During our teenage years, my sister dated this guy we’ll call “B-Rabbit,” for 5 years. He was a small-time criminal, low-key drug addict and as much as I idolized the guy as he became like an older brother to me, he was a fucking degenerate. He lived with us on and off for a few years but wasn’t welcomed by my dad. So B-rabbit, although 5’11, was skin and bones and slept under the tiny crevice under my sister's bed. Wanting to collect worker's compensation instead of working his construction job, I witnessed B-Rabbit take a hammer to his thumb over and over again in our kitchen. One day he came over with a legitimate shopping cart full to the brim with cases of beer, bottles of spirits and cartons of cigarettes. He and his buddy (who is now dead and went by “Justin Crime”) came over, bragging about how they robbed some guy's credit card and went on a degenerate spending spree. The funniest B-Rabbit moment happened when I was walking down the sidewalk outside of my house. You could hear the screeching tires from miles away when a van pulls up as if they just pulled a heist and were on a high-speed chase with the cops. The side door opens and out flops an extremely hammered B-rabbit, hitting the pavement as the van peels off. I still to this day have no fucking idea what happened, but it was in the hours succeeding a Jamaican festival that Vancouver puts on every year. I used to call this guy my idol… I thought he was the shit and wanted to be just like him. Over the ensuing years that they dated, my dad would frequently say, “You live by the sword, you die by the sword. Just you watch, something bad will inevitably happen to B-Rabbit. You can’t sleep with one eye open your entire life.” They eventually break up and the years pass. About 4 years ago, I find out that B-Rabbit had gone missing, months later, a limb was found washed up on the shore. It belonged to him. He had stolen a truck that belonged to a Hells Angel and was kidnapped and fucking mutilated. This is when I realized that if you live a careless life free of any kind of consequence for your actions, shit will inevitably blow up in your face, whether it be death or some sort of life scare. Does this mean I changed in any way and started living my life with repercussions in mind? No, hardly at all. Just because I became self-aware, doesn’t mean I changed anything. I choose to ignore reality because I love how my life is and I don’t want to grow up yet. One day I will, just not today. Perhaps the dumbest shit I do and have done for years and years, apart from drinking my liver to resemble a raisin, is having reckless sex with multiple strangers, free of protection. There’s nothing wrong with sleeping around if you’re single. But if you’re like me and renounced contraceptives it can and is, incredibly problematic for a lot of people for many reasons. Like anyone living a life similar to mine, there’s a lot of misplaced trusts and narcissistic tendencies when it comes to the one-night stand and fucking around with strangers. You just don’t know who’s being truthful or what someone might have, even unknowingly at times. Like any fucking moron, I have sexually lived by the sword for many years, so unavoidably, I’ll die by the sword, right? How long can one play sexual roulette for?
“Oh yes, Liam Peters. You have tested positive for Hepatitis C Antibody”. I could feel the blood rushing away from my face, as I stared at the receptionist in shock. I couldn’t move. “Take a seat and a doctor will speak to you shortly”. There was a girl about five feet away from me who had heard. My first thought is “Fuck. My sex life is over. Fuck”. My second was, “what am I gonna tell my dad.”
I quickly walk out the front door, calling my buddy in a fucking panic. “Hepatitis C antibody. What is it? What is it? I have it. I have it.” I say, in what could barely be considered English. My heart was pounding, and I was about to pass out. I knew it was bad, but that was the extent of my knowledge regarding the virus. “Calm down, man. You are fine”, he kept saying. Truth was, the closest I had ever come to “practicing safe sex” was taking the condom off after 2 minutes because I had lost my erection. I treated sex like walking on a field of dead land mines, knowing that some of them could still be live. “The doctor will see you now,” said the receptionist, as she was poking her head out the front door. I fucking hated her for telling me this news. The doctor walked in as I was sitting in her office, hyperventilating and shaking like a frightened puppy in new surroundings, awaiting my inevitable demise. “What can I help you out with today?” She said without a care in the world. I hated her, too. After telling her that I was needing to speak about my test results, she pulls up my file, nonchalantly telling me that I had a false positive. The first test came back positive, but the supplementary test came back negative. She starts explaining what a false positive is and why they happen, but all I can hear is the teacher from Charlie Brown – “Womp womp womp womp.” I asked her if there was a cure for it and if I was going to die. She said no to both and told me I would need to get another blood test done, before telling me to come back in tomorrow, so she could print me off a Life Lab requisition form because her printer wasn’t working at the moment. She patted me on the bum and sent me on my merry way.
Google is a gift and a curse. I have compulsions to Google absolutely everything. When I have a cough, I assume I have a terminal illness and that I am going to die. My buddies had to restrain me from Googling anything and did a good job keeping my nerves at bay. I did Google symptoms though, all of which I had because if you Google symptoms for anything, you automatically have them all. I swear I have every disease known to man as soon as I Google symptoms for anything. Fuck you, Google. My buddy mentioned that the chances of getting Hep C through sexual intercourse are 1 in 190,000 – so, it would be like winning the Lotto Max, people win it though, and I am a lucky person, generally speaking. The following day I go to a Life Lab Centre and as I’m getting my bloodwork done, I am asking the nurse about false positives to which she has no idea because ironically, doctors never seem to know anything about health. She keeps saying, “positive thinking. Positive thinking”! I look at her as if I am about to cry and say, “No! How could you say that?? Negative thinking. Negative thinking!” She looked at me in confusion, before it registered, and she started laughing uncontrollably. She told me I will know the results in a week. I was feeling like I just watched the tape in “The Ring” and the creepy girl called me to tell me I had 7 days to live.
