Because I needed more to worry about.....

I just can't believe this...

Dr. Gentle's nurse called to talk about the results of the sonohistogram. She confirmed that the polyp is bigger than 10mm, which means Dr. Gentle will advise to have it removed.

My phone lost range so the call was dropped.

I was shocked by what she said when she called back.

There's an unlikely chance that I have Hep C.

As so many of you know, various blood tests are mandated before you can start ivf. One of the tests checks for evidence of Hep C. This test uses five measurements. If 2 of them come back positive, you are considered positive for Hep C.

One of the five measures came back positive. Which means that my test results were inconclusive.

Dr. Gentle's nurse recommended that I contact my primary care physician and have the blood work repeated. She told me that it is probably a false positive. That at least three other patients in the last 6 months received false positives.

What scared the sh*t out of me is when my primary care (who I will call Dr. P - P for progressive because she's a cool person), returned the call I left for her.

She called me. Not her nurse.

I started to panic.

She apologized for not getting back to me sooner as the tests were done October 12th (but was that really her job, I wondered, when Dr. Gentle was the one that ordered them??)

She assured me that the chances that this is a false positive are strong. I assured her that I have never engaged in high-risk activities - no drug use (intravenous or otherwise), no contact with blood, no transfusions, no tattoos even. She asked if I have had any symptoms and that's when I got scared.

Because I had spent a little time learning about Hep C on the internet before she called.

Most of the symptoms are like for any other ailment - loss of appetite, nausea, fatigue - all things I have certainly experienced recently but I could easily explain them: the first two from stress (this is something that happens to me when I go through a significant life change, like my job situation) and the last, well, I am just always tired - something I have chalked up to having such an active - and nervous - mind. I constantly analyze and judge myself and, as I like to tell Susan, have already decided that I failed somehow by the time I get in the shower in the morning. It's exhausting.

I told her about the fatigue.

But it was the presence of an unusual symptom that has led me to worry.

Ok, this is going to be gross, so put down your snack.

One of the symptoms is pale or grayish well, you know, waste. I noticed a month or so ago (god, I wish I could remember more clearly), that my well... waste was grayish for a day or two. I thought it was bizarre but it happened either while I was taking tons of vitamins and/or when I wasn't eating too much because I had lost my appetite. I remember thinking it was strange but I explained it away. As my avid readers know, I suffer from IBS and weird things just happen to me. I am used to surprises in that realm.

I told Dr. P about that and she did seem a bit more concerned. But I have not experienced any of the other symptoms.

All I could think was "fuck!"

We agreed that I would go to the lab on Monday for another round of blood tests. I guess the original order failed to test for Hep A, which I guess is part of the usual pre-ivf workup, so she ordered that as well. And she is going to check my liver profiles just in case.

Frantic, I called my sister, M the Med Tech, for her analysis. She insisted that determinations are made within a range and that I could have ranked barely positive on the one that was ruled positive. The machines vary in their results and one "positive" result could be rendered negative if run by another lab. All we know for sure is that we need to run the tests again, preferably with a new blood sample. She said that false positives happen more often than you may think. When her lab gets a positive for Hep B (they don't test for C), they send it out to another lab for a retest. There have been many times in which those tests come back negative.

All of this information helped but I am still incredibly worried. Mr. LIW and I were supposed to go out on a date tonight but I needed to spend some time crying. AGAIN.

Based on my prodding, Dr. P said that I have could have contracted it years ago. The *only* way I could have gotten it would have been through se*ual contact. The last time I was with anyone either than Mr. LIW was 4+ years ago.

I know that my female partners were negative because one (P) got tested after she learned in her graduate microbiology program that it can be contracted by the needles used to give tattoos (she had 4) and the other (K) donated blood and/or platelets when we were together.

I certainly didn't have it 5 or 6 years ago either because I donated blood a handful of times and blood donations are tested for Hep C. I know that because I did a short - and painful - stint as a blood donor recruiter.

So, it would have had to have been from one of the two men that I slept with in between the failure of my first marriage (to K) and getting into a relationship with Mr. LIW.

One of these guys (D) had only been with one or two other women. I should post about him someday because it turned out that he liked airbrushed women on the internet more than real women. But anyway, we always used protection. And, well, I never ingested with his body fluid or used his toothbrush.

But T, well, that was a bit of a different story. He was one of the two best lovers I have ever had (K being the other.) He epitomizes what all men say but few believe: that size does not count. He was like a magician despite his lack of size. It probably helped that he played semi-professional volleyball and was in phenomenal shape.

Man, he was *hot*. He looked alot like this

We used protection, of course, for intercourse. Until Mr. LIW, I had never had s*x with a man without a cond*m.

But T was the first person that I actually was willing to..umm...well, you know, *ingest* his fluids. (I am sorry for being gross here.)

I did the responsible thing and asked him if he had been tested for HIV. I never thought to ask about Hep C.

So my assumption is that, if I have it, I got it from him over 5 years ago.

But since I got home from work tonight, I have spent hours researching transmission on the internet and nearly all of the most reputable sources insist that interaction with blood is really the only way to contract it.

And that previous studies indicating that it can be transmitted se*ually have been disproved. That it is *highly* unlikely to be transmitted via interaction with other body fluids.

Since T and I were only intimate a few times (maybe 4 or 5 at most), the only "drug" he clearly used was alcohol, and I never interacted with his blood, it is much more likely that this test was a false positive. Well, I should probably refer to it as semi-positive.

If I had contracted it from T, I should have a strong positive result for the antibodies at this point because my body would have been fighting it for a very long time.

But I just can't help worrying. What would this mean for ivf? Our chances of adopting? My long-term health?

I have a talent for thinking through situations and imagining each and every horrible conclusion.

I can't help wondering....

And it pisses me off that I continue to get bad medical news. That I was in a fantastic mood today until this happened. That the *one* time in my life that I let go and really tried to have an enjoyable casual relationship, I might have contracted a horrible disease - even though I was still relatively responsible.

I haven't sold my body on the street. I have never even smoked p*t for christ's sake, never mind injected an illegal substance. I have only even smoked cigarettes twice in my life.

When I look back on my life, my biggest regret is that I didn't have enough fun. That I did not allow myself to be carefree. My short-lived fling with T was one of the only semi-crazy things I did in my life. And it wasn't even crazy by non-Amish standards. I would hate to have to regret that....

Is there anyone out there that has had a false-positive test for Hep C or any other disease? Anything that you could (honestly, of course) offer me to put my mind at ease would be greatly appreciated....