ue to our long time, long range courtship, Malaya and I knew each other very well and had engaged in numerous frank, honest, and open conversations about what we were interested in doing with each other, when we finally met. Since we'd talked about sex, and were both adults, we decided to get STD tested before we met. Her saga has not been told, but since she had an actual doctor and health insurance and stuff, it was pretty unremarkable. Plus she's a girl, and they're used to seeing doctors who poke about their special places on a regular basis.

As for me, I hadn't been to any sort of doctor in a decade, I didn't have any insurance, and I was not used to being poked at or blood-tested. As a result of that, and not having the money to do it with a real doctor, I turned to the county health services office. The experience wasn't too much fun, but at least it turned into some damn amusing blog material.

The preparation, visit, and aftermath were discussed in several blogs, which appear here, with the oldest on top. Start reading, and just follow it down for the full story, in order.

March 20, 2003

In preparation for my visit to Malaya and potential sexual activity, I did some surfing today, and ended up on this site. Click the link and take a look. Is that enough to make you feel weird, or what? I'll quote the words, but you have to see the design to really appreciate things.

• Testing and treatment of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs).
• Services available for ages 12 and older.
• Hepatitis B vaccine series available with STD examination.
• Confidential HIV Testing available with STD examination - you use your name but your identity is protected by law.
• A $14.00 fee covers testing, treatment, vaccinations, lab work, in-stock medications and any follow-up visit within 30 days of the exam. The fee may be waived if you are unable to pay.

The clinics listed below are walk-in clinics and register as many people as each clinic can accommodate. Please register for your visit as early in the day as possible. The clinic will close when capacity is met.

The cattle call aspect of it, where you just line up like you're there for your methadone, is what sort of creeps me out.  Not to mention that the site logo in your address bar, and the icon if you bookmark it, is a big pink triangle.

Fear the Tinky Winky Clinic!  Jerry Fallwell save us! *cough*

I might have to take a picture of Malaya in with me, just to feel heterosexual while I'm bending over and coughing for the silly Patch Adams.

What's that you say?  They don't require you to bend over and cough to test your blood for STDs or HIV?  They require you to bend over and cough for everything at this clinic, honey.

Yes, gay humor, wit at its finest.

As far as I know I'm completely clean of any STD or HIV, but I need to check to be sure, for what I would imagine are obvious reasons.  I've not been to a doctor for any reason in about 8 years, other than occasional sore-back chiropractic visits, and don't have health insurance, so this full test for $14 is a pretty good deal.  It would probably cost me more than that for blood work from a real doctor even if I did have health insurance.  Especially the crappy kind I get from my crappy work.

Which I did qualify for this year, but it doesn't begin until April 1st, and I'll have to sign up for a doctor then, wait for an appointment, etc.  And I need to be tested and cleared by mid-April, for what I would assume are obvious reasons.  Not that I'm eager or anything.

April 11, 2003

As I mentioned some time ago, I'm about to begin a hopefully-sexual relationship with a wonderful girl, and since we're both responsible people who are quite willing to make a long term monogamous commitment, we're getting ourselves medical check ups.  And testing for various nasty things.  Oddly enough, Malaya went a week ago and got tested, and has to wait two weeks for her results.  I went and got tested Thursday, and have to wait one week for my results.  So we'll find out at about the same time. And much rejoicing will commence. With any luck.

Anyway, my testing was done at the San Diego County South Regional Medical Center, and it was pretty interesting.

The first thing, as you may notice from that website, is a rather strong gay influence. So going in I was envisioning the testing place in the back of a dark tavern in a room with various fist sized holes that appear to have been gnawed into the walls at about waist height.  And while selecting my wardrobe I was sure to rule out anything purple.

But no, of course it was nothing like that.  The actual medical center was a huge building, warehouse sized, and very modern design.  Lots of glass, a large open atrium with sky lights, art on the walls, clean, well-lit, etc.  And absolutely packed, almost entirely with Hispanics, mostly blue collar looking guys on crutches or in slings, or else women with baby strollers.  Tons of women with babies.

