Ina Park - Strange Bedfellows: Adventures in the Science, History, and Surprising Secrets of STDS

Sometimes lifes unhappy accidents inadvertently lead to happy consequences. Strange Bedfellows represents the silver lining in a dark cloud that descended on my family in January 2015, when my husband and I experienced a parents worst nightmare. As we walked out of our house on our way to a birthday party one afternoon, my seven-year-old son, Nate, released my hand and bolted across the street, only to be struck by an oncoming car.

I recall seeing his legs splayed underneath the vehicle and hearing his screams echoing down the street. I, on the other hand, did not utter a sound. This was no longer my son lying on the streetthis was a trauma victim who required attention. I ran over to him, silently reviewing the algorithm that was ingrained in me from years of medical training: Is the patients airway clear, are they breathing, do they have a pulse? While Nates head was bleeding and his leg clearly deformed, his screams afforded an odd sense of relief: he was breathing, conscious, and coherent while expressing his pain.

Nate and I were transported by ambulance to UCSF Benioff Childrens Hospital in Oakland, where he was admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit (ICU) to await surgery on his broken femur the next morning. Nate had also sustained a skull fracture, so as a precaution, the ICU nurses checked on his neurologic status every two hours. They neednt have bothered. I kept vigil at his bedside the whole night, too wired by guilt to fall asleep.

The next morning, before 7:00 a.m., four members of the neurosurgery team came by on their rounds. The attending neurosurgeon started questioning Nate to assess his mental status: his name, his age, his grade in school. Then the surgeon glanced over at me. Mom, I understand that youre a physician?

Before I could speak, Nate interjected, Yes, she is. Then out of nowhere, he added, Hey, have you ever had herpes? Ask my momshe knows all about it. I shook my head and closed my eyes, lowering my forehead into my hand. The team erupted in peals of laughter. The surgeon raised his eyebrows and looked at me. Well, seems like hes clear neurologically.

Nates accident happened to coincide with his realization a few weeks earlier of what I did for a living. Not just that I was a physician but one who happened to specialize in sexually transmitted infections (STIs). He had never talked about my job with others before this hospitalization, but he soon grasped that mentioning it would get a rise out of anyone. And he was going to milk it for as many laughs as he could.

During the hospital stay, Nate proceeded to chat with the ICU nurse about HIV, the orthopedic surgeon about syphilis, and to my chagrin, with the hospital chaplain about chlamydia. I would discover later that this behavior is a common phenomenon among the children of my colleagues. My bosss daughter wrote her college admissions essay about syphilis conversations over Shabbat dinner, while her son told his friends parents that my mom works in the sex industry. Shes the chief of the Division of STD Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but I suppose thats close enough.

As I watched my sons antics from his bedside, seeds of thought started to germinate in my mind. At the time of his accident in 2015, I had been working in the field of public health and STI research for eight years since completing my residency. STIs such as syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia had been on the rise since 2000. Infections such as human papillomavirus (HPV) were so common, nearly every sexually active person would be infected at some point during their lives.

But even with the ubiquity of STIs, I knew that most people (even health care providers) simply dont feel comfortable discussing them. For most of us, having sex is much easier than talking about sex, especially its least pleasant consequences. Yet my son and colleagues children had no problem talking about sex and STIs. They had become comfortable with the topic before they were old enough to realize that it was an uncomfortable subject for others.

During hours of downtime at the hospital with my son, I began to wonder if there was something I could do to make people more at ease discussing STIs. I knew I couldnt be overly ambitious. Some people have a hard-enough time discussing STIs with their sexual partners; I couldnt just expect them to bring up the topic with their mail carrier or local barista. Still, if I could spark a larger dialogue among the public about the topic, perhaps it would begin to reduce the stigma behind these ubiquitous infections.

By the time my son was discharged from the hospital four days later, I had a plan: I would write a book that would weave together storytelling, science, and humor to tell the little-known backstories behind various STIs. I dreamed that people would become so entertained by these tales that the ick factor around STIs might gradually be replaced with a bit of wonder and fascination.

Had the accident not happened, I would have done the sensible thing and waited until my kids left for college to write a book. I would not have started the process with one newly invalid kid and another still in diapers. Still, there is nothing like a little trauma to provide one with a foreshortened sense of the future. The accident, in addition to an earlier brush with death that Id had during childbirth, made me wonder whether bad karma from a past life had caught up with me. I decided Id better get writing before lightning could strike again.

I soon realized that tackling STI-related stigma would not be easy. The shroud of shame surrounding STIs is as old as the infections themselves. To many, STIs are considered to be Gods judgment for the sexually immoral and adulterous (Hebrews 13:4) or punishment for fornication. And if STIs were a punishment, then by default, those afflicted with them should feel guilty. Never mind that STIs can afflict anyone, even someone whos only had sex within the confines of marriage.