I have just received an urn with
the ashes of one of my beautiful fur
babies. He would have been 12 years
old, along with his brother and sister, on
December 21. He was a bit of an oaf of
a dog: Large and clumsy, he always
managed to bruise my toes when it was dinner
time, with his funny little tap dance and
silly song.
But this is not a tribute to my
boy. This is a plea to put the health
of others before your own convenience and
comfort. This may seem disjointed and
irrelevant, but please follow along, and all
will be revealed.
In 1988, I was madly in love with
a local rock star that I’d known for a bit
over a year. I was seventeen and believed
that God wanted me to save myself for
marriage. I was reasonably successful in
school and planned to go to college. Dave,
21, at the time, wanted me to move in with
him after I graduated high school.
I told him that I couldn’t do
that - it would set a bad example. He
suggested that we get married so it would be
ok. At seventeen, and in 1988, that
was as romantic a proposal as I had come to
expect.
I had imagined waiting until
after college to get married, but I was
young and crazy in love and had never seen a
successful relationship in my life, so what
did I know?
Dave and I had been together a
year when he got his own apartment. Within a
month or so, I was no longer a virgin. We
didn’t use a condom, because…boys. But
we took precautions to avoid pregnancy, and
I trusted that certainly this man who loves
me would protect me if he knew or even
thought he might have something.
Within a month or so, I began to
have symptoms. I didn’t know what it was.
Burning. Itching. Pain. My mom suggested it
might be a yeast infection, but it would be
several more months and a wedding before I
learned that I had gotten Herpes Simplex 1,
commonly referred to as “oral herpes,” and I
had gotten it genitally from my husband,
Dave, my very first lover.
When I told him that I had
herpes, he blamed a past partner. He told me
that he knew he’d “had something, but what’s
the big deal, right?”
Well…
In the years since Dave and I
divorced (married for eight, together for
ten), I have come close to death no less
than three times because of that virus. The
first was in 2000, when the scar tissue left
behind by outbreaks caused my one and only
pregnancy to be ectopic. It ruptured
and I bled internally for several days
before we caught it. I now have a scar from
ovary to ovary because they had to search
for the rupture, and no children of my own.
The second time I almost died was
in 2014. I had a tubo-ovarian abscess,
part of the pelvic inflammatory disease
family that is caused by STD. At the
time, I had yet to be diagnosed with CVID,
which I’ll discuss shortly, but when I first
went to the ER on my doctor’s advice, the CT
showed a mass on my ovary and a variety of
enflamed lymph nodes. Their diagnosis
was cancer.
I incubated that abscess for six
weeks, while doctors sorted out how they
intended to treat it. That was six
weeks of triple digit fevers, chills,
aching, vomiting, and general misery.
There came a day in which I woke
with strep in addition to all those other
symptoms. For the first time in my
life, I didn’t want to be alive anymore.
The good news is that it wasn’t
cancer. It was this episode that
finally led to my diagnosis of CVID, which
is Common Variable Immune Deficiency.
CVID is a condition in which my body does
not produce immunoglobulin G, which is
responsible for creating antibodies to
bacteria and viruses. I had been
having chronic bronchitis and pneumonia for
years. It had even cost me a job.
No one knows what causes CVID,
but there are those in the research
community who believe that it can be
triggered by traumatic bodily injury… like
that ectopic pregnancy that I had that had
required a blood transfusion. That
ectopic pregnancy that was likely caused by
scarring from that herpes virus that was No
Big Deal.
The treatments for CVID are
varied, but most involve infusions of
immunoglobulin G. I have to have them
weekly. It takes me about three hours
to administer them, myself. I jab four
needles into my belly fat, connect myself to
a pump and sit there for a couple of hours
as other people’s blood plasma gets pumped
into my body.
The third time that I almost
died, came upon moving to a state that
refused to participate in the ACA
subsidy. I went from paying $55/mo on
the exchange for health insurance in
California, to paying $600/mo on the
exchange in North Carolina. It took
several months for me to reestablish my
infusions, because at that time, I was
having to go into infusion clinics for IV
infusions.
I was preparing to go home for
Christmas, my fist visit since I’d
moved. On December 11, 2017, my now
fiancé woke to find me in the throws of a
grand mal seizure. He was told that I
had encephalitis and that I’d suffered some
strokes. He was told that I would
likely not survive.
I was in a coma for three
weeks. I missed my visit home. I
missed Christmas. My fiancé has been
diagnosed with PTSD due to the event, but I
have survived. My doctors say that I
am a walking miracle.
