So, I was hanging with one of my best friends before meeting up with Ma, who's in town for a day, for dinner... I was telling him about the hobag that used to "live" downstairs and her baby getting hepatitis and all that... So he proceeds to tell me about how one of our friends, "John Doe," was recently diagnosed with hepatitis, as well... and, in turn, gave it to his wife. He says that he got it from snorting pills.

"What?!?! Bullshit! Hepatitis isn't in boogers - oh... wait... I'd never really considered it, but... duh..."

Yep. It's true... or at least the only likely possibility. See, "John" is a bit of a community pillar... a great job... no promiscuity, no IV drugs... ever... no blood transfusions, no blood "accidents." Loves his wife, dearly... a really good guy, through and through... but "John" had injured himself some years ago and became addicted to prescription pain medicine. Now, meet "Dave Douchebag." "Dave" is not so much of a pillar... six jobs in five years - quit or was fired from them, all. "Dave" has a pretty public drug problem and has for a long time, since we were kids, basically. So "Dave" gets hepatitis from... whatthefuckever he did to get it... who knows, y'know? "Dave" and "John" have been friends forever, too, and they would occasionally get together and crush 'em up... but see, "Dave" has a bunch of little, bleeding holes in his schnoz... it's not like he walks around town bleeding profusely from these lesions, or anything like that... he's just done a lot of shit that has done bad things to his nose... a little teency, weency, tiny, nearly-microscopic speck of blood in the tiniest plop of mucus from "Dave" gets in/on the straw, he shares it with "John" (over the course of... a long time) and... BOOM, welcome to the world of hepatitis. I was thinking that "John" would need to have said lesions, as well, which he may or may not have... I was curious so we Googled it. After sorting through some of the garbage/scare tactic/propaganda and finding actual medical evidence, it turns out the "recipient" doesn't even need to have any "nasal issues," because hepatitis can be absorbed through the nasal membrane, directly. I'm sure the chances are a bit slimmer than those who have, say, shared needles (or even equipment during said bang), but still, it's there and it happens... apparently with some frequency, even. Hepatitis C can live in the air and on surfaces for over 16 hours... There's really no need to go into how "John" gave it to his wife, is there? It was discovered through a routine blood-screening. Needless to say, "John" is not happy... but he doesn't blame "Dave," douchebag or not. I mean, there's no real way to no for sure. He just knows he has something that's likely going to fuck his life-span... in a very real way.

It turns out that HIV can be transmitted in the same way (as any other blood-borne pathogen)... however rarely... HIV doesn't live remotely as long outside a human host. It has a real problem with this whole "air" thing. "John" is HIV negative.

I'm a little irritated by it... that I had never considered the possibilities of something like that. I mean, in all the weirdness I have seen in my life, all of the stuff I've seen happen to people through "sheer stupidity," I'd never even thought of something like that as a means of contracting diseases like that... a cold, maybe, but... but after reading about it ("knowledge is power, yo"), it's like, "Damn... Damn, indeed.". It's just so weird, y'know? Why do bad things have to happen to good people, while bad people get a lucky pass, so often?

I hate to hear it, "John Doe." I hope science figures out a way for you to rid yourself of it.
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