A Queer Story
Part 4: Gardasil for Me

(Part 4 of a 6 part story)

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Seeing my friend off the next morning, I still have no pain and begin to engage in my usual round of activities without any trouble. Just after lunch, the moment I’ve been fearing arrives. I have to shit. I walk begrudgingly to the bathroom where I stare at the toilet as though it’s my torturer. I take off my pants. Bending forward slightly, I begin to remove the gauze bandaging from my rear ever so slowly and gently. Once free, I bring the bandaging up for a look. I’m dazzled to find it almost completely clean except for a few small dots of blood. I’m still nervous as I take the seat. I hold back in anticipation of pain, thinking this has been way too easy so far. I finally let go and feel a half-second pinch followed by nothing but the sensation of any standard bowel movement. But I still have to wipe, and surely this is where the pain will finally rear its head; where it has been waiting to ambush my comfortable post-operative day. I pull up one of the extra-gentle baby wipes purchased exclusively for this occasion. I blot lightly, introducing more pressure and wiping motion in tiny increments. Soreness, yes. Blood, pain, and agony, no. Fear of shitting dismissed.

My only remaining dread is that my curettage-fulgurated anus probably looks like roadkill. I grab my now trusty anus-viewing mirror and work myself into the position that granted me the first look at my condyloma many months earlier. I tell myself I can handle it, even if it looks like the floor of a slaughterhouse. It doesn’t. Aside from the noticeable redness and some swelling, it is easily identifiable as an anus —an anus clearly free of condyloma. Superb. Any trace of soreness disappeared within the next forty-eight hours, and by weeks’s end all swelling and redness disappeared as well. I was the proud owner of a pink, pristine and velvety-smooth anus. Innocence regained.

At the first follow-up, Dr. ass informs me that the surgery appeared completely successful. Better yet, he informs me that the biopsy showed no cellular abnormalities or dysplasia. He thinks we should follow-up three more times over the next six months, just to make sure there’s no re-growth, and then less frequently after this as a proactive measure. I happily agree.

During the months following the procedure, I made some sweeping changes in my life, ditching my high-stress job and moving to a quiet town where I shared a house with longtime friends and their two small children. The HPV experience had led me to a focused examination of the real threats posed by my sex-as-drug lifestyle. Coming to grips with the grave realities of transmitted disease, I simultaneously looked at the psychological play-by-play of my seemingly compulsive desires and decided to make some changes. Eight months from the surgery, I remained gloriously condyloma-free and had slowed my sexual adventure-seeking dramatically. For the first time in my life, I was confronted with an overwhelming sensation of normalcy. I even took on nanny duties, allowing my friend to complete his degree while his wife kept working full-time. I was only missing a mini-van.

My uncharacteristically well-balanced, unexpectedly suburban life didn’t remain that way for long. On a perfect morning in June, 2007, I awoke to find myself feeling strangely unwell, stricken by a malaise that permeated my entire body. Nevertheless, I dragged myself out of bed and down the stairs to make breakfast for the kids. By noon I felt as though I’d been up for two days. By the time my child rearing shift had ended, I went back upstairs and collapsed. In the middle of the night, I woke to a fever that blazed for several hours. Daylight brought more of the same.

I existed in this condition for three days, consoling myself with the notion that I was suffering a particularly horrid form of influenza. On the fourth day a pink-red rash appeared on my torso and wound its way up my neck. Simultaneously, the muscles of my body began aching loudly, and my joints stiffened in excruciating pain. The level of exhaustion was baffling. I crawled into my general practitioner’s office late that same afternoon, intuitively certain that whatever ailed me couldn’t be influenza —at least no influenza I’d ever processed. My G.P. described the rash as “viral and unspecified” and assured me that all of my symptoms indicated flu. She prescribed prednisone for the joint pain and insisted plenty of rest and fluids would take care of the rest.

Wrong. While the rash cleared, the other symptoms worsened and every lymph node in my flesh swelled to visibility. Again, I dragged myself to the G.P. Utterly unsure, she decided to do some routine blood tests and prescribed antibiotics as if bacterial infection were a foregone conclusion. I took them for thirty days without improving. Frightened and frayed, I took myself to a local ER, begging them to find out what the hell was the matter with me. Within two hours of my arrival, mission accomplished. I froze as the phrase “acute retroviral syndrome brought on by infection with HIV” spilled from the doctor’s mouth. My two rules of sexual engagement had soundly and irreversibly failed.

Read the next installment to A Queer Story, Part 5: Forget about HPV

by R.H.K, a man in Philadelphia, PA, age 38


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