Unclean! Unclean!

[Stoday]

Got shown to my least favourite chair for tonight's session. The one in the isolation room. Kickstart would love it, but I think it's like a prison cell.

The reason? My latest swab results arrived. They got a whiff of MRSA from my nostril. Now I've been condemed to the prison cell for at least three weeks. I'v been given a "MRSA Decolonisation Pack" with stuff to squirt or rub into every conceivable orifice. I shall be swabbed weekly and have to be clear for three weeks before they let me out of my cell.

I did ask "What happens if someone gets Mad Cow disease or the like?" My MRSA took presidence. I reckon you could have full blown leprosy and still wouldn't displace me from my sentence. 

[texasstyle]

MRSA is pretty serious. If you need to stay in that cell, do it knowing that you would certainly not anyone else to get it and I hope you get well soon! Personally I would enjoy some alone time right now lol, but I know when you're forced to it's not as enjoyable. At least your not spending 24 hours in your "cell" lol. Just a couple. It'll be over with before you know it.

[Riki]

I don't like the isolation room either.  It does feel like a prison cell.  In our unit, it's furthest away from the nurses desk, so you're all by yourself, and I don't like that.  I like being able to see everybody and know what's going on.  I'm a newsbag, yes.. *L*

MRSA is a pain in the posterior.  A friend of mine got it while he was in hospital with acute kidney failure.  He was on dialysis for a while until his kidneys came back.  I forget how he got the infection.  I remember him saying that he had a blood infection.  I think he liked having me to talk to about it, because I understood it more than other friends he had.  He had problems with depression, and he said that he hated when he had to get his meds changed, because he had to be admitted every time, and because he had MRSA that one time, they always put him in isolation for a week.

He died a little more than a year ago.  No one has been able to tell me what he died of, and because he had depression and drinking issues, I'm thinking a bad reaction between his meds and the booze.  I miss him.  He was incredibly well read, and if you had a question, especially about genetic or environmental topics, he knew the answer, or knew where to find it.

[jbeany]

I always liked the isolation room - no noise and no smells.  And getting put in isolation at the hospital is sooooo much better than sharing a room with a stranger.

But then, I was anti-social enough at D to leave the clinic entirely and start doing home dialysis. 

But if you don't like "alone time" I can see where it would bug you, so I hope it goes fast for you, Stoday!   

[galvo]

This, too, shall pass.

[Bruno]

What's MRSA? I'm a new member.

[YLGuy]

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a bacterial
infection that is highly resistant to some antibiotics

MRSA is a strain of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) bacteria. S. aureus is a common type of bacteria that normally live on the skin and sometimes in the nasal passages of healthy people. MRSA refers to S. aureus strains that do not respond to some of the antibiotics used to treat staph infections.

The bacteria can cause infection when they enter the body through a cut, sore, catheter, or breathing tube. The infection can be minor and local (for example, a pimple), or more serious (involving the heart, lung, blood, or bone).

[MooseMom]

Oooooh....pass the garlic and the cross!!!!!

[Jean]

Hope you get to being less diseased quickly Stoday!!! MRSA is really some tough stuff and that is how KitKatz lost her fistula and had to have a new one put in. So, do what you are told for a change, and get well.

[Poppylicious]

My BiL is a carrier of MRSA. Or rather, I think he's a carrier, but I may have dreamt it.  I assume that if you were a carrier you'd ALWAYS have to go to the isolation room? How pants would that be?!

Stoday, at least you can snore in peace for a few weeks, eh?

 

[Stoday]

Thanks for all the sympathy. I didn't know about Rerun's fiustula loss. That sounds awful.

I like your quote, Galvo. It was made popular in the UK in the early 1800's by Edward FitzGerald (who wrote The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám). FitzGerald lived at Wherstead, 2 miles south of Ipswich (where I live) for a number of years. Wherstead Hall became a company headquarters after WWII and I worked there for a couple of decades.

[Stoday]

Always? I hope not Pops. After all I'm being decontaminated. I assume that's what they mean by their "Decolonisation" pack. Another example of Political Correctness, I think.

[thegrammalady]

be grateful your clinic has an isolation room. mine doesn't. if someone has something contagious they just put a mask on them. that being said it can't be much fun if you're the one stuck in the isolation room.

[MooseMom]

Poppy, you're dreaming about MRSA?  I'm seriously concerned about you.

