HOSPITALS - Why handwashing doesn't help? A Rant.

It's not about whether hospital staff washes hands, it's about WHERE.

We go into a bathroom after doing God knows what.
We use the toilet.
The hand we used to wipe turns on the faucet with a handle.
We wash it.
That hand turns off the water with the dirty faucet handle.
We use paper towel.
We open the bathroom door with the handle used by everyone who didn't wash after wiping themselves.
If we are a hospital staff member, we go back to the patient knowing we have washed our hands!

I'm going to bet that if we are going to eat we might take a paper towel to protect us from the door handle.  Then there is no wastebasket near the door, so we give up and open the door with probably our right hand,
and go back to the patient.  In the hospitals I was in last year, that hand may be the one that puts the liner back in the \patient's water pitcher by inserting all the fingers in the liner to push it in.

IN short, unless every basin is equipped with only a foot pedal, what do you think really happens?

LUMBAR FUSION - The Eleventh Month and tee shirts

 In the delivery room . . . no, this isn't the wrong post.  Decades ago, I learned in a maternity ward far away that my legs are very short from the knee to the ground.  What this has to do with recovery after spinal fusion is A LOT.

From that night a over a year ago when I couldn't walk from the car to the apartment with my food, leg pain, much or little, has been a recurring problem. The second round of shots, the new anesthesiologist, and the heavy medicine didn't stop the pain in my legs.  Fast forward, well, not exactly fast, because I resisted the surgery, and some friends and acquaintances insisted I must not have it. 

The surgery was a success.  The cane is left at home.  The fusion is strong, and my spine area has rarely hurt.  

The legs, however,  sometimes hurt a bit, sometimes more than a bit.   (I suspect that I put off the surgery too long.)  When they hurt a little bit, I elevate them.  When they hurt at night, I rest them on a very firm pillow.  Sometimes just a change of position is enough.

I emailed the surgeon weeks ago when they hurt more than a bit.  He emailed me exactly what his assistant told me long ago: Get up and do things every half hour - no long sitting.  Hard for the computer addict, the coffee shop addict. Solution - A timer on the desk set for a half hour.  Solution - If all else fails, a snack if I get up after half an hour.

What I know is, tall chairs have taken a toll on these short legs--long before surgery. My feet just don't reach the floor.   Adjustable desk chairs save me.  I prop my legs up still, to take the pressure of chair edges off my thighs.  I have a box under the dining room table for a footstool.   Since I no longer wear heels, I finally had to be firm about tall chairs.   And an hour in a pew at church is out of the question.

Like life, recovery has been a roller coaster, not an escalator, as my fall in the fifth or six month showed.  I had a slight setback after that, which lasted awhile.   A couple of months ago, I had another setback for no reason I can think of. 

 I'm  walking every day at the same time, farther and farther without weakness.  Whether I have five minutes or an hour, I want the walk to be so automatic that I feel antsy if I don't do it.  

I climb the library stairs without a cane.  I get down on my knees to clean under the bed.  And get back up without calling for an EMT. 

If something is too heavy, I don't lift it.  This recovery has called for a lot of creativity, especially how to tie shoes without bending.

If you already have a job, you go back to work as soon as you can after surgery, and do what you can.  But if your job was a casualty of the recession, it's hard to get back in the game after recovery.  Even if, in some ways,  you're in better shape than before.

When I was first diagnosed, I wanted the tee shirt I saw that said:

I do my own stunts

 

 Now I want a tee shirt that says:

Hire me.  I'll race you to the stairs.

The Sign I Want to Tear Down

I just read an article by Vineet Arora, MD, (The Broken Window.. .) on Kevin, MD.  One paragraph reminded me of something I always intended to blog about, or give a public demonstration (noisy) about:

The signs on memorial medical buildings  ( and some other medical buildings) that strike gloom in my heart.  Signs, often carved in stone, like:

SAM FLEMING MEMORIAL CANCER CENTER

In all seriousness, with apologies where needed, isn't the message: Sam went to these doctors, and he died.  Why do I want to go here? 
It might as well say:  Abandon Most Hope, Ye Who Enter Here

In other life circumstances, we don't usually see buildings that say in stone:

Smith and Witherspoon, Bankruptcy

 

Maxwell, and Earhardt, Divorce since 1889

 





Most of us grew up in an age when cancer was likely to be a death guarantee.   There is a place where a beloved doctor of mine had an office for awhile.  I was not going to him for cancer, but I hated that Cancer Center sign.

If you were giving massive sums for a new medical building, what would you call it?  What about:

 

Meredith Smith Vital Health Building

Regina Maxwell Healing Building



What do you think?  Please let me know.