Lyss

Dancer, Thank you so much for your thoughtful response. I am definitely starting to feel better..of course it helps that those bumps are starting to disappear and I can pee and walk normal again. It really is the little things! I will definitely take your advise about the aloe and gold bond. The stress part--well I'll have to figure something out. :) Again--thank you so much. Your message was gave me a smile on a day that was not so bright. Lyss

So, last week I started noticing red itching and my first assumption was yeast infection. I had been taking anti-biotics the week before so it seemed that everything added up. On Saturday I bought some Monistat (side note: this did not go well..hell-fire burning). Every bathroom trip was something that I dreaded. I couldn't run. I could barely move. I started noticing little bumps which terrified me, but I was assured by my mother, a yeast infection veteran, that she had bumps when she had yeast infections and even had been seen by her lady doctor to have them confirmed as just a really severe yeast infection. Feeling calmed down, I went to the urgent care with my boyfriend of two years. Last fall we had to make an emergency room visit because I had incredibly severe pelvic pain post-intercourse and the doctors sent me off with a pain killer and antibiotics for gonorrhea only to find out the next day from a gynecologist that I had a cyst rupture--no gonorrhea involved. However, this kind of gave me a skeptical perception of anyone who was not a gynecologist diagnosing what was going on down there. Even my boyfriend said to me before we went in, "You know they are going to try to tell you its an STD right?" I pretty much did not care as long as they handed me a prescription of Diflucan. The nurse practitioner told me that although I had plenty of yeast going on, the sores looked a lot like herpes. "I knew you'd say that," thought I, but she was insistent and I walked out of there with prescriptions for acyclovir and diflucan. "They think its herpes" I cried to both my boyfriend and my mom. My mom assured me once again it most definitely was not and the boyfriend doing the sweet kissing forehead thing as I cried in a parking lot in a park while we waited for my prescriptions to be filled. I called my gynecologist immediately the next day and set up an appointment. The boyfriend left work, picked me up and drove me to the appointment where once again I was told, "This is herpes." I nodded to my boyfriend in confirmation as I paid my co-pay and went next door to take some blood work tests. I cried all the way home, I cried when I got home. I went to bed early--woke up in the middle of the night and cried, cried three times already today--one was when the dog--an adorable and well-meaning English Bull Terrier got excited and stepped RIGHT THERE! I haven't been able to do anything today except sleep and look things up. I ate a bowl of girl scout chocolate chip mint ice cream. I've been sitting around in pjs--moping and keep sending my mom and boyfriend (both supportive) "I'm so sad" text messages. I tell you what--I'm not like this. I'm a PhD student so my understanding of success in the day has been "how productive have I been?" I'm an early-riser, a long-distance runner, over-achiever, and healthy eater (ok not so much this, but hey I try). In high school I was the party animal girl and what some would probably call the "class slut". When I got into college I really tried to overcome who I once was and with a few mishaps I worked hard to overcome what I suspected I was when I was in high school--the slut, dirty, disgusting, trashy. I love learning--so I threw myself into it, I started running--all positive things for myself. But those things were still there. My five year class reunion was last year and I remember how hard I tried to portray myself as this healthy balanced academic-type person. Isn't that ridiculous? Especially how those things have stuck--now with this diagnosis it feels like a medical confirmation of everything I feared was actually true about myself and I'm twenty-four and all those things were years and years ago. I promised myself that after I posted this I would get in the shower and I would do my hair and make up and just try. It is just hard to pick up the pieces when it hurts to walk, stand, pee, you all know. I'm worried about silly things--for ex.--can I run long distance? I keep reading about people who have OB when they do really strenuous exercises. Aside from the self-guilt/blow to the ego/etc I am experiencing, I think that would be really terrible. Also--do you guys have any other recommended books/websites other than this one? I don't know anyone with herpes (well aside from whoever gave it to me...but I don't care to figure that out and if it is the current boyfriend, everything that I've read makes it hard to place all that blame and anger on him), but all of your posts have been really inspiring. Thank you. Lyss