That week, I couldn’t sleep and when I did, it was depression naps, because I was so exhausted from worrying that I completely burnt myself out each day. I couldn’t eat and when I did eat. I stress ate, binging junk food unable to stop. My mind went to a dark place, as I tried to think who I may have given it to, God knows there could be a Rolodex of women. The guilt was overbearing and completely consuming me. Who gave it to me? I broke down crying, praying to God on a few occasions. I didn’t want to lose my spark, my shine, it’s all I have in this world. I couldn’t do anything, but continuous laps around my condo, resorting to childhood movies to find comfort. Parent Trap. Home Alone 2. Lion King 2. There was something unbelievably comforting about sequels. Like I said, I was in a dark place. Escaping back to my childhood was the only time I felt any type of normalcy. Podcasts also helped. I FaceTimed a good buddy, telling him what was going on. He started researching and said that you can contract it from rim jobs, as he struggled not to smile, knowing that I have successfully cleansed more colons than enemas. I hung up on him in a rage, as he was playing doctor. Fuck you, man! I was so angry at him. Realizing after the fact, that I wasn’t angry at him, his heart was in the right place, as he was trying to rationalize the situation. I was angry at myself for putting myself in that position to possibly contract it that way. The most common way to contract it is through needles, so, most commonly, heroin and sketchy alleyway tattoos (Re: Pam Anderson) and there is an unbelievably low chance of transmitting it sexually. 1 in 5 tests is false positives, meaning the false positive rate is 3%. So, that would put my paranoia at bay, until the Hep C Monster would intervene, scaring the shit out of me.
Hep C Monster: “I am in your bloodstream, consuming your body and your entire being! You can’t get rid of meeee. You fucked up, Liam! MUHUHUHAHAHAHA”!
“No! You’re not real, monster! Get out of my head!” I would say, realizing I was just lashing out at myself.
“Fatigue, nausea and muscle aches” were symptoms! I have all 3… I have the virus. Neglecting the fact that a large majority of the population suffers from fatigue and sore muscles, especially during the pandemic we were currently living in. This is how my mind works. I also had a dry cough, which isn’t a symptom, but in my mind, it was a symptom that I had created and rationalized. Fuck you, Google. It had been 5 days since I had the blood work done, convincing myself that I was positive and writing my will (which is more of a ‘won't’, because I have nothing but a series of constant fuckups to pass on to my family) when my phone started vibrating. Every time my phone rang that week, I assumed it was the clinic, so this was no different. Taking a deep breath and slowly flipping my phone over, I look at the call display, it was my clinic. I’ve heard that no news is good news, so they’re surely calling because I tested positive. If I don’t answer and ignore them, I don’t have it, right? That is how it works. Ignorance is bliss. I pick it up and this nurse has the nerve to ask me how I am doing. Nice weather we’re having, what are your Christmas plans? Get to the point and tell me I am dying already.
Nurse: “Your results are in and they came back…”
I swear she paused for dramatic effect. It felt like 2 days before she eventually ends up finishing the sentence with “negative.” I unclenched and exhaled. It was feeling like I held my breath for an entire week, as I was paralyzed with fear, depression and anxiety and when I let out that breath, I was overwhelmed with joy, hope and adrenaline. My response was, “Fuckmecockshitholyfuckasswooooooo.” She was laughing and apologizing for the stressful week that I must have endured. I told her someone at the clinic owes me dinner, before asking how this came to be. After she explained it to me, I told her to dumb it down to civilian talk because I didn’t understand a word that she said. The first ‘test’ was an anti-body screening, which they over-test, so they don’t miss any anti-body markers and it doesn’t go undetected in people who are living with it and walking around unknowingly. The second test is called an “RNA Test” which measures the viral load and the actual amount of HCV in your blood. It is nearly 100% accurate and can detect infection within about 2 weeks of exposure. I know. Look, mistakes happen, ask my parents. “I want to say thank you and I love you” I finished the call off with. She was laughing awkwardly. “Uhh, you too. Enjoy your day.” This was the biggest mistake since my conception 30 years ago. I hung up and screamed “VICTORY!” As loud as I possibly could, nearly shaking my apartment building, before breaking down. I lost control of my body and my emotions and began crying hysterically. It was like I was given a second chance and was breathing new life. I believe in the old cliché that everything happens for a reason, so there was a specific reason why this happened to me. I don’t want to take anything away from people who are living with this virus or anything worse, I couldn’t imagine how tough it is. I had it for 15 minutes before finding out that I didn’t have it and then convinced myself that I was living with it for 7 days. It was the hardest week of my life. That kind of uncertainty is body-crippling and can exhaust you in indescribable ways.
The same day I got the initial phone call from my clinic to talk about my results, I was with my buddy and bitching about the rough week that I just had. My tooth and gum were infected, and I was needing anti-biotics and a root canal. I was having money woes yada yada yada, shut the fuck up, I know. As I was complaining about my mundane problems, I received that call. This scare put all these inconsequential problems into perspective, and it is no coincidence. Suddenly, my money issues and people who had “wronged” me in my life were no longer important, forgetting they existed. After I got that follow-up call that I tested negative, I chose to not see this week as another issue, but a lesson. A lesson on not bitching about the small, day-to-day problems that I am living with. I often forget there are millions and millions of people who have it much worse than I do. Life can change in the span of a 5-second phone call, which it did twice a week for me, on both ends of the emotional spectrum. I chose to be grateful that I was given a clean bill of health. As I was leaving my place after finding out I was negative, I envisioned getting hit by a bus in a “Final Destination” moment, with the Hep C Monster driving the bus. “You can’t escape me, Liam! Death is pre-destined and if you dodge me, I WILL come back to kill you!”
So, friends, today my smile is a little bigger and my heart a little fuller. I gotta jet though, “The Ring” is about to start.
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