The Pride festivities started in New York on June 24. Köhn was aware of the possible monkeypox problem and tried to get vaccinated, but that didn’t work.
“I had sex with several men over the weekend. A week later, on July 1, I started to feel very tired. I had a high fever with chills and muscle aches, and my lymph nodes were so swollen that they were sticking out two centimeters from my throat,” he says. “First I did a Covid self-test: negative. Then I started to suspect monkey pox. I texted a friend, ‘I’m just sitting here waiting for the rash to kick in.’” Two days after his first symptoms, it started as a rash on and around the anus. “Initially it was a stinging, itchy feeling. I was not afraid at this point. I was told it would be mild, and I was a healthy person with no underlying conditions. But I had no idea how bad it would get.”
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A few days later, he developed minor injuries all over his body. “At first they looked like mosquito bites, but they developed into pimpled blisters that eventually burst open, leaving scabs and a scar. I had them on my head, on my face, my arms, my legs, my feet, my hands, my torso, my back, and five on my right elbow alone. At the peak I had more than fifty.” The man also had a fever, had hives and had pain in many places. A few days earlier, he had been tested in hospital for monkey pox and STDs. He soon got a positive result for gonorrhea, but the results of his monkey pox test were not forthcoming.
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“I cried out”
Köhn describes how he could not sleep at night because of the pain and itching. He was alone and frustrated with the situation. The small lesions on and around his anus turned into open wounds and the pain was excruciating, he says. “I literally cried out when I went to the toilet. Even keeping the area clean, like washing myself, was extremely painful.” His throat also began to swell, eventually requiring him to go to the emergency room and receive antibiotics.
He was eventually told he had the monkeypox virus. But getting my hands on medication turned out to be almost impossible. He was sent from one place to another to no avail. He was eventually admitted to an experimental treatment. It turned out to be a hit. The blisters dried up and he can go to the toilet again without pain. But Köhn is still in isolation. “I can’t tell you how tired I am of my apartment,” he says.
But the man also warns. “I’m afraid this is going to be another endemic disease, especially among gays, if we haven’t already passed that point. I’m afraid we’ll be stuck with it forever.”
(sgg)