Germs

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Germs..They are everywhere. I know that bacteria are both good and bad for us. We need bacteria in our bodies in order to accomplish many functions....one of the most basic being digestion. Right now I am freaked out about germs everywhere. I feel I’ve become Bob Wylie from What About Bob. I have the urge to use kleenex to open all sorts of public and private doors. I am fearful that any minor illness I have is a result of being infected with M.R.S.A. (A currently famous drug resistant bacteria that is on the rise). I have been washing my hands many, many times a day even after doing such dirty things such as wiping my hands on the kitchen dish cloth...which is for wiping your hands on of course. I have been overly sterilizing things both at work and at home. Frankly, much of my time has been wasted cleaning or thinking and worrying about cleaning since Monday. What happened Monday you might ask? Well, a guy was hired to come to my surgical practice and do our infection control training and make sure our facilities were OSHA compliant. Between all of his crass humor and political jokes, he told us all of the terrible things that can happen if we come in contact with bad bacteria. We all sat around with our jaws gaping open while he told horror stories of how one dental assistant didn’t sterilize dental/surgical instruments for 2 months and they were rusty and bloody on the sterile surgical trays ready for using in peoples’ mouths. He told us in minute detail what happens to your body when you get certain bugs in your nose and then your brain. He told us how a women recently was in the paper for getting bumped with a grocery cart and ended up with her leg amputated by the end of the week due to contact with M.R.S.A.
I am usually the type of person to not care if my baby eats a cracker or even a piece of cheese that fell on a not clean (but not filthy) floor. What happened to the times when it was ok for us to ingest a little bad bacteria in order for us to build a strong immune system? It is not like me to be this germ phobic and I am sort of laughing at myself as I have these overwhelming impulses to walk around touching things with my elbows only. What kind of life is that? They’ll be calling me the little old Elbow Lady and I’ll live in the run down shack on the corner.
I need to get over this phobia.