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I went for my test, explaining that I was not desperately happy about having surgery (it surprised me just how emotionally I am attached to my foreskin); the nurse looked at my lesion, called in an experienced colleague and they both looked at my now very rubbery volcano like lesion and again behaved like it was something they had never seen before. Which was all quite worrying. Another two weeks go by (and by now I have got used to the idea of a circumcision, although what the biopsy would reveal woke up in a muck sweat at 4 in the morning - a good night's sleep is a long time in the past). The rash on my chest - not itchy - has spread and I look like someone who has a severe flea problem, literally hundreds of small, bright red spots. And I am tired, lost my appetite and my joints ache. I then get a text message - come back to the clap clinic as soon as possible. There, they sit me down and tell me that I have syphilis. FFS! The doctor then said that the spots were a secondary symptom and that all my symptoms were archetypal syphilis; when I asked why the first test had failed to pick up the infection and why she had not recognised my chancre (pronounced shanka as in Ravi Shanka), she said that she thought it might be syphilis but was not sure - when the test came back negative, she assumed it was something else. As for nobody else - two consultants, one doctor and two clap clinic nurses - picking it up from what they could see, she said that once the tests come back negative, nobody thinks that the test results might be a false negative, but proceed to consider what else could be wrong with you. In addition, and this amazes me, syphilis is so rare nowadays that many doctors have never seen it. In her clinic - it serves a large university town and the surrounding areas - they had seen 6 cases in the last two years. In fact, so rare was it, did I mind if she brought in other doctors and nurses to see what primary (the chancre) and secondary (spots) symptoms look like? I didn't mind, so I sat there with my willy flapping around in breeze with a procession of medical people coming in, prodding me and going "ooh" and "ah". Then they took photographs of the offending member. (I had to sign a release form agreeing that they could publish pictures of my willy. So that's my 15 minutes of fame sorted). Relieved but not much mollified, I went to have my injection of penicillin. Fuck me! It's an old formulation (because apparently there are so few cases it is not worth the pharmaceutical companies investing in the trials necessary to get a newer formulation through the authorities) and it coagulates quickly. So they push it into you very fast (two injections, one in each buttock) and it hurts like hell. And then they do not let you go home for 30 minutes in case you collapse and finally, in between 2 and 12 hours, you get a reaction to the dead bacteria (the Jarisch- Herxheimer reaction if you want to read more) which left me feeling as if I had a really bad case of flu. It can hospitalise you in extreme cases. One week later, the circumcision operation is cancelled, my spots have gone, the lesion is healing, I am bemused by my experience and (the real reason for writing this) feel that it is worth sharing my experience with others (mainly UK although I suspect that the lessons I have learnt may be applicable worldwide): The test for syphilis is not 100% accurate - it can give false negatives (unlike the quick HIV test which can give false positives) Once you have a negative test result, accept that the medical profession will take that at face value and not recognise what is in front of their face, even when it indicates a false negative. This is not helped by the fact that many of them have not seen the symptoms of syphilis before. If you then start down the route of "what else could it be" and the medical profession decide that it is something serious, go back for another test before agreeing to something that might be both unnecessary and painful or disfiguring. Above all, do not think that if you have symptoms and then get a negative test, that's it. Even though I don't care what people think when it comes to my health, I realise that some people believe that going to the clap clinic to be slightly shameful and, once they have a negative report, would prefer to believe something else is wrong with them than to consider going back. Had I not gone back, I would be having surgery to remove the lesion. Luckily, it was on my foreskin. Had I not got a foreskin or the lesion had appeared somewhere else on my penis, they would be trying to hack out lumps of my penis. Not an appealing thought. My advice to anyone in the same position as me is to go back for another test regardless of how you feel about going to the clap clinic. A little bit of embarrassment (if you feel that) is a lot better than unnecessary surgery. I do not think that this is the fault of the NHS (in case somebody takes the opportunity to have a go at social medicine). One issue was that before the initial test and again when I saw my own doctor and the consultants, I washed extremely well so there was probably little exudate to pick up in the swabs. The last tests I had, I deliberately did not shower for 6 hours before hand just so there was something for the swabs to pick up. Why the first blood test came back negative is one of those curious things given that I was exhibiting symptoms of the primary stage of syphilis. Some other points: the spots are apparently extremely contagious, so if your regular partner touches them (as in, puts her hand on them), she should get herself checked out. I had to go back home and say to my other half "Good news, I don't have cancer, bad news is that you have to get yourself checked for syphilis even though we have not had sex since god was a boy..." The rest of the UK may be having a heat wave but trust me, it's decidedly chilly around here. The Health Advisor (the nurse who gives you mother like talks about condoms and such like) was insistent that I contacted all my sexual partners over the last year to tell them that I have had syphilis. Maybe she would have not wasted her time had I given the full number rather than dividing by 10!

