Some time last winter I embarrased myself to death by going to my family doctor, whom I have known for over 25 years, and asked him to run a scan on me for std's. He looked embarrased and I was embarrased and lord knows what his staff know about my visit (I know most of them too). At the time I had no symptoms of anything but had recently had a visit with a sp where she advanced to cowgirl without putting a raincoat on me. That was quickly corrected but it scared me enough to go get checked (not that I thought she had anything but for my peace of mind).
Shortly thereafter I saw Zoe for the first time. She was telling me how important it is for folks to get checked. I told her how embarrassing it was and she recommended the walk in clinic 'circle 9' on the west end of Broadway. She said the clinic opend after lunch and went into the evening every Wed. and it was totally impersonal. She suggested that by 2:00 there is usually very few people waiting so between 2:00 and 4:00 was the best time for fast impersonal service.
A couple of weeks back I determined it was again a good time to get checked, again it was just good stewardship on my part, as I had no particular reason for concern (other than I had been having a lot of fun pooning around). I arrived at the clinic at 2:00. They give you a couple of pages of stuff to fill out. One signifigant part of the form dealt with coding your identity at the clinic so nobody knew who you were and your real identity did not go forward with samples but rather your code identity.
One of the forms did deal with the uncomfortable area where you are informed that under provincial law it is required that public health is notified if you do test positive and you have to sign a waver allowing it. I added to that with an instruction that I be notified first and signed off on that condition. To be frank the sign off allowing them to disclose such personal information is not specified as being irrevocable and I speculated that if I changed my mind if I got bad news I would simply revoke my permission and see what happened. Under Canada's PIPIDA laws (personal information) I think they would not be able to go further. That is not to say that I would take unreasonable control and avoid due process but rather I would have reasonable control over it.
Anyway back to the review ..........
Upon completion of the form I sat in the waiting room with one other couple and a single lady in her 20's all there presumably for the same reason. She and I nervously exchanged glances. I only waited about 5 min. and I was called to a small meeting room where you must first meet with a volunteer counselor. She was a lady in her early 40's. She asked if she could have a trainee participate in her review. I agreed and this really cute little hottie in her early 20's in a tight T shirt and short pleated skirt and knee high socks appeared and we began the review.
The questions they asked were typical. They basically dealt with how many different partners you had in the last 6 months. How many were unprotected and in what way etc. They each participated in the review and check off of the questions that they were to ask me. When I told them the number of ladies and some of the other detales the older lady became much more formal and seemed a little uncomfortable and the hottie began to smile and spend more time chatting and checking me out which was sort of enjoyable and helped me relax. None of the questions had anything to do with identies of anyone including me. They only knew me by my coded identity.
When they were done with the questions they gave me their reccommendations on what I ought to do in the future differently - one partner - protection for all oral and fs - etc. They offered free handfuls of raincoats and the like if I would just accept them.
Anway after some 15 min. I returned to the waiting room and was quickly called up by a 30'sh maile nurse to come to another office where he drew blood, swabed and swabed (mouth, throat and crotch), did a physical inspection of my privates and then sent me off to provide a urine sample. He was very informative and extremly easy to talk to so I discussed a lot more detale about the type of activities that I did and he made me quite comfortable about the risk factors (basically I went away feeling better and not scared into retiring at all).
He told me to check back in 2 weeks for the results. I did call in on Tues. and I had a clean bill of health generally but I was required to attend in person for the AIDS results which are OK too. I believed the purpose of appearing in person for the AIDS results is that they re-inforce that you should repeat in 6 months because the initial test may not pick up new infections.
Bottom line is that the service is very anonymous, fast and reasonably impersonal. It is conducted with extreme professionalism and is designed to not scare you off but rather come in regularly. Like Zoe I highly reccommend that all you poons and sp's do us all a favour and get tested regularly if you don't already.
The male nurse did offer one scary statistic. He said that something like 60% of the street workers in Wpg are now testing positive for antibodies to the AIDS virus. He cautioned that almost all of them that test positive go on antiviral drugs which reduce the virus levels in their blood to very low infection rates. None the less the statistic was scary and since he said nothing else that I could attribute to fear mongering I took his advice as real. I never see streetworkers but I believe others do that also see private sp's that I may visit.
