At the doc's

I discussed my symptoms and the doctor (not my usual one but a rather dour 40-ish Asian lady) asked me why I hadn't just taken Immodium. I told her that a) I didn't have real diarrhoea, just nasty, painful, explosive loo sessions, and b) the consequences of Immodium would make my piles worse! She said she quite understood.

She asked if I had been abroad recently and said she would normally only give antibiotics to people who had. I told her I hadn't, but I had been handling bird feeders a lot and though I always wash my hands afterwards, there's a chance of picking up an infection off those. So she wrote me a script for five days' worth of Ciprofloxacin, which I have never had before. The instructions tell you to drink no milk and take no indigestion remedies or products containing zinc for two hours either side of a pill (twice a day). I merrily popped one having just drunk a mug of milky tea! I shall be more careful in future.

The good news is, after just three pills, I am feeling quite a bit better. I was still awake from 3.30 to 5 am with stomach ache but it wasn't so bad and I didn't have to rush to the loo at dawn.

The bad news is, the results of my blood tests were in and showed a slight thyroid dysfunction (not bad enough for them to do anything about, she said, but that might explain my heart palpitations and dry, itchy skin) plus my white blood cell and platelet counts were too low and I have to have another test in two months' time.

Not knowing the significance of the latter two, I rushed to Google. Big mistake. I'm now convinced I have AIDS, Hepatitis C or both together! Fifteen years ago, I was raped while on holiday in Turkey and got a whole raft of STI's as a result. I didn't go to the police because the man was somebody I had had consensual sex with on a previous holiday. The condom had torn and I picked up STI's then and had antibiotics for them.

The rape occurred on another holiday a year later, when I couldn't get back to my hotel because there was a raging storm and trees had come down over the mountain road. He saw me sitting forlornly in a bar at 1.30 am and offered me his spare room, saying he wouldn't lay a finger on me. No sooner was I fast asleep when he came in and jumped on me. I tried to fight him off but he was stronger. I ran out into the raging night - it was probably about 4 am, still a violent gale and pouring rain - carrying my shoes and a plastic bag containing stuff I'd bought the previous day, and a dog attacked me, tearing at my clothes and ripping the bag to shreds. I screamed and a man appeared on a balcony and threw things at the dog, scaring it off. Then I walked the three miles back to town, with a handful of loose belongings as the bag was wrecked, in floods of tears.

Later that day, when they'd cleared the road, I made it back to my hotel. I didn't go to the police because I knew they wouldn't believe me. Once they found out I'd dated him a year previously, they would never believe a rape charge and anyway, I was a fifty-year-old woman, not a young girl.

So I let it go and as soon as I got back, I got my infections treated again and also had an HIV test. But they said it was a bit soon and that I should come back in two months. I never went back. One test had been enough of an ordeal, and as it had been clear, I assumed I was OK.

However, I now know that both HIV and Hep C can lurk in your system for years, the only symptoms being recurrent fungal infections (which I have), an alcohol intolerance (yes) and liver symptoms like a constant pain under the right rib (yes) and unexplained weight loss (yes) and attacks of letheragy (yes).

I feel quite scared. There must be some reason for what the blood test showed and if there was something lurking, that might explain why I've felt so under the weather for so long. I think I had better go and get re-tested.