No Getting Around It

Really there is no reason to beat around the bush... I work in a pretty nasty job. It isn't that I dislike it, but bodily fluids, etc aren't most people's cup o' tea.

That was reinforced at work yesterday in the Primary Children's microbiology lab when a former employee came by to chat with his former coworkers. According to him, our lab is where he fell in love and got poop in his eye. Apparently he did meet his wife here in the lab. And we talked about that for a few minutes.

"But did you really get poop in your eye?" I queried.

He explained that, despite the lecture they'd had earlier in the week about proper eye protection, he was wearing none when something popped out of a test tube and right into his eye. And I thought grapefruit was bad.

Well he used the emergency eyewash station with great earnestness and reported the incident to the infection control people who are supposed to know what to do in these situations. They said that normally poop doesn't carry HIV or anything in it unless there is blood mixed in. So he went and pulled out the stool sample to see if there was possibly any blood. Turns out there was almost no stool in the vial; It looked like dirty blood.

Well, years later he is still married to his microbiology sweetheart and still HIV negative. We're all still rooting for him and I sure hope that, when I get an eye of poop, I can only be as lucky as he was.