I suppose I should have known that going in, for discount medical care in Chula Vista (which is south of San Diego, near the Mexican border), but I was focused on the STD/HIV testing aspect, and the gay pride designed website, and not thinking clearly.  But then I never am, so lost in love am I with my precious butterscotch Malaya. *cough*

Anyway, to enter the place they had a bunch of security guards and a metal detector. I found that odd, until I gave it some thought while waiting my turn, and realized that the place was like a right wing gun nut's version of Gomorrah.  Immigrants, welfare, gays, big government, etc.

So after that I kept watching the front, looking out for any

He didn't show.

Good thing too, since the rent-a-cops there, like rent-a-cops everywhere, were far more interested in talking to each other and leaning on pretty much anything that stood an even chance of supporting their donut-bloated weights, than they were with rent-a-cop'ing.

Oh they were waving the metal detecting wand around, but not very thoroughly.  I had on my wide leather belt which has metal in the holes and a metal tongue, and that was enough to set off the beep.  I was wanded front and back, but just by my waist, and just enough to hear if the wand went off. It did, and they let me go through, but I could have easily had a gun at my waist and disguised it with the belt, or had it taped to either leg, or in an armpit. Plus they had no x-ray machine, so all bag/purse searches were manual. Anyone who wanted to smuggle in a weapon or explosives would have no problem doing so.

The biggest risk are the damn baby strollers.  Those things are the size of shopping carts these days, and I bet you could build a secret compartment below baby, or on the side, or bottom, and it would never be found, largely since they'd never really bother to look for it.

Anyway, time-killing security wondering got me from 12:50 to 1pm, when the testing was to begin.  By the time the nurse who runs the STD testing arrived there were several other guys in front of me (yes, all men initially, 4 or 5 of them). A few were just there for their results, so I pretty quickly had a clipboard with two pages to fill out, and a number (22). The pages to fill out were like a shy or immature person's worth nightmare, but I just chuckled my way through them.

• When did you last have sex?
• How many sexual partners have you had in your life?
• How many in the last 6 months?
• Were they male or female?
• Did you engage in:
  • Oral sex?
  • Vaginal Intercourse?
  • Anal Intercourse?
• Did you use birth control?
• What sort of birth control did you use?
• Have you ever had sex with a prostitute?
• Have you ever traded money or drugs for sex?

All of those and more, plus it's got your name, address, phone number, etc on it.

I didn't lie.  Well, not very much.  And not about anything that mattered.  And no, I'm not listing my answers here.

Once I returned that and paid my $15, I got to go back to the tiny rear waiting room, which had 5 chairs and 7 people, all guys, all about 25-35 in age.  No eye contact was made, except by two guys who were there together, and very obviously gay.  Not like they were making out or anything, but yes, my semi-functional gaydar achieved a target lock.

I got a chair when the two guys were called in to the test results room, and was nearly falling asleep, though I didn't exactly doze.  A nurse came in and turned on the TV/VCR, which had, predictably enough, an HIV/AIDS info video in it, but at least it was some semi-comedian giving a presentation to a high school assembly, so it wasn't entirely loathsome.

Fortunately my turn came up soon enough, and I went into the room across the hall, where the wackiness began.  And not a moment too soon, for the purposes of this blog entry, eh?

The nurse was in that room, or doctor maybe, I dunno.  Anyway, she was about 55, but looked older in that "permanent brown tanned granny" look that you see semi-commonly in California, several of the Western US desert states, and probably nowhere else on earth but Florida, though there it's generally a woman named Esther who moved there in 1993 after Herbert had his second stroke.  Rather than a woman who has been that tan since before she had boobies. She had on the medical professional requisite one item of clothing patterned like a baby's sheets, in this case a mini-skirt which was purple with huge blotches of pink and orange and green and every other Fisher-Price toy color, with a white blouse and lab coat over that.