Not easy for me to pin down my favourites. Having worked in the travel industry since leaving school, travel is one of the major perks and make up for the (relatively) piss poor pay. Since moving up the food chain, the perks got better and economy seats became business class and so on and then hitting the jackpot with the posting to Asia doing a global job meant I was hardly ever at home and continually travelling the world on the company dime. Anyhow, these would all rate highly but for very different reasons:- Cattolica, Italian Adriatic. This is your very traditional mass market resort and very popular with the advent of the 'package holiday'. Like South Beach in Miami it had pretty much died with the advent of much cheaper destinations not to mention the "oh we have done that" thinking. However the beaches are great and so well organised. Rustic little family owned hotels with 30 odd rooms. Great food and wine. I thoroughly loved the week I spent there. Miami, Florida I was posted to Ft Lauderdale and actually had our CEO had his way, would still be there. However he got the can and hence the new guy said, WTF are the Asia Pacific team doing based in Ft Lauderdale. Pretty simple point and one everyone had often pondered over. Anyhow weekends were always in Miami and often staying overnight on South Beach as it got re-generated. Maybe it was the influence of "Miami Vice" but I never tired of walking that beach and just people watching. Amazing restaurants although much of it in hindsight was the wow factor - this was in the days when all were trying to outdo each other and I recall dinner one night in an indoor restaurant where they made the floor of grass. Seriously real grass. They had to re-turf it every few days. Food was so so but it was so hip and that probably is what South Beach is/was all about. Florence - Not much more to add - again, had to open an office there with my job so was a frequent visitor. Being in the industry, our staff travel dept looked at best industry rates and I got put into a Starwood hotel. They had recently taken over CIGA hotels, an old fashioned chain in Italy and these hotels were like palaces. I got put into one of them, ended up with a 1 bedroom suite filled with genuine antiques and stunning artwork all for US$49 night. To put it into perspective - dinner was more expensive than the room. But it just was stunning and bang in the centre of the city. One other highlight for me is the airport - its tiny and has a very short runway. Very few decent sized jets could fly into it. Tioman Island, Malaysia My first foray into Asia (using free tickets of course) and flew to Singapore for few days then 2 weeks on Tioman. Small little prop aircraft from Seletar takes you to the island - its make Koh Samui's airport look HUGE. there is nothing of it. One trolley for bags, a windsock and an ancient set of scales for weighing your luggage (10kg limit). Its probably still the same today. Anyhow one main resort that covers about quarter of the island a couple of back packer type places near the airport. That's it. Beaches and rainforest take up everything else. 2 weeks probably too long but heck was it relaxing and then and probably now, it was very natural - just a road but no Thai style shop houses trashing the the area, aka in Koh Chang. Hong Kong There is no better city view than having a harbour front room in HKG - its just awesome. Never tire of that view - alas those expense account days are long gone, so not a hope of staying in those kind of hotels again, short of winning the lottery. Napier - New Zealand Wine and the art deco style of most buildings caused by an earthquake that flattened the city and guess what was in fashion when they re-built it in the 1930's. Food & drink were awesome. Milk still served in bottles and inn keepers who kept reminding me of my grandmother. The downside is everywhere is 10am checkout and a minute late they are banging on the door of your room. Angels Falls, Venezuela The flight on the 10 seat plane is vertigo inducing as its seems to spin a 360 to get right up close to the falls. Its difficult to get it in context until you have seen it. Reminded me of a wet version of the Grand Canyon. we eventually landed on this grass airstrip and it was like walking out into the land that time forgot. No electric anywhere. Air traffic control was a radio hooked up to a car battery !!!! Huge national park surrounds the falls and its combination of rainforests and plain rocky plateau's higher up. Everywhere is just silence on the platueau's and the night time view of the stars is a sight you'd never forget. Dalian, China What a place. Occupied by the Japanese for donkey's years - almost everyone speaks Japanese on mainland China. Very interesting city to visit (I was setting up a call centre to service Japan) and the sushi is fantastic. Friggin cold though in the winter. There are hundreds more places that have special memories for me but these are probably the most I enjoyed but all for different reasons.

