SEXUAL HEALTH CHECK
Ever since my eight-year relationship finished, back in 1992, I've gone for
a regular sexual health check.
It's no big deal. The staff at the GUM clinic are
very friendly and there's the advantage that none of
this goes onto your medical record. Just have a chat
with a doctor, they take a urine sample and some swabs.
You get some preliminary results back in 15 minutes and then call back for
the full results two weeks later. It's good to have the vaccine against hepatitis
-- which protects you for years.
You can also have an HIV test. Some places do a same or next day test. At other
places you have to wait two weeks for the result. These days, in Britain at least,
it's better to know whether you have the HIV virus, as your health can be monitored
and any associated health problems can be zapped immediately before they do serious
damage.
I've always felt it's good to know that I'm not passing on anything to other
people. Some sexually-transmitted infections can 'lurk' without showing any symptoms
and can do you harm long-term if they go undiscovered. Maybe I've been lucky,
but I've never had any serious infection.
Unfortunately, at the moment, the whole sexual health system in Britain is
in crisis and you would not believe the problems I had trying to get an appointment.
So much for trying to be a responsible person...
In recent years, the number of sexually-transmitted infections has been on
the increase among male, female, gay and straight alike.
Bad management and a lack of funding has led to a situation where the services
can barely keep up with treating the people who already have an infection. And
because it's so difficult to get a general health check, many people don't bother
going any more. This, in turn, leads to more STDs being passed on... A vicious
circle.
Having failed to get an appointment over the telephone, I went into the local
clinic and asked for one. I was told they could only handle people who had symptoms.
To emphasise the point, the health advisor told me they had someone with primary
syphillis waiting. I wondered if it was the guy who was giving me the eye in the
waiting room! Funny how the place is always packed with good-looking guys. Or
maybe it isn't that strange when you think about it...
Anyway, they wouldn't give me an appointment for
a check unless I telephoned. But each time I telephoned,
I got an engaged tone and then finally an answering
machine with the message 'all appointments for tomorrow
have been booked. Please call back tomorrow'!
Well, eventually I did finally get an appointment for yesterday and everything
was OK on the preliminary results. Also I had an HIV test for the first time ever
and I got the result back this afternoon. Negative -- which is what I expected.
Even so, about two hours before I got the result I began to get more and more
stressed. In fact I can't remember a more stressful situation than the moment
I walked into that room!
Silly really, as I've always been careful. However, there were some issues
going right back to 1982 and the eight-year relationship and I felt this was something
that still tied us together. It feels good to put that behind me finally...
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