She was pretty cool actually, talkative and mellow, probably used to people being very nervous.  I was not at all, oddly enough.  First thing was a little clear cup with a screw on lid and a request for about an inch of urine in it, delivered in the bathroom next door.  This was my first time to be glad I was a male, since it's like having a built in garden hose.  No squatting and aiming and peeing down my wrist.

I returned with that and she sat me down and asked me a bunch of questions, basically all the stuff I'd already put on the worksheets, and then rolled over to the waxed paper-covered table, and asked me to stand up and take down my pants and underwear.

This was the second time that I was glad to be male that day, as I eyed the table with the folded down stirrups, and mentally compared it to just standing there.  And I did more than mentally compare a second later, as I unbuckled and pushed my pants down. I'd even bought new underwear that morning, just in case I had to stand around for a while and get weighed or measured or something

It turned out to matter not at all, for the nude part went quickly. I stood there for a moment as she pulled on her latex gloves, briefly wondering why I wasn't at all nervous, and glad that I wasn't at all aroused. I know that some guys have hot nurse fantasies, and would probably be fighting back an erection out of embarrassment, but I had zero sexual feelings. I mean it, zero.  Nothing. It could not have been a less sexual setting, and it had almost nothing to do with the woman examining me, though if she'd been like 25 and hot and showing cleavage I might have had some stirrings.  But I don't think there would be a lot of 25 y/o women like that doing that job, for relatively obvious reasons.

Anyway, the exam was quick.  She gave me a gentle push behind my balls in a couple of places, asking if it hurt (it did not) then gave the balls a little rolling, and then examined the cock, lifting it up and turning it from side to side to get a good look, either because she was enjoying it, or because them lesions can be damn tiny.  I had nothing of the sort, of course.

The funniest part was that mid way through the 10 sec or so of examining my dick she asks me, "So, what sort of writing do you do?"

We'd been chatting briefly earlier, she'd asked me what I did for a living (since that's what people ask in such a situation) and I'd said part time this and that, and that I was a writer working on a couple of novels with serious "getting them published" aspirations.

Which is all well and good, but I didn't quite expect her to return to that aspect of the questioning at that particular moment.  I mean with her latex gloved hands lifting and turning my cock. *cough*

Odd time to begin making small talk. I mean larger than average talk. *cough*

I was still very calm, oddly enough, and said I was mostly into fantasy and/or horror, though I wasn't adverse to writing something else, if the idea came to me. She nodded and had a bit more of a look and then let me go and rolled back, saying she was done.

So I pulled my pants back up and sat down, and the painful part began, as she drew about a gallon of blood, right from my wrist.  I didn't think this was odd, but she looked for the usual inner elbow spot, but said my veins there weren't really prominent, while the one on my wrist was very easy to target.

And target it she did, sliding the big needle in and getting an immediate strong blood flow.  It hurt, not a stabbing but a sort of ache, but I don't mind blood, even my own, so no worries.  The pain was worse when she took out the first vial, leaving the needle part in, and then held the needle while sliding in another vial, which has to be pierced by the needle, and that means a push down, which you can certainly feel, even though she holds the needle as still as she can.

While she was pumping I asked how long since someone last fainted during this, adding that it was a hypothetical, since I didn't want her leaping up to catch me.  She said a big guy just the week before at another center had said when the blood time came that he always fainted, so she stood behind him while another nurse did the blood. And sure enough, he lasted about 3 sec with the needle in, just long enough to see the blood filling the vial, and he went out like a light, falling over backwards into her.  She caught him though, and he came back around with some smelling salts as soon as they had the blood they needed. I laughed at the story.  I've never fainted for any reason, and it seems such an odd thing in a human.  So anti-evolutionary, the sort of thing that would lead any other species to extinction in short order.

