
I was 5 the first time I had stitches, although surgery was
required before the stitches could be put in.
My brother was only 3 at the time so was not involved in this scheme,
but the boys down the road sure were!
The collective “we” decided that sword fighting with baseball bats was a
reasonable thing to do, and for a while it worked. If I recall, I was holding
my own…. that was until my pinkie (check out the picture) got caught between
the 2 wooden baseball bats. I’m not
really sure how it happened, but I suspect I went in for a thrust and the
neighbour swung to fend me off. Let’s
just say, my pinkie didn’t stand a chance against 2 baseball bats. That said, I was lucky. The bone did not break, but the skin from my
first knuckle up sure popped off! In
fact it was hanging by a thread and let’s just say, while running around in
circles, there was a lot of blood.
The surgeon was able to piece my finger back together, but
during the healing process the beginnings of infection set in. Luckily my mom was a nurse so nothing got out
of hand, but I do remember having to soak my finger in a bath every day to draw
out the infection to avoid losing more of the finger than I did. I was lucky.
I kept my pinkie, I grew back a finger nail and best of all when we were
learning right from left at school, I never had a problem because I only ever
had to look at my pinkie to know which hand was which!
In the stories I shared this week, the HAIs
were all associated with adults and several of them older adults with poor
immune systems or underlying diseases that would have increased their odds of
getting an infection. I’ll admit, while
the infection was in the site
of a surgical incision, the original “incision” was not made with a sterile
scalpel, so it’s entirely plausible that my foray into sword fighting
contaminated the area which made it easier for infection to set in. The reason I’m sharing my story is because we
need to keep in mind that the transmission of pathogens can happen almost
everywhere and to anyone. While I
focused on HAIs
this week, we see infectious diseases transmitted in schools, at work, on
cruise ships, at restaurants, at spas and even other healthcare settings like
dental offices.
The long and the short is that we need to be mindful. We need to take a pause and if sick, stay
home. We ALL need to wash our hands. As highlighted in the obituary I shared
yesterday, dirty hands can lead to HAIs.
In healthcare settings, we need to support the cleaning staff and allow
them the time they need to clean rooms properly and not push them to finish
faster in order to get a new patient in the bed. If we rush, we cut corners and those corners
can be deadly.
As we come to the end of International Infection Prevention
Week, I would like to give a shout out to the great jobs done by the
housekeepers who work hard to keep facilities clean, to the nurses and doctors
who work hard to keep us healthy and the Infection Preventionists who work
tirelessly educating and helping to reduce HAIs!
Bugging Off!
Nicole
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