ok ive recently talked to a person about my experience with slap cheek and she had never heard of it before and told me to write about it to spread awareness to others, i was worried because this story is close to me and worried ppl will vote it down out of spite but after some thought id decided that if it helps one other person NOT have my experience then i dont mind so here i go....

my story
il start with saying i have a low immune system, i had cancer as a kid and thats left me vunerable to every virus that  come into contact with, it also apparently made me infertile THAT has turned out not to be true.

i fell pregnant at 15 and was soo surprised but i tried to do all the right things, knowing i have low immunities i posted signs on the doors at home asking for sick people to stay away and i kept myself away from activities that would put me in close proximity to alot of people i didnt know, my pregnancy was going well and i was fine.

one day a friend came over after looking at her i noticed she had a rash on her cheeks i asked her about it pointing out i couldnt afford to get sick and she replied it was nothing just a rash and nothing for me to worry about.

a few days later i went into labour at 23 weeks and my son jordan died in a lil over an hour and a half in my arms.

all i knew to start with was that my placenta had pulled away from the uterus and that i had a tear in my uterus possibly from an infection, they took jordan and the placenta off to be checked out and tested on and a few weeks later i got the resultsi had caught a virus called slap cheek, i had no immunity to it, the doctor tried to placate me by telling me i could only ever catch it once so i was now hopefully immune.

funny i never thought about HOW i had got it it didnt rate high on my priorities in the blur of funeral arrangements and the depression that took hold of me after. but months down the track i was on the bus with the friend i spoke of when she asked me how jordan had died, i told her i had caught slap cheek and she the replied "oh yeah i had that then too eh didnt know you could die from it or i wouldve said something"

so even though you can only catch it once and it may not make someone sick enough to even bother telling you about it, it changed my life.

this is a 2 part series i wanted to outline WHY i was writing about it here and part two is about the virus itself.