I’ve had another long absence from blogging, but this time the reason is less fun than travel, holidays or work conferences (not that work conferences are ever fun). My mother, who has always been healthy and active, caught a terrible viral pneumonia and has been in the hospital since February 2nd, which has kept me both occupied and preoccupied. She spent the first week or so in the intensive care unit, part of the second week in an ordinary hospital room, and finally was moved to an “extended care center” (a.k.a. nursing home) for rehabilitation. Instead of being rehabilitated, however, she ended up with C. Difficile, an increasingly dangerous bug that is known for being prevalent in hospitals and nursing homes. My mother is a text-book at-risk person for catching such a bug: she is recovering from a very serious illness that has left her body and her immune system weak, she is over 65, and she was recently taking antibiotics for the pneumonia. I’m sorry to say that the staff at this “extended care facility” were quite blasé about the violent symptoms she was experiencing and took their time in diagnosing this illness, so I don’t doubt that it will spread further among the elderly people on the floor where she was staying. The good news is that she is now back in the normal hospital, in isolation and receiving the correct treatment. I am confident that she is going to get better (again!) soon.
When I spoke with my mother’s regular physician about this C. Difficile, he told me that I must take care to wash my hands after spending time with my mother. Apparently Purell and other alcohol-based hand sanitizers do not work to kill the C. Difficile bacteria, but soap and water does! Naturally, in the nursing home it was much easier to find hand-sanitizing dispensers (many of which were left empty for days) than it was to find a clean sink and soap to wash my hands.
His comments made me think again about the importance of basic, old-fashioned, hygiene, which is what I feel compelled to blog about today. Overuse of antibiotics and “antibacterial” and “antimicrobial” cleaners are exactly the behaviors that make dangerous bacteria like C. Difficile stronger and more virulent than ever. Before now, I have never been a germophobe, and often joked about things like how eating the free samples in grocery stores will boost one’s immunities. But after my mother's experience, I realize how often I unthinkingly do things like, for example, go to a bookstore, stand around touching a lot of books other people have touched, and then rub my eyes, or pull at chapped place on my lips, or pick at a hangnail, or touch a pimple. In this era where these superbugs are spreading quickly, it is important to remember the most basic hygiene, which is to frequently wash hands with soap and water and not touch your face. As a nervous picker, the former comes more readily to me than the latter. But these simple measures will be far more beneficial to your health, and the public’s health, than any Purell or anti-bacterial shower spray could ever be. On that note – I wish you all GOOD health in this cold and flu season!