Wart, are you talking about?

 

I kept getting yeast infections; side note about all the yeast infections I had with him, I’m talking 10, at least. Since leaving him, I have had one infection while I was pregnant which is very normal-- that’s it, ONE.  So, I’d go to the store to buy the over the counter medication which back then was 5-day inserting vaginal cream procedure you’d have to endure while being very uncomfortable with itchy pain till it had cleared up. Finally after getting tired of the process of using the OTC medication, thinking it wasn’t strong enough, I made an appointment with my gynecologist.  They did a pap swab to check for the presences of yeast, and said they’d call with the results by the next day. I realize that things are MUCH speedier now, they have mini-labs in offices – but, I digress. The next day the doctor’s office called, sounding ominous the nurse told me that my pap had come back abnormal, and that I needed to come back in, A.S.A.P. I went back in the following day where they swabbed me again, and did a biopsy of the vaginal tissue. They told me that my pap had come back with some indicators that it MIGHT be cancer. HPV to be exact, that it might be something less (hopefully) but they needed to get another smear and they were going to send it out to a lab that evening and that the results would be back in four days.

Four days of the unknown, and I was freaking out. Finally they called to say they had the results and to come to the office the next day. The doctor informed me that I had genital warts. WHAT? Genital what? Not cancer, thank god, and if you know anything thing about HPV, and genital warts they are very similar on a smear read.

How did I get them, what were they doing to me, and what can I do to get rid of them. I was confused, I’d never had a wart, so how did I get them there? The doctor went on to tell me that they are a sexually transmitted disease, very different from the warts you get on your hands, and that I got them from my partner, Coward. The dr. then scheduled me to come in, to have an Cryotherapy procedure done where he would freeze and remove the warts. I went home dazed and confused by the information just told to me. I know I understood what had been told to me, but the part about wrapping my head around Coward being unfaithful, but….he loved me. 

When I told Coward what I had, and how the doctor said I contracted them from him he told me that I; must have used a dirty towel, got something from a public toilet seat, had a wart on my hand and touched my vagina when I wiped, but under NO circumstance did he give it to me.  I honestly started self-doubting myself; he was a master manipulator for sure. So I got the painful procedure and tried to push it out of my head. I understand that I was naive about how he handled it. I really was a romantic with this young belief that when people tell you that they love you, they don’t cheat, lie and or hurt you. There’s some truth to that statement, because when you really love someone you don’t. I don’t think he’s capable of real, honest-to-god love.  Instead of being defensive and asking me if I had cheated on him, which I hadn’t, he just turned it around to put the blame on me. He just told me that he was going to go out for a run, and never mentioned it again. 

 

Four months later on Christmas Eve, Coward decided to come clean about some woman he’d hooked up with while visiting a friend in the Bay area. Not once did he say, “Why yes that IS how you got genital warts.” He just needed to get it off his chest, to make himself feel better. Awesome. Yes I stayed with him, because of course he promised the famous, "it was only one time baby, I love you" bullshit line. He would do it once more where he confessed to me his being unfaithful. Except this time he told me, "if you would just leave it alone, I would have come back to you, like I always have." WOW.

Not only do I have to constantly reopen the wounds of how my physical pain is from domestic abuse every time I get a new doctor or have to have a procedure done. I also get to answer the question all women are asked by their medical providers, “have you ever had an abnormal pap smear?” I get to reply with, “Yes, I have. It was genital warts from my cheating, bastard ex.”