[KICKSTART]

Oh i love my little 'prison cell' but only because it benefits me ! One thing i do wonder though is, if your units similar to ours (which i expect it is) you will enter and exit by the same entrance as everyone else ? and surely you must touch things doing this?  I was amazed at our unit one time , a guy had shingles and was put in the isolation room , but no barrier nursing , he ambled about , touched lift buttons , doors and the staff went from him to us (if only to pick our folders up) Today was best though , we have to pass the ward that has all the swine flu folk in it and i was just coming off the unit and walking down the corridor when 2 porters where coming up with a patient in a bed , all of them masked up ..great eh! I ducked in a doorway but surely they could clear the corridor when they do this as its only stopping the renal patients for a few minutes. No wonder there are so many outbreaks of things is it ? .

[Riki]

I would think that masks would be ok for flu..  As for touching things, do you not have hand sanitizers? We're to clean our hands coming and going, everything we touch is cleaned after we use it.  We have a cleaner that goes through and cleans everything, and sometimes the nurses will also take one of those industrial wipe thingies and clean the door handle.  The scale is cleaned with one of those wipes after each patient.  I'm also rarely touched by anyone not wearing gloves, and gloves are changed often.  There are protocols for those who need to be isolated.  We've been lucky, that as a small unit, no one has actually NEEDED to be isolated.

[KICKSTART]

Oh yeah we have hand gels all over , its just the point im making is ..put the guy in isolation then let him wonder among us , we all wait in the same waiting area ! Even wearing gloves though , the nurses dont handle folders with them on ..only patients and if a machine alarms they dont wear gloves to use the touch screens. Things like this are how infections are spread, not the size of the unit . We are only a small unit as well ! A few weeks ago i went in feeling under the weather ,  and they still plonked me in the main area !

[Poppylicious]

Poppy, you're dreaming about MRSA?  I'm seriously concerned about you.

*chuckles*

I think Blokey would be more concerned by the fact that it appears I may have dreamt about his brother ...

 

[galvo]

Were you a sparky, Stoday?

[Genlando]

Sanitary practices are a joke at my D center.  Yesterday, a tech grabbed a pair of rubber gloves out of a box.  The rest of the gloves fell on the floor.  She grabbed them all up and put them back in the box--with her bare hands.  She'd just come back from a smoke-break, so I doubt that her hands were clean.

If the employees are are slack about cleanliness when patients are present, then how are they when we're not around?  That's why I want to start home HD.

[Riki]

Wow.. When gloves fall on the floor like that, the nurses will pick them up and put them in a separate bag and one of the nurses takes them into the high school where her kids go for their biology class.  Her daughter told her that the school can only afford to give the kids one glove each for when they're doing dissections, so she donates the gloves they're not going to use cuz they fell on the floor

[greg10]

Wow.. When gloves fall on the floor like that, the nurses will pick them up and put them in a separate bag and one of the nurses takes them into the high school where her kids go for their biology class.  Her daughter told her that the school can only afford to give the kids one glove each for when they're doing dissections, so she donates the gloves they're not going to use cuz they fell on the floor

Well, I am not sure that is such a great idea with "superbug" floating around.  Better waste the few dollars than big money treating infected school kids down the line:
http://ihatedialysis.com/forum/index.php?topic=20694.msg344810#msg344810

As Stoday showed, "superbug" type of bacteria are prevalent in a clinical setting, but probably not as much in the average home or school setting.

BTW, the examination gloves that nearly all clinics use are not guaranteed sterile from the manufacturer.  If you read the label on these gloves, they will generally not say sterile.  They are very clean, but not sterile, and nearly all clinics used them in this manner.  Generally the gloves that come with surgical or catheter kits will be sterile and be marked sterile.

[kitkatz]

I had MRSA in the hospitali n April. I am now treated like I have the plaque whenever I go into Kaiser. The dialysis center never even blinked.

[Riki]

Wow.. When gloves fall on the floor like that, the nurses will pick them up and put them in a separate bag and one of the nurses takes them into the high school where her kids go for their biology class.  Her daughter told her that the school can only afford to give the kids one glove each for when they're doing dissections, so she donates the gloves they're not going to use cuz they fell on the floor

Well, I am not sure that is such a great idea with "superbug" floating around.  Better waste the few dollars than big money treating infected school kids down the line:
http://ihatedialysis.com/forum/index.php?topic=20694.msg344810#msg344810

As Stoday showed, "superbug" type of bacteria are prevalent in a clinical setting, but probably not as much in the average home or school setting.

We're not in a hospital, and as far as i know, none of the patients in our unit have ever tested positive for MRSA or VRE.  The hospital did have an outbreak of VRE through the summer, and the dialysis patients weren't to go there for anything, except for emergencies