Signing off CLEAN AND HEALTHY!
Shortly thereafter I saw Zoe for the first time. She was telling me how important it is for folks to get checked. I told her how embarrassing it was and she recommended the walk in clinic 'circle 9' on the west end of Broadway. She said the clinic opend after lunch and went into the evening every Wed. and it was totally impersonal. She suggested that by 2:00 there is usually very few people waiting so between 2:00 and 4:00 was the best time for fast impersonal service.
A couple of weeks back I determined it was again a good time to get checked, again it was just good stewardship on my part, as I had no particular reason for concern (other than I had been having a lot of fun pooning around). I arrived at the clinic at 2:00. They give you a couple of pages of stuff to fill out. One signifigant part of the form dealt with coding your identity at the clinic so nobody knew who you were and your real identity did not go forward with samples but rather your code identity.
One of the forms did deal with the uncomfortable area where you are informed that under provincial law it is required that public health is notified if you do test positive and you have to sign a waver allowing it. I added to that with an instruction that I be notified first and signed off on that condition. To be frank the sign off allowing them to disclose such personal information is not specified as being irrevocable and I speculated that if I changed my mind if I got bad news I would simply revoke my permission and see what happened. Under Canada's PIPIDA laws (personal information) I think they would not be able to go further. That is not to say that I would take unreasonable control and avoid due process but rather I would have reasonable control over it.
Anyway back to the review ..........
Upon completion of the form I sat in the waiting room with one other couple and a single lady in her 20's all there presumably for the same reason. She and I nervously exchanged glances. I only waited about 5 min. and I was called to a small meeting room where you must first meet with a volunteer counselor. She was a lady in her early 40's. She asked if she could have a trainee participate in her review. I agreed and this really cute little hottie in her early 20's in a tight T shirt and short pleated skirt and knee high socks appeared and we began the review.
The questions they asked were typical. They basically dealt with how many different partners you had in the last 6 months. How many were unprotected and in what way etc. They each participated in the review and check off of the questions that they were to ask me. When I told them the number of ladies and some of the other detales the older lady became much more formal and seemed a little uncomfortable and the hottie began to smile and spend more time chatting and checking me out which was sort of enjoyable and helped me relax. None of the questions had anything to do with identies of anyone including me. They only knew me by my coded identity.
When they were done with the questions they gave me their reccommendations on what I ought to do in the future differently - one partner - protection for all oral and fs - etc. They offered free handfuls of raincoats and the like if I would just accept them.
Anway after some 15 min. I returned to the waiting room and was quickly called up by a 30'sh maile nurse to come to another office where he drew blood, swabed and swabed (mouth, throat and crotch), did a physical inspection of my privates and then sent me off to provide a urine sample. He was very informative and extremly easy to talk to so I discussed a lot more detale about the type of activities that I did and he made me quite comfortable about the risk factors (basically I went away feeling better and not scared into retiring at all).
He told me to check back in 2 weeks for the results. I did call in on Tues. and I had a clean bill of health generally but I was required to attend in person for the AIDS results which are OK too. I believed the purpose of appearing in person for the AIDS results is that they re-inforce that you should repeat in 6 months because the initial test may not pick up new infections.
Bottom line is that the service is very anonymous, fast and reasonably impersonal. It is conducted with extreme professionalism and is designed to not scare you off but rather come in regularly. Like Zoe I highly reccommend that all you poons and sp's do us all a favour and get tested regularly if you don't already.
The male nurse did offer one scary statistic. He said that something like 60% of the street workers in Wpg are now testing positive for antibodies to the AIDS virus. He cautioned that almost all of them that test positive go on antiviral drugs which reduce the virus levels in their blood to very low infection rates. None the less the statistic was scary and since he said nothing else that I could attribute to fear mongering I took his advice as real. I never see streetworkers but I believe others do that also see private sp's that I may visit.
Signing off CLEAN AND HEALTHY!
