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"When New York Pride festivities kicked off on 24 June, I was aware that monkeypox was an emerging issue – especially for gay men – but I was also under the impression that the number of cases in the city was relatively small. What I didn’t understand was how absolutely dismal testing capacity was: at that point, the city only had capacity to process ten tests a day.

I had sex with several guys over the weekend. Then a week later, on 1 July, I started feeling very fatigued. I had a high fever with chills and muscle aches, and my lymph nodes were so swollen they were protruding two inches out of my throat."

"For the past decade, my work has primarily focused on sexual and reproductive health and rights, so I followed the outbreak from the very beginning."

" I developed lesions literally everywhere; they started out looking like mosquito bites before developing into pimply blisters that would eventually pop, then finally scab before leaving a scar. I had them on my skull, on my face, my arms, my legs, my feet, my hands, my torso, my back, and five just on my right elbow. At the peak, I had over 50 lesions, a fever of 103F and intense pain, prompting a panic attack. Ironically, the only place I didn’t have lesions was my penis."

"The next day I got my STI results: positive for gonorrhea."

"My anorectal lesions, which were already very painful, turned into open wounds. It felt like I had three fissures right next to each other, and it was absolutely excruciating. I would literally scream out loud when I went to the bathroom. Even keeping the area clean, like washing myself, was extremely painful. It was a two hour process each time."

"Four days after my test – I got a call from urgent care that I had tested positive for monkeypox."

"This whole thing just feels like a huge failure that should not have been allowed to happen, especially not two and half months into the outbreak. If someone like me, who has worked in sexual health for a long time, had such a hard time navigating care, I can’t imagine other people doing it."


Link: He probably screamed out in pain several times that wild weekend