(no subject)
a couple weeks ago, i got out my vibrator for the first time in probably a year. i always wash it after using it and didn't think to wash it beforehand this time...which turned out to be a really bad idea. i ended up getting a really painful UTI, and when it didn't clear up in a few days, i made a doctor's appointment so i could get some antibiotics.
well, my initial urine test didn't show what they expected it to show - protein and white blood cells, but no nitrites. so i got my prescription and went on my merry way while they sent the urine test in for a culture.
imagine my surprise when i got a call from the doctor a few days later to tell me that my culture came back positive for gonorrhea.
i was sitting in my office, completely blank. i grabbed my phone, went downstairs, found the most private area i could out on the street, and called mike. since i know **i** haven't had sex with anyone, it was obvious to me that he had. i got a hold of him while he was driving back to philly from a meeting out in reading or lancaster or something. i was fairly calm and matter of fact about it - expecting him to resist for a few minutes and then admit to cheating on me.
well, he didn't. i was frustrated, since it was so obvious to me that he was lying. he was upset, and i wanted to punch him - he's like "wait, you're sick? and i could be sick? i don't know what to do!" i told him what the doctor had told me - that he needed to go in and get tested. that the doctor was calling in antibiotic prescriptions for both of us - a one-week course plus a shot for him, and *three* two-week courses of different pills, plus a shot, for me, since i have an IUD and they needed to really kill the shit out of the infection to keep it from spreading.
i was resentful, because he kept telling me he hadn't done anything and that there must be some other explanation for this, and that he just wanted a hug. and i just couldn't be there for him. after all - as far as i was concerned - he cheated on me and was lying about it! how could i possibly give him a hug and tell him it was all going to be OK? i wanted to believe him - i really, really did. things had FINALLY started to turn a corner for us. he was FINALLY taking better care of himself, FINALLY hanging out and being social with me, and FINALLY i could really, really see things getting back to how they were a couple of years ago, when i looked forward to seeing him and spending time with him, and when we were actually having sex. but...then this, you know?
the next couple of days were just a mess for me. he picked up our prescriptions and we had it out a couple of times. i didn't understand why, when he was so clearly CAUGHT, he wouldn't just acknowledge what he'd done. we had a phone session with our therapist, who suggested to me that i couldn't always have the immediate explanations for everything, and that this might just need to "be a mystery for a little while." i started researching new apartments, since there was absolutely no way i was going to stay in this marriage if i'd been cheated on. i made a follow-up appointment with my doctor to get the injection, which was, quite frankly, fucking awful. having been on depo for eleven and a half years, i'm no stranger to needles - but this one was far more painful than i anticipated, and the antibiotics BURNED. i got lightheaded, had to lay down for a few minutes before i left the office, and had trouble really using that arm for an hour or two.
at that appointment, the doctor did a pelvic exam and took a swab from my cervix for another, different test. "i've researched this quite a bit," he explained, "given your lack of explained exposure." gonorrhea definitely does not survive in water and, while penn didn't have much in the way of literature on it, there was no real support for the premise that it could survive on a hard open-air surface - i.e., my vibrator - but even then, it had to get there in the first place. he confirmed that they tested me in november, when i got my IUD inserted, and it came back clean. he had separately met with mike, and of course there was no explanation there.
that's when he first said the words "possible false positive." and i thought i was going to puke.
we had to go up to mike's parent's house that weekend to visit his family and his grandparents. i had thought it was going to be impossible to pretend nothing was wrong, but it was amazing how much easier it was to hang out while clutching the possibility of a false positive. we hung out, laughed, went to the movies, had lunch with his grandparents, played ipod games with bianca, our eleven-year-old cousin.
that tuesday morning, i got an email alert that i had a new letter waiting for me in my online file at penn. my heart stopped and i logged in immediately.
clean. completely clean. "i will be contacting the lab to see if someone can explain to me what happened. given the lack of a way to explain your exposure, i have to conclude that the first test was most likely a false positive. i know that this has been extremely difficult for both you and your husband and all that i can do is offer my apologies."
"relieved" does not even begin to describe it.
my husband didn't cheat on me. he was telling me the truth the entire time. i didn't have gonorrhea. i didn't need to deal with getting a divorce and moving out. i texted mike immediately - he was in meetings the entire day, so we didn't get to talk until that night, but it was the best news i could have imagined.
and i am glad it's over.
other news: i think i'm going to shift my non-workout-related entries back here to LJ and maybe abandon phillygirlruns.blogspot.com. i get the sense that no one really reads that anyway, so i don't know the point of continuing to publicly blog there. i recently got accepted to CFCC's competitive crossfit team, which requires, among other things, that i track my workouts in a log on the crossfit mainsite boards. (for the curious: http://board.crossfit.com/showthread.php?t=75639 )
being on the team is humbling and exciting all at the same time. i've come SO FAR since i started at CFCC - my body composition has changed completely, and it's kind of insane how much stronger i am. i'm leaner and faster, but have a long way to go there. erin, CFCC's owner, asked me the other day if i'd be willing to write up something on my experience with crossfit to be posted on the website...so that was pretty flattering. but, at the same time, i have SO MUCH FURTHER to go to really be good at this - a point that got driven home for me yesterday when we did a crossfit fundraising event with people from other gyms in the area and i was solidly in the bottom third of scores for people who did the workout without scaling it.
so, maybe i'll get really jacked. we'll see.