God, yesterday.

[platedlizard]

Okay, so after I made my last freaked-out post things got much, much better. I dunno what it was, maybe me just getting used to the much, much bigger clinic, but by Friday last week I was doing okay. Until yesterday while cleaning a room I got nicked by a handpiece (drill) bur. A contaminated with human saliva and possibly blood, bur. Which meant that I had to go to an ER for HIV and Hep C testing, as well as having a titer run on my Hep B immunity (I've had the vaccine, but I didn't know if it had taken). In a month I get to be retested, and again in six months. OH FUCKING YAY!

"Welcome to the medical field," the nurse practitioner said. Nice.

They offered me the anti-HIV drugs, but I declined because they would have actually knocked out my general immunity (one of the side effects is to lower your white blood cell count by a lot) and I would probably get sick. Maybe if the patient actually had HIV I would do it, but not a guy who's medical history was pretty clean. So not worth it.

Anyways. that was yesterday. I'm still not totally decided on whether or not to take the job, but I'm leaning toward it now. Mostly because while I have enough in my bank account to go another few months, I don't like it when things get too low, and there's no fucking way I can rely on my mutual fund right now. :/ there are people out there with worse problems than me so I shouldn't complain.

Comments

[akuni.livejournal.com]

GahhhhhHH! I hear it's something of a rite of passage, getting your first slice/jab/whatever, but I bet that doesn't make it any easier to deal with while you wait for your tests. :S

Hopefully this'll just be another one of those things and nothing comes of it. Patients are supposed to report any conditions like that before you work on them, right?

[platedlizard.livejournal.com]

You'd think so, right? But actually a lot of people take the view that their teeth somehow aren't a part of their body and therefore the rest of the general health shouldn't matter and it's none of our business etc. Also, there are plenty of people out there who have those diseases and don't know it until Hep C eats their liver or something. We're supposed to treat everyone like they're all dying of AIDs, Hep C, and Syphilis (the other disease they tested me for). Even babies.

Any ways, I'm promising myself that I'm going to be good from now on and not in so much of a hurry etc. We'll see how long that lasts, lol.

[akuni.livejournal.com]

Gee, that's... well I guess that makes sense. They think of their teeth, not taking into account their gums and saliva and blah blah. I can see why you'd want to take precautions against pretty much everything. :o

It'll last until the next time you get busy, and then you'll firm up your resolve the next time you get jabbed. ;)

How are you feeling about it all today?

[platedlizard.livejournal.com]

I'm still not sure. I wrote in my journal (my pen and paper one, lol) that part of me really wants to throw it in and go get a job at a jewlery store because I like pretty sparkly things XD Of course, with the way the economy is I doubt they're hiring. I think I can do this for a couple of years at least, and then see where I go from here.

[akuni.livejournal.com]

I love looking at pretty sparkly things! I don't know if I could deal with the hours on my feet, though. I did retail for a lotta years, and it was bad enough when I was allowed to wear good sneakers - I can't imagine wearing pumps all day, or whatever other fashionable torture devices those places make their sales staff wear these days. *falls over*