And the tests came back negative. By now, I was in a bit of a state (googling penile cancer was not helpful with its statistic of it being rare, some 500 cases per year in the UK, reconstructive surgery would help its appearance if they had to cut the cancer out- nothing about whether this would impact my ability to perform although I guess this would depend on how much they had to chop away). God bless the NHS - mention cancer in a referral letter and the whole machine goes into overdrive. Within two weeks, I was seen by the top urology surgeon's assistant who did not like what he saw so he went to fetch the great panjandrum himself who came, accompanied by the sound of trumpets and seraphims singing in the corridor. They stood around me behaving like workmen gazing into a hole where something unexpected and expensive has happened, sucking in their cheeks and looking serious. Eventually, the Great Man spoke " I don't like this; we will book you in for a circumcision. When that is done and we have performed a biopsy on the foreskin, then we will take it from there". He then explained that it could be cancerous, precancerous or something else. He went on to say that it could be a viral infection (HPV - the family of viruses which cause varookas, warts and such like) which had turned cancerous. I understand that you can get HPV from oral sex (as does Michael Douglas or so he says), so it made a sort of sense. They wanted to operate quite quickly but I told them that I needed some time to get my head around all of this and we agreed a date five weeks later. Anyway, I went off to get the pre-surgery check which you have to have before having any scheduled general anaesthetic and whilst there, having an ECG, I noticed a slight rash on my chest. Back home, the internet searching reached a frenzy. I am now a world expert on adult male circumcision (not much fun but not dangerous), viral transmission (in theory, everything might transmit viruses, but that's life - or death) and penile cancer (you don't want to know). And then I stopped and thought through the timeline and my symptoms and the fact that they were identical to the symptoms of syphilis; it was at this point, I contacted the clap clinic and demanded another test for syphilis.

I am writing this as a type of public health warning - if you are vaguely interested but can't be bothered to read the words, just drop down to the bullet points and the paragraph that follows. I am also posting under a pseudonym since I do not want to be labelled as the bloke to whom this happened. If you recognise the style of my writing (or my ISP address, moderators!), I would be grateful if you would not post your thoughts on line - just tell me to my face or pm me!! Earlier this year, I spent some time happily mongering amid the fleshpots of Pattaya. Just before I left, I had an HIV / syphilis / gonorrhoea / chlamydia test which came back negative. After about a week of being at home, I started to get an irritation at the end of my penis. I thought nothing of it except possibly a mild urinary infection, best treated by drinking more. A week later, a small, almond shaped lesion about 3 mm in length appeared on my foreskin (being from neither a Semitic nor North American background, I am still the proud possessor of this flap of skin). Buggar, thought I, and trotted off to my local clap clinic. (A diversion - the running of this has been taken over by Richard Branson's empire - am I the only person to find the name "Virgin Sexual Health Clinic" slightly bizarre?). The usual chat - how many sexual partners in the last year? - follow Jimslim's advice taking the actual number and dividing by 10 - off with my kit, an examination followed by a blood test. Results in two weeks. No problem. Two weeks go by and the lesion has changed from an almond shape into looking like a volcano with a big, red, raised larva field around it about a centimetre in diameter and standing proud by a couple of mms. Not painful, but definitely exuding something. I ring for the results and am told that all they are all negative. I was gobsmacked and when I asked about my sore penis with its lesion, the nurse said that I should go to my doctor because it definitely wasn't an STI. So I did and my doctor took more samples (for herpes - aparently very difficult to detect) and told me that if these came back negative, then she would refer me to the urology department at my local hospital because it might be penile cancer..... to be continued

I've learned from a very reliable source ... *ahem* ... that New Orn staff (the New Orn on Soi Diana just down from the big beer bar complex where Nong Bar, Pussy Bar, et. al., reside), are now all salaried, and that many of the former freelancers there have moved onto other venues, including R-na bar on Soi Honey. Shall endeavor to glean more data this evening. ... Crazy old Natalie can still be found in the bar next door, as usual, for those of you who um ... appreciate that sort of ... person. Yeah.

Far be it for me to presume Stickman's preferences but he is a frequent guest of the most LB friendly hotel in all of Thailand - the Penthouse in Pattaya. More than a bit curious IMO. And is Caveman a regular contributor to Stickman's column? There's something about his very erudite writing style that makes me wonder if he might not be Stick's alter-ego. It's only a thought & probably a wrong one but could our man be walking both sides of the fence & be his own antagonist here? I suspect Cave & Stick are one & the same. Nothing like a bit of controversy to keep his column in the public eye. It worked for us.

It's amazing how a bit of sponsorship (Temptations) of his site can change his tune. Now Stickman just bags the freelancers LB's as they are not potential advertisers of his site.