Germ.....aphobia rears it's ugly head

Know when you start to doubt your ability to carry a child to term and freak out about disease around every corner?

Right about the time they tell you you're expected up in Infectious Disease. Where people with Japanese Encephalitis go (ps: four out of five of them die...only the pamphlet points out that one in five live - a nice touch, maybe, if you're the one guy that made it) or Writhing Nematoads, or some other really freaking, disgusting, Holy Very Scary infection end up.

Like me.

They would not let me check in for my appointment from the doorway. I was laughed at when I produced my very own Lysol and alcohol wipes - really, I was already in agony, no need to add insult to injury, no? Yes, I got diagnosed with something frighteningly disgusting, that usually does not end up in one's failing kidney. Fine. Tell me how to treat it, and I will be out of this office and into a shower in no time. Any clothing entering a hospital? Left at the bathroom door. No, it's not contagious; but other things in hospitals are.

I've had it three times. It involves huge needles that stick catheters up my arms, and nasty horrible headaches, and the antibiotics? Almost worse than the illness itself. (notice, I did say almost) I got C. Diff. Let's just say, if you're interested in losing the lining of your interiors? This is the bug to have. It. Never. Leaves.

So naturally, you can see where lately I've been a tad more....cautious about what I touch, where I go, what I'll put near my face. Things I never gave thought to before: my big one recently?

Elevator buttons, in parking garages.

Sure, there are folks paid quite well to keep hospitals clean; even the stairwells of the parking garage. I've never seen (and would be hard pressed to find someone who has) to find someone, anyone who admits to wiping those buttons down - either inside the elevator, or outside. I've urged small children with weaker immune systems I'm quite sure than mine to belly up to the button, and have a go! Really, I don't mind....could you press five for me? Thank you! What a big boy you are!

I never used to be a proponent of revolving doors - they never moved fast enough, and Fox used to get to frustrated he'd go after the door, the door would stop moving, that obnoxious voice heard overhead to not touch the door.....now? I'm in love. It's the ultimate weapon against the Staph Wars. Or at least one of them. The nicely placed hand sanitizer at the door, should you have been forced to enter in through any other means, thereby using your hands? A thoughtful touch. Too bad it's located right near where all the scary really sick people that need to be picked up because they cannot make it to the parking garage tend to congregate. And cough. Or sneeze. Or....you know...........be so rude as to breathe.

I don't have to touch a door handle. Knob. Push bar. Glass. Even freshly polished glass. Glass I've just watched someone finish polishing? No touch. Don't get me started on handrails on stairs.

J thinks I've really gone round the bend on this one. Truly, he has. He swears he never touches elevator buttons with anything but his knuckles...but hello! Germs are like cooties - they don't stay in one place. If they did? Well. We'd know exactly what to avoid, now wouldn't we? Hmmm? But we don't.

We do know that market carriages carry more E. Coli (found in poop, ps.) than the inside of a toilet. (Gah). I used all those wipes before it was popular, back when everyone thought I was nuts for needing not just one, but two of them, since you should really wipe down the seat, where the handbag is going to rest. Hello! Most people put fragile produce in that space. Or eggs. Or other delicacies that might be totally germified if not for the fab wipes at the door.

I'm trying hard not to get too carried away....I don't boil water, or silverware for heaven's sake. That's what the Sanitizer button on the dishwasher is for. One of my big pet peeves with M? (aside from sleeping with my friends, obviously) is he used to run all his dishes through the system on the "quick wash" cycle. Not. Good. Enough. 26 minutes does not rinse, suds, scrub, and clean dishes. Does the water even heat up thoroughly during a mere 26 minutes? I hardly think so.

J? Now, bless his heart, he cannot load a dishwasher to save his life - at least in the I Can Shove Way More Stuff In There Than You Can Way that women naturally do - but he knows the lowest setting is Pots and Pans. Want to know why I'm such a huge fan of the all in one Cascade Complete packs? No one can skimp out on the soap. And I swear, they have bleach in them.

In olden days, people went to the hospital to die.

In some ways, we've come a long way, baby. In other's? You still go there and die. Even a surprise death, believe it or not. Oh, sure, it's not from nurses or doctors, who wash, sanitize, practically steam themselves clean between patients - I bet you dollars to donuts that the sickest folks in the hospital got that way quite naturally:

They pushed their own buttons on the elevators.