False-positive medical results are more common than one might think. Blood test results, for instance, are often inaccurate. However, you can’t rely on this theory to make yourself feel better just in case your unfavorable results happen to be accurate.
Hanging out with Ryan and seeing his mental health decline has caused me to panic. He called me yesterday and announced to me he had prostate cancer. He didn’t seem too fazed by it, though, and part of me feels like he’s not planning on fighting hard to get through it.
I’ve been feeling more exhausted than usual lately, and I would often get stomach aches at night. It’s really hard to tell if it’s all in my head or if it’s going to go away, so getting tested was the best way to keep my mind at ease. I woke up and left the house early this morning while Frieda was still sleeping. I walked to the nearby clinic; the one located in the hospital my mom used to take me to when I was young. When I went inside and walked to the designated area, I started to remember the day I woke up, paralyzed and with an unbearable headache that I had to be taken to the emergency room. I remembered when I fell down and hit the back of my head on the concrete floor, blood dripping like crazy. I remembered when I had a terrible cold and was dehydrated which caused me to faint and lose consciousness. As familiar as the clinic was, I was scared of a life-altering sickness taking over my body. I didn’t want to be sick. I can’t be sick. Walking inside, I was assisted by a middle-aged woman who directed me to the waiting area where I had to fill out some information on a paper. It asked all sorts of questions about what kind of drugs I took and what kind of sex I had. As much as I wanted to avoid certain questions or give false answers, I knew doing so would be pointless and against my own benefit, so I remained honest. I filled out all the information, gave the lady the paper, and walked up to the second floor. It was while leaving the room that I noticed the HIV educational video playing on a never ending loop on multiple television screens which made me feel a bit stressed out.
On the second floor, another lady gave me a number and a plastic vial for my urine. After peeing and presenting my sample, I was asked to go to another room where I had to wait for my blood to be drawn. All I could think of as I waited for my turn was, “This too shall pass”, and the ironic part of the whole situation is the fact some people were just sitting there, bored or on their cellphones because they had nothing to worry about while two teenage girls sitting right behind me described, and in great detail, the way they liked to get fucked by their boyfriends. In front of me, a mother sitting next to her son capped my attention; they were holding hands, and the young boy seemed tense and worried. That put me down immediately and I almost ran outside the room. “Maybe I don’t want to know”, I thought to myself. But in that moment, not knowing was the worst feeling in the world, so I stayed seated and waited. I went back to the clinic a week after I got tested and the results put me in an immediate shocking state. They indicated I had Hepatitis B. Not knowing what to do, I decided to get tested again at a different clinic. Again, the results came a week later, but surprisingly enough, they showed I was healthy and clean. Although deep inside I knew I was okay, I was still worried. I’ve been through a lot already, and I don’t need another problem. The relief I’m feeling right now is huge.
When I got to the age of becoming sexually active and started engaging in risky behavior by hustling and sleeping with random people, I gave very little thought to the consequences that might follow each encounter. Even with all the obvious dangers of sexually transmitted diseases and so on, I kept doing it. Maybe I didn’t care enough about my health and body to be scared. As far as I know, as much as I enjoyed some parts of life, I didn’t mind if I died.
All my internal rage and poor self-esteem I‘ve buried deep inside me through my teenage years manifested in that past lifestyle I’ve created for myself. I’ve always blamed my parents for the way I turned out, but I wish I knew where things went wrong. What the hell did they do to me? There’s a lot of other people who grew up in worse conditions than mine and still managed to grow up to be normal. Why isn’t that the case with me? Is there a genetic defect? Am I cursed?
At the end of the day, the only conclusion I can come to is that there’s no changing who I am, so why bother trying to find the main causes of my misery? It’s not like it’s going to go away. Coping is the only thing I can do right now, and as much as I feel like killing myself, there’s something keeping me from actually doing it, and I don’t know what it is.
Felix Eberstark 