it since i was a toddler and have random outbreaks since then. the worst i ever had was with a tattoo i got on my right arm. i'm also type 1 diabetic so my immune system is already weakened. if you do take meds do you take Acyclovir? Ever had any severe symptoms from it?

Hi, Anon! Catching HSV1 as a small child is very common. Many adults have it orally, and they kiss babies whose immune systems are not strong enough to deal with it. Boom, the baby has it for life, and may not even know it. I’m sorry to hear yours continues to cause you problems.

Yes, I very much do have herpes. Last November I contracted HSV2 genitally from my boyfriend. He’d had symptoms but didn’t know what they were; the doctor treated him for a UTI and sent him on his way. I haven’t taken Acyclovir, but I have used valacyclovir, the generic of Valtrex, and while it was effective I did struggle with the side effects. During my first outbreak they put me on the 1 gram pill, twice a day for 10 days. It caused severe constipation, to the point where I was pretty sure I’d have to go to the hospital and get real friendly with a doctor’s gloved hand. Fortunately it didn’t come to that. For recurrent outbreaks I take the 1 gram pills, twice a day for 3 days. I generally deal with mild constipation, which I counter with extra veggies and strong tea or coffee, and it doesn’t get too bad.

I take it you’ve had bad side effects with the Acyclovir? 

I HIT MY DEDUCTIBLE.

My pills were $63.71, as opposed to the $120 they normally cost. How much of that was still part of my $500 Rx deductible and how much was normal copay for the drugs, I have no idea.

What I do know, is that I have 2 months before my policy year turns over to buy ALL THE PRESCRIPTION DRUGS IN THE WORLD.

WHEEEE!

I may call up the doc’s office for more refills even if I don’t need them, just so that I can pay less for them now.

I’m dropping $120 this afternoon. I’m ready.

Last night I discovered another itchy bump that looks like a pimple but feels like a mosquito bite, on my clit hood, hidden between where my labia come together. I’m kinda bored with this outbreak, and I have beaching and naked hot tubbing to do this weekend. It’s time to get this shit under control. So at about 11pm I tried to call in and leave a message for the nurse at the GYNO’s office, but it was on the night message and because I wasn’t calling to cancel an appointment today or having an emergency, I had to call back this morning.

So, I bit the bullet and called this morning and left a message, asking them to refill my Rx for valacyclovir (I said “generic Valtrex” because I didn’t have the bottle on me and didn’t want to butcher the word). She called me back just a few moments ago, which is good because my phone battery is just about dead. She was super friendly and nice, and told me that my script had already been called in. Hopefully I can just stop and grab it on my way home from work.

I’m also glad I’ll be on a pill regimen this weekend, because I’ll spend a good deal of my beach time in a suit, sunning and reading (slathered in sunscreen!), and there’s that rumor going around that sun exposure can cause outbreaks.* Considering I’ve had herpes blisters on my inner thigh before, and even with sunscreen I don’t want to risk not having the antivirals fighting from the inside out.

*For years, the medical community has known that with HSV 1, one of the most common triggers is the sun. It is often overexposure that triggers herpes, and not simply short-term sun exposure. A study done by the National Institutes of Health and reported in the December 1991 issue of “Lancet,” shows that exposure to UV rays will activate the herpes virus, but that if one applies sunscreen before UV exposure, it can prevent the herpes outbreak. Exactly how and why the sun triggers a herpes outbreak is not known, but if you are susceptible to outbreaks, be sure to wear sunscreen when you will be exposed to sunlight.