They should say, “a barely
walking miracle.” The chronic lung
infections have caused Interstitial Lung
Disease. I require the use of a
mobility scooter for anything involving
walking or standing for extended
periods. I used to travel the
world. I’ve hiked all over this
country and through Canada, Germany and
Italy. I had planned to someday make
my way to the British Isles, Japan, Mexico,
Egypt and anywhere else I could get to.
Now most housework will require a
nap.
Even worse than my reduced
stamina is the brain damage caused by the
strokes. I have to take seizure
medication and sleep with oxygen to prevent
more seizures. I have short term
memory issues, and I experience confusion in
stressful situations. It doesn’t even
have to be bad stress. Tutoring my
friend online in college algebra, a subject
I taught for 17 years, was an
adventure. I love algebra and I love
my friend. She understands my issues,
but it’s still quite humbling to have her
correct my mistakes while I’m trying to
teach her.
And this brings me to these
ashes.
Due to my chronic health issues,
my fiancé and I decided it would be better
to live closer to family and friends since
his job has become a work from home
position. We left North Carolina
on July 9 with my beautiful babies in my
van, Opie, Chunk, and Despereaux. They
were all from the same litter and tumbled
into my life completely unexpectedly.
Their mom had been rescued, and I was the
lucky one to get to bring her home.
None of us realized that she came with a
bonus.
Those three dogs were born into
my hands. I have always felt that they
were the Universe’s way of allowing me the
experience of raising newborns. There
had been seven puppies, but these three were
the only survivors. I realized right
away that I could not give them up.
As we left NC, Opie, Chunk, and
Despereaux were excited to get in the van
and go bye-bye. Only Opie and
Despereaux would make it to our new home.
On the first morning after
staying in a motel, I got up to take the
dogs out to go potty and eat. My
fiancé was sleeping a little late.
After they all did their business, we headed
back to the room. They were so excited
to get into the van and go that I just went
ahead and put them in. I’d be out in a
moment and we could leave.
When I got back into the room, I
realized that Fiancé was still
sleeping. I prodded him to get him
moving. I communicated with the
friends who’d flown to NC to help us drive
back and I was gathering up my stuff.
By the time we were ready to go,
it was still morning, but it was July.
I had no idea how long it had been. It
seemed like only moments. When we
opened the van, my worst fears were
realized.
I let my babies suffer in a hot,
closed-up car because my brain was
damaged. Pre-encephalitis Jenna would
never have left them in a closed-up car for
even a moment.
The image of my precious babies
panting, and gasping will haunt me
forever. Chunk had seizures while I
tried to get him to drink Pedialyte.
He peed on me. I knew he was gone.
I’m trying to make something
positive of this whole experience. I
hope to someday start a non-profit called
“For the Love of Chunk” to help transport
animals for people in need, help with vet
expenses, etc.
In the meantime, I can’t help but
think that this is also a valuable and
timely lesson for others. Dave, my
ex-husband was asymptomatic. He
assumed that since he had no symptoms, he
could not transmit that virus to me.
He was not a bad person. He genuinely
loved me. And he made a choice to put
his comfort ahead of my health and safety.
Herpes rarely has the kinds of
effects it has had on me. But they do
happen. If I had died from any of those
events I shared, cause-of-death would not
have indicated herpes.
So when you hear about Covid-19
having a 3 or 4% death rate, that number may
seem low to you (though I fail to see how
160,000+ deaths since March is a low
number). Keep in mind that we don’t
know what other lasting issues it may
cause. How many people will die from
the aftereffects? What other suffering
might it cause? We have no way of
knowing.
I may be no one to you, but I
have become the adopted mama of a couple of
young people who have found themselves in
need of one. I’m an auntie, a sister,
a daughter, and bride-to-be. I’m a
teacher, though my classroom has changed
shape. I am a mentor, and I am a
writer with important stories to tell.
I matter. I make a
difference in this world. I did
nothing to deserve the pain and anguish that
the herpes virus has brought upon me and
those who love me. I believe that if
Dave were alive to know the effects his
choice has had on me; he’d never forgive
himself.
All this heartache and suffering
comes down to a single choice. He
chose to think of his comfort. It’s
ironic to me that in both the case of herpes
and the case of Covid-19 the choice is the
same: to wear protection or not.
Dave could and should have worn a
condom.
You can and should wear a mask.
It's not just about you.
#FortheLoveofChunk