Anyway, the needle hurt a bit then, and left a dull ache when she pulled it out, and as she was putting all sorts of stickers onto the vials and other forms (they had made a nifty print out of my name/info on a full page of stickers, like address stickers you get at Kinkos, handy for quick labeling) we were chatting some, and she offered me condoms again.  She had a brown paper bag full, but upon looking they were all just the same type. Lifestyles, I believe, and not even any variety in texture or size.

So I asked her if they had any of the bigger type, since I've always wanted to try those, but never bothered to buy any.  It was funny, since she had commented on everything else with zero embarrassment, and had seen me naked, (so she obviously knew why I was asking *cough*) etc, but at that question she got the stammers, and just muttered something like, "I don't know, are there any in the bag?"

There were not.

The postscript to the exam was that she was pretty jovial and friendly, and I didn't get the feeling she really minded having a job where young men came in and put their cocks and balls into her hands all day, every day.

Of course it's all fun and games when it's a healthy guy.  I'm not considering what it's like when some guy has advanced gonorrhea or oozing sores or a big erection and very nervous eyes.

After that part I had to go back to the waiting room for a bit, until the guy before me came out of the next office, which was where I had to redo much of the same paperwork, this time for the HIV test (the first part was for STDs).  No exam or anything, but she had to fill out an even longer sheet of questions about me, most of which were the same. And these were verbal questions. I still wasn't embarrassed to be asked my full sexual history and if I'd banged whores or traded my ass for heroin, but it was a rather odd conversation.

On her desk were two clear plastic bottles just full of every type of male and female condom, and as she went to enter some stuff in the computer I started rooting through them, looking for some of the larger size brand, or ultra thin brand.

And I asked her if there were any of the larger size, since I always felt really squeezed in them.  She goes, "You know, a condom can hold two gallons of liquid..." and I almost cracked up.  I might be remembering wrong, in fact I hope I am and she said "quarts" or "pints" or something, but in any event, Jesus Christ!  I'm planning to orgasm into it dear, not drain my swimming pool.

So I said that it wasn't the amount of liquid, it was the fit I was curious about, and she did like the other lady; looked uncomfortable with the conversation.

Here's a woman who had just asked me if I had ever used a sex toy and transferred it between my ass and mouth, or my partner's ass/mouth/vagina, and she's uneasy answering a question about condom size?  And you thought men were uptight about penis size!

I didn't see any larger size condoms in the jar, but I got several types, and once I was home I looked them up on the Internet.

The one that looked like it might be larger size is called a Pleasure Plus.  Good name for a condom, anyway. Do they have their own domain name?  Of course they do.

Size doesn't matter-- Shape does!
Introducing the most pleasurable condom you'll ever use. The scientifically developed Pleasure Plus condom actually increases stimulation for both of you.

It's proven: in a clinical study conducted by Emory University, frequent condom users preferred Pleasure Plus 8 to 1 over other the leading condom. Pleasure Plus is so remarkable it's been granted patents worldwide.

Here's how it works: The Pleasure Plus features a roomy pouch with fine, internal ribs. During sex, the pouch moves back and forth, gently stimulating both partners. The pouch's action restores the sensational feeling of sex without a condom.

I'll see about filing a condom road test report in the weeks to come.

The other one worth mentioning was the comically-named "Rough Rider." If they have a website I don't see it, but they are profiled prominently on OnlyCondoms.com.

Things that go bump the night..aren't always bad. The Contempo Rough Rider is studded with hundreds of raised bumps designed to drive pleasure to the max. Made by Contempo, the grand-daddy of naughty condoms, the Rough Rider is guaranteed to please.

I like that there is a subset of condoms known as "naughty condoms".  Isn't that a bit like saying a weapon is from the "dangerous guns" family?

Anyway, Malaya is down with trying out both these types, so I should be able to post some sort of a road test of this one also, in the weeks to come.

Get it?  "To come." See, it's funny because... oh never mind.

To conclude with, I have to go back next week to get my blood test results, and no, I don't think I shall be reporting those here.  Though I will try to bag a few more variety condoms, since they amuse me, even though the whole point in getting tested is... um, well never mind.

