Some of my coworkers are still afraid of me. Afraid I will give them MRSA, the superbug. As yall know, I'm a carrier of MRSA. I had four bouts of it about 2 years ago. It came up at a staff meeting we had this afternoon. My boss and I had talked about their fears a few weeks ago. Some of them had come to him with their fears and he called me into his office and we talked about it. I told him I'd been very open about it to them. That might have been a mistake. Most of them hadn't been around when I went through my ordeal. I'd talked to a guy in the news department back then about doing a story on MRSA. I'd offered to allow them to talk to my doctors and let them see my medical files. Told him I'd put it in writing if needed. His boss didn't think it was important enough. And now, there's stories all over the place about it. The difference, now, is that it's gotten out of the hospitals and into the general public. Now, it's a big story. As it was back then, there are no specific record keeping on the superbug now. All the numbers you hear are educated guesses. The hospitals don't want the public to know how big a problem it is. When I was in the hospital, I wasn't in isolation. I was restricted to my room and the wing I was in was mainly for MRSA patients. The staff wore gowns and rubber gloves when they came to my room. Some of them even wore masks. The gloves and gowns were left in my room and they washed their hands before they left. Anyway, at the end of the meeting this afternoon, my boss brought up the subject and we talked about it. We, both told them that I wasn't contagious and that I'd told him that at the first sign of MRSA, I'd call him and tell him I wouldn't be coming to work. We work in a relatively small, enclosed area. We are side-by-side a good part of the time. We work with computers and video and audio equipment. All of us use the same equipment. It seems keyboards were their big concern. Like most "bugs", MRSA doesn't like the air. It tries to hide from it in your nose. We told them it would take open sore to open sore contact for them to get it. All of them have families and are afraid they will take it home with them. My boss and I offered to get notes from my doctors, my primary care doctor and the infectious disease doctor who treated me, saying I wasn't contagious. In desparation, I offered to have periodic checkups if that would ease their fear. It would cost me some money for the extra doctor visits, but if that would help, I'd do it. Don't know if that had an impact or not. We'll see. I feel like a leper around them now and I don't like it. Something that I got almost 2 years ago is bothering me now. That's not fair.
Replies