Herpes and the Human Papillomavirus

Here's my story about HSV and HPV.

My story starts in 1987, when I was 17. I began dating "Jack," we will call him.  I have had other boyfriends before, but nothing as serious as this. I was still a virgin and was pretty proud of that.

We should go back further. In my entire life, I remember only having one cold sore, and that seemed normal to me because several cousins and friends have had them too. I had what they call canker sores all the time in my mouth though. Any time I ate a tomato, or chocolate, or even when my toothbrush slipped and hit my gums, I would get a canker sore inside my mouth. I never thought anything about it. I still don't really know if canker sores are HSV or not. But regardless, they were there sometimes.

So here I am, dating "Jack," and we were very serious and monogamous, or so I thought, for ten years. Along the way we started having sex, and you would figure why would one use protection when you have been together so long. We had our whole life planned. We would get married eventually, have kids, yada yada yada.

Around 1995 or so, I had my first outbreak "beneath the belt." I thought I was going to die. Do I have the flu? Out comes my mirror. Hmm, a little red, looks like a scratch. What in the world could possibly be going on down there? I went to my gyno, thinking maybe it's a urinary infection, and she told me it's herpes. What is herpes? Is my life over? Am I dirty? Wait!!! HOW did I get this??? I have been faithful. HE must have cheated. How the heck can something that looks so small cause me so much pain?? These are all the questions going on in my mind. There MUST be a mistake. Nope, no mistake, but we'll do the test and make sure and I'll see you in a week. I called "Jack" from the car, yelling, screaming, crying -- you cheated on me! He insists not.  Who knows. But we are going to be okay, not break up, he still loves me the way I am. We just continued in our relationship the way it was. We didn't change ANYTHING.

Well, the test came back positive, but don't worry, Honey, it's only HSV-1, very common. Hello? You just said I have herpes. I really don't care what type it is, it is still HERPES. Am I supposed to feel better???

I asked the doctor, how could this possibly have happened if he didn't cheat on me and I didn't cheat on  him and nothing has changed for - at that time 8 years. She gave me a list of innocent possibilities, and to this day, I'm not sure what happened. (Well, maybe I have a guess.)  Among the possibilities were that what I had in my mouth wasn't just a canker sore after all, that I touched my mouth, didn't wash my hands, and then touched somewhere else somehow, or oral sex without realizing I had a sore in my mouth. oops. Could that have happened? I still to this day don't know how. But I do know that I have never since that day had a canker sore again in my mouth. It's like they moved somewhere else and never returned there. So there has to be a connection.

Anyway, "Jack" and I continued our relationship until 1997, and it sadly ended and we are still friends.  It had nothing to do with my "status."  We just outgrew each other. We are still friends to this day and he still insists he has nothing. I never actually made him get tested because I believed him. (Wouldn't ever be so gullible now, but this was my guy. I loved him.) So if I am to believe that he never got it, at least I didn't pass it to him. He could be lying. Who knows. But if I felt even a twinge, we didn't have sex.

Our breakup, however, was outrageous. We broke up, got back together, broke up again. And our entire group of friends was involved and trying so hard to keep us together. And it was so hard for me to get through. I didn't deal well at all with it. I started drinking - a lot - and inevitably, started sleeping around.  Each time I "hooked up" with someone I would let them know. It's kind of easy to say, I have herpes, when you're drunk but not so easy when you are sober. This was not an everyday thing. It was a small handful of times before I got back to my senses and got out of the self-destruction thing I was going through. But I would say it because I thought I (emphasis on ME, please.) was the dangerous one. These guys - who also are still my friends - didn't care. People just don't realize, and I didn't either. I figured if I'm the dangerous one and they don't care about protection, I shouldn't either. Hmm.

Jump ahead a few years to two years ago, 2002. Here I am, age 32 now, and I'm back to my normal way of looking at things. Back to the old girl I used to be, okay with the fact I have herpes, and who knows, maybe I won't meet anyone ever and I won't have to tell the story again. I go for my normal pap smear at my new gyno (the old one passed away, sadly). Couple weeks later, I get a call. Your pap came out abnormal and we need you to come in right away and get another test. What does that mean? Well, there are abnormal cells. CANCER? Maybe. Get in here today. So I go and get another pap. Comes back the same way. We have to wait a couple months, just to see if there is a change. Imagine what I'm going through now, having to wait a couple MONTHS!!! Go back, same thing. Now we have to do a biopsy. Oh, great. More waiting. And now they're going to clip a small piece of my cervix from me. Hello? I like my cervix the way it is, thank you. Well, that was normal, no cancer.

But we have to do this other test now to see what caused this mess. Test comes back positive for HPV. What on earth is HPV??? What did I do now. Doc says, well, most people who have had sex even once can come in contact with this virus and don't ever know it, but if certain strains of it stay in your system, much like herpes, and there are many types and strains. Some do nothing. Some cause warts. In my case, it causes something called dysplasia, and that could eventually lead to cancer - or not. So I have to get a pap every six months. Bad enough to have to go once a year.

Where did I pick up this little number? Could it have been that I was so sure I could harm other people that I didn't think they could harm me? But I had been tested all along. I'm one of these people that each time I had unprotected sex after "Jack," I was getting tested like the next day. They must have loved hearing me call during that bad time in my life. Hello, doc, it's me again, the one who keeps coming in for testing??? I did it again.

Unless you're looking for HPV, you're not going to find it. Most of the time, it's not one of the tests they normally do for STD's. So this even may all go back to "Jack," or it happened after in my darker hours.

Recently, I had an outbreak of my HSV-1 for the first time in a long time, and I couldn't believe it. I had put it out of my mind, and since I wasn't dating anyone - or drinking like I was - I wasn't sleeping with anyone, so I forgot about it. There it was, and it was really hard for me all over again. But I got on the computer. Met someone in a chat room somewhere out there for herpes, and he sent me here. (He knows who he is.) And it was a great thing. I have people to talk to!!!! The only people who know are the females in my family and a very few close friends. And you know what? None of the friends seemed to think it was a big thing. Perhaps some of them have it too and aren't saying.

I am really looking forward to continuing with this group and meeting more people like myself and hearing the stories they have to tell. At some point, we've all been through the dark times with this thing, and we've all dealt with it differently. Some people are totally healed emotionally by now, others are just starting, and still others are in a dark time for themselves right now. It's not the end of the world. I thought it was. This thing made a girl with not much self-esteem in the first place have to look even deeper to find herself and learn that she is worth something and is worth knowing, and finally stand up and say, I matter. - Kerry

A little note from Yoshi2me: Canker Sores and Cold Sores are not the same thing. Cold Sores and Fever Blisters are the Herpes Simplex Virus. Canker Sores have nothing to do with Herpes.

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