Yes, this entire entry comes under the "TMI" heading, I know.  Anyway, I found the events of the day amusing, and it only took about 90 minutes from arrival to departure, and I got to put my cock in the hands of a strange (literally) woman, for just $15!  Hard to beat that, eh?

The only real annoyance was the shot, which made my wrist hurt.  It ached mildly while I was out running a couple of errands after the blood drawing, but about two hours later when I got home, it started to really throb.  Like a dull aching pain, and the whole area was sore to the touch.

And yes, I took a picture, and photoshopped it up.  I was bored after cropping the new boxers shots for Malaya's amusement, okay?

The needle went in from the upper left towards the lower right, if the arrow doesn't make that clear.  And it went in where the purple bruising is in the shot. The odd part, as the oval demonstrates, is that the pain wasn't so much were the bruise was, but elsewhere.  It was terribly painful where the oval is, and I had to melt ice cubes on it when I got home, and eventually gave in and took a couple of Advil. I hate to take any sort of medicine or chemical, and almost never do. Crushing headache to the point that I can't think is about the only thing I'll give in on, but this was so sore I couldn't bend my wrist at all. Plus ibuprofen is a good anti-inflammatory, which was what I needed.

The wrist still hurts now, like 13 hours after the needle, though it's just tender to the touch, no longer noticeable unless I'm poking at it.  When next I have blood drawn, it will not be from my wrist, I assure you. As the nurse said, "It sometimes hurts a bit more from the wrist than the arm."

Uh, yeah.

And to end with a bit of moralizing; if you don't know if you are "clean" or not, you really should find out, as should your partner(s).  It's very easy to do, your local city health services almost certainly offer low cost and (mostly) anonymous testing, and if you are clean you'll feel great for having it confirmed, and can work on finding a long term partner to be monogamous with and forever throw off the goddamned sensation-crushing, sex-ruining condoms.

Wait, I didn't say that. Condoms are our friends.

Even if your test results turn up bad news, you can get most things cured, or at least controlled before they do you permanent damage.  Plus, what if your next GF/BF is "the one" and you give them the clap, or herpes?  How likely is that to help your relationship grow stronger? If you tell them about it going in, they can accept it or not, and you'll go from there.  If you infect them, out of ignorance or secrecy, it's over. They'll kick you in the balls/ovaries, and walk out the fucking door.

April 18, 2003

If you remember what I wrote about last Friday, I went in to the county health services to get tested for STD/HIV last Thursday. And yesterday was the day the results were to come back.

I drove down to the clinic, and was relieved to see much more thorough security this time.  Not that the guards looked any less bored or donut-fueled, but the woman who used the metal detecting wand on me was a lot closer to thorough than the guy last time.  She waved it around me carefully, all my upper body, and then did my belt more carefully, back and front and had me pull my shirt up to see that I didn't have a Glock tucked into my belt.

She still didn't check down my legs or any sort of pat down, so I could have had small machine guns taped to both of my inner thighs but hey, at least the terrorists or psychotic white supremacists would have to put a bit of work into their weapon-smuggling.

Once through the "security" check point, I proceeded back around the corner to the STD checking office.  Since I was just there to pick up results I only had to fill out one short form.  There was almost no line at all, no one waiting for exams, and just one woman there waiting for results.  I have no idea what they told her, but she screamed in horror and ran sobbing towards the exit.  Good news, I'm sure.

After they mopped up her vomit it was my turn, but there was a problem.  The funny miniskirt-wearing, latex glove wearing small talk while ball-rolling woman called me in to ask why I had not wanted a chlamydia test, and just a gonorrhea test.  This was news to me, since I'd wanted to be tested for everything, and certainly hadn't asked for just one thing and not another.  In fact there hadn't been any mention of testing for one thing or other at all, last week.

So someone checked the wrong box somewhere.

The net result was that I had to donate another urine sample, and I'll find out about that one next week.  All I have to do is call though, don't have to drive down there, at least.

