Germ-O-Phobe

I am a germ-o-phobe. A germ freak. Completely OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) about germs. I don't know if nursing has made this better or worse, mostly likely worse. I imagine unseen germs on everything everywhere. For instance, I have an entire routine for dressing, going to work, and undressing. I put on my scrubs for work and since I bring little things like alcohol pads and blunt tip needles home in my pockets, I load up my pockets, then wash my hands. I grab the rest of my crap for work. I leave my name tag and stethoscope in my car and yell at anyone who tries to touch them- I then make them wash their hands. At work I have to have everything in my room in order, clean, and straight, especially my IV lines and other tubes and you better not touch anything in that room either. As I've discovered, this is actually a common trait of night ICU RN's. We all seem to be OCD about cleanliness and order for some reason. Back to germs...Everytime I touch something in the room, especially the patient I basically use alcohol rub or wash my hands. I use alcohol pads on everything too. Hey, better overly cautious than under, right?! My biggest pet peeve is seeing RN's not wearing gowns, gloves (and sometimes masks) in isolation rooms. Drives me nuts. What's even worse than that is when I notice they don't wash their hands, I cringe inside everytime. C-Diff is the worst (a nasty bacteria in stool that spreads like crazy and stinks, by the way) because you CANNOT use alcohol rub on your hands with c-diff patients. It basically takes off all the good bugs on your hands and allows the c-diff to grow. GROSSSSS....You HAVE TO wash your hands. Yet people still don't wash their hands. Ugh. Moving on to heading home. I only wear 1 specific coat to work and I don't wear it anywhere else, same with gloves, scarf, and hat. These items all touch my germy body and scrubs, why would I want to wear them on my day off and invite those germs back onto my body. No thanks. I know basically no one else thinks of this and I wish they would. When I get home, I don't touch anything without washing my hands first and I UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES will let anyone touch me. My scrubs go directly into the dirty laundry baskets. My shoes have their own box in a separate closet. They are essentially quarantined. haha I shower, then put on new clothes. Some mornings this sucks cuz our water isn't very warm and all I want to do is sleep. But there is no way I would lay in my sheets with my nasty scrubs/ skin. Do you have any idea how many bodily fluids, gross things, germs I touch at work a night?! I don't want that on my sheets. (Shudder) YUCK. When I do the laundry (or the rare occassion my husband does it) I immediately wash my hands after putting it in the washer. Yes, I am actually that bad. You should see me with germs in the rest of my life. But I can't get this story from another nurse out of my head, where she said they swabbed the nostrils of the nurse her entire family and even the family dog and they ALL came back positive for MRSA (nasty antibiotic resistant bacteria). Yeah, I want to avoid that if at all possible. My poor future children will never get to play anywhere in public. Alright, now that I have the willies thinking about germs, I'm gonna go now. You should wash your hands. Trust me, you don't know what you've been touching! PERFECT! I'm glad other nurses see invisible germs growing on surfaces.