Lovely

It doesn't catch you. You catch it!

Dear Healthcare Professional;

This is to inform you that during the period blah to blah, blah you may have been exposed to at least one case of active tuberculosis. A case that you were [closely and intimately, crawling all inside his orifices and fluids] has been recently been diagnosed by the country health department and may have not been showing clinical signs and symptoms when you were involved in his/her care. This information is provided to you as a Public Health Service and we would recommend contacting your primary care provider for immediate testing, evaluation and treatment if necessary. If you have any further questions please contact this office immediately at the above number and refer to case #blahblahblah. Thanks very much for the work you do.

[Love] Sincerely,
[Your director of county health department extraordinaire]

LOVELY! How unique to my profession to advised of exposure to the little elongated yellow beast. Let's review. Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a nonmotile (meaning they do not move) rod-shaped bacteria. The common site of infection is the lungs because the bacteria are obligate aerobes, meaning that they require oxygen. The cell wall of Mycobacterium tuberculosis is mostly lipid which contributes to difficulties in staining and dyeing the bacteria for identification. The bacterium is difficult to kill because it is resistant to antibiotics and other treatments. And it loves to dig large caverns of space from normal lung tissue (cavitary) and fill them with gobs and blobs of fluide, semi fluids, pus, sputum and other hairballs.

Lovely. So not only do I work unimaginable hours working for mostly children supervisors with little or know knowledge of adult education or supervision, but I also have been exposed to a bacteria with a passion for my lungs. Poetic.

I'm off today for the first day in over two weeks. I think I'll just focus on the things neglected (besides my health) and go to the gym, shop for food to fill my empty fridge and wash sheets. If I think too much about this bacteria crawling around in my lungs, I'm sure I'll quit and go back to my drive thru job at the donut place. But then I could be exposed to flour or chocolate sprinkle inhalation. Lovely.