The funny part:

After that, I walked across the hallway into the discussion woman's office, where the HIV portion of the talking and consent-signing and such goes on. She's looking through my results, and goes, "So, you have gonorrhea."

And keeps looking through them, then puts the stuff down and gets out this release form I had to sign before the HIV part.

Said something like, "She told you to call next week to hear about the chlamydia results, right?"

I at last said, "You mean you only have the gonorrhea results.  Right?"

She thought about it for a second, and then burst into laughter, realizing how she'd said it initially. Nice bedside manner there, eh?

I wasn't scared, since I'm sure I would know if I had such a disease, as long as I'd have to have had it, given how long it's been since my last possible exposure.  And I realized she just wasn't speaking wisely at the time, and that she would probably at least look at me before making such a revelation, and wouldn't just say it as an aside while leafing through my medical records.  But it was a humorously-tense moment.  With such silly confusion are sitcoms plotted.

If you're wondering, they make a much bigger deal about the HIV testing, for what are probably obvious reasons.

I had this little serial numbered card they gave me last week, and the HIV results were in a sealed envelope, unlike the other STD info. I had to sign my name on a release and show that my serial number matched up with the one on the results before she opened them up.  And I tested fine there also, so all was well.

I am disease free!  Ladies, you may form a line to the left.  No pushing please, there's plenty for everyone.

Oh wait, that's right. Malaya. Um, never mind. Ladies. *cough*

I wanted to score some more amusing condoms this time, but the supply seemed to be a bit depleted, with just a ton of Lifestyles plain condoms, and little else. I got a black one, both to invoke "the myth" at the next opportunity, and since it's more interesting than the sort of light white/flesh tone usual condom color.  I've always thought of black condoms as "widow consolers", based on an old joke about wearing all black at such a time.  I also grabbed a couple of little tubs of lube, in curious flavors.  Tangerine and vanilla creme. I have not sampled them. More goodies to road test come the Malaya visit. *cough*

One thing I thought about grabbing, but did not, was a female condom.  They look frightening, perched in the bowl full of condoms like mighty icebergs amidst a field of drifting slush.  They are sort of v-shaped in the package, and about 4 or 5x larger than the male condoms, and I'm curious to see how one is applied. There is no applicator with them, at least not with the loose ones in the grab bag, and I can't imagine what a woman about to apply one would have handy to poke it in with? *cough*

As far as I can tell, you have to really want to have sex to bother wearing one of those things.  I'd basically rather go w/o sex than bother with condoms, and I have a penis.  It's not hard to apply one.  The anatomy is damn near ideal for it.  But a female condom, I mean that's like trying to wash dishes with a plastic bag keeping your sink dry. It's got to come out several inches on all sides, you have to use a bunch of lube, you have to be careful that his dick isn't stuffing it in like a sock into mailbox with every thrust, etc. It can't possibly give much sensation to the woman encumbered with it, and god knows what the man feels.  Like he's screwing a sex toy, I'd think.  A molded latex vagina.

Anyway, Malaya said she might grab one at her gyno's next time, so I'll add that to the reviews section in a few weeks. I can hardly wait!

April 25, 2003

For a more interesting topic, let's talk about herpes. *listens for the sound of 500 browsers being clicked off*

No no, it's actually interesting.

As I described last Friday, and the Friday before that, I went and got tested for STD/HIV, since I'm about to begin a "relationship" with Malaya.  She's getting tested too, of course.

Anyway, my initial test story was an amusing safari of mild gay-baiting, terrorism fantasies, latex gloves, variety condom samples, and painful blood-letting.  In that order. A week later I went in and got the results, but they somehow screwed up and didn't do my chlamydia test, so I had to go into the bathroom and fill up another cup.

With urine. What did you think I filled it with?

Anyway, I called them yesterday and got the results, and as assumed, I am chlamydia-free. (I also now know how to spell the finger-twisting word, after using it often enough lately.)

They gave me a print out of my test results last week, and in looking over them I was confused to see the herpes spot listed as "N/A".  I thought it was included on the testing, so I asked the nurse about it yesterday when I called.

She said that since I hadn't had any visible cysts (and she should know, she was the one in the latex gloves) there was nothing to test.  She asked if I'd ever had an outbreak, and I said no, and she said that everyone who contracts herpes has an outbreak within three weeks of contracting it, and then occasionally after that.  And if I'd never had an outbreak, and hadn't potentially contracted it within the last couple of weeks, I was fine.

I thought this was odd, as I'd assumed they could check it in the blood tests, but hey, she's the doctor.  (Or a reasonable facsimile thereof.)

An ICQ friend of mine does have herpes though, and has had them for 6 or 7 years, so when she was online later in the day, I asked her about it, and she thought the doctor was nuts.  She said of course they can test for herpes at any time, and you can have it without ever having an outbreak.

Clearly, some research was required.

She sent me to this site, which besides having some rather inflated infection rate statistics on the main page, has excellent information.  As far as I know, anyway.  Their page on diagnosis basically backs up what the nurse told me.

As you can read, the primary way to diagnosis herpes is to get a sample of a cyst or blister, and have that tested.  I imagine that an experienced medical professional hardly needs lab results to tell herpes from some other sort of rash or fungus, as often as they see it, but they must do the test just to be sure.  They also like to do a viral culture on some of the oozy pus that lives inside the blisters.  Yummy.

However as you'll note, both of those methods require you to be in the midst of an outbreak.  For the unsure who aren't breaking out, it's harder to tell.  They list an Immunological test, but it sounds very expensive and specialized, and certainly wasn't offered for my $15 charity fee at the county health center.

If you really must know:

Tests for HSV Encephalitis

Diagnosis of HSV encephalitis may require a number of tests. Electroencephalography traces brain waves and can identify about 80% of cases. Computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans may be used to differentiate encephalitis from other conditions. Brain biopsy is the most reliable method of diagnosing HSV encephalitis, but it is also the most invasive and is generally performed only if the diagnosis is uncertain. PCR identifies HSV in cerebrospinal fluid and gives a rapid diagnosis of HSV encephalitis.

That's for herpes when it's infecting the brain and becoming life threatening, but um yeah.  I think I'd rather not know for 100% positively sure, if the alternative was a brain tissue biopsy. What's that?

biopsy: The removal and examination of tissue, cells, or fluids from the living body.

Um, no.

I'd recommend prowling around on that Herpes site some, it's got some interesting information.  I had thought of herpes as a much worse thing than it is, but having talked to my friend who has had it for years, it really doesn't sound like such a big deal.  Basically you have this virus that you can never get rid of, but you only know you have it about once every 3 or 4 years, when stress or something (they don't quite know) causes an outbreak.  You get a slight fever and sort of flu-like symptoms for a couple of days, of varying intensity, but the real annoyance are the blisters. It's worse for women.

• Lesions may appear around the vaginal opening, on the buttocks, in the vagina, or on the cervix. These lesions ulcerate almost immediately.
• Later they become crusted and fill with a grayish-white fluid.
• A new crop often occurs during the second week and is accompanied by swollen lymph glands in the groin.

So yeah.  There's no way to put this delicately, but you have pus-leaking blisters all over your hi-nanny-nanny, for like a week.

However, you might go years between outbreaks, and the severity of them varies greatly.  Women can get them inside the vagina and not even know they have them, but the danger then is that they are very contagious and a male partner is quite likely to get it from sex. Even with a condom on, since they leak and you'd get that on the base of the penis and the balls.

Ruin everyone's lunch yet?

But the point is, it's not like you die from herpes (except in the rare brain infection type) and 99% of people just have some annoyance from it every year or few, and when they have an outbreak it goes for a few days or a couple of weeks, where you feel bad and have icky thingies on your thingie.

I'm glad I don't have it, but it doesn't exactly sound like a death sentence.

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