I asked the guy if they still do that test with the four little spots, and he scoffed and said I was about four decades behind on that. Well, uh, I remember the tine test, and it was not any 40 years ago, thank you very much. Call me fragile, but I take umbrage at a 50-something man acting like I'm some out-dated old fart. Schmuck.
I had to go back Thursday morning to have them look at the spot on my arm where they'd given me the test and it seemed a good moment to elbow back. I really got their attention when I said "it's supposed to be green and pus-filled, right?"
Their eyes got big.
*hyuk*
Anyway, feel free to read my blog. I'm devoid of Tb. You're quite safe here.
18 comments:
When I was young, my grandmother- the unreconstructed, aristo one- was diagnosed with tuberculosis. To me, born after the antibiotic revolution, it was like being diagnosed with a head cold.
But she was born in 1890. Until she was 60, TB was a lingering death sentence and the thing that was most likely to have killed her peers. It was, to her, what a pancreatic cancer or brain tumor diagnosis would have been to me. She absolutely abandoned expectation of life.
The penicillin cured her anyway, she never even spent a day off her feet. I believe she resented that for her remaining twenty years.
I was born just at the right time where I don't have the round scar on my arm from the innoculation.
Guy was an idiot. My last tine test was in 1987. Unfortunately I failed and I'm not allowed to take that test anymore. That reminds me, I need to get a chest x-ray done.
i hate the TB dot-test. i work for a teaching hospital, and while i'm no longer anywhere near patients, all employees MUST get this test annually.
it's annoying. i always slam my arm into things for a day or so after i get that little dot of scunge, so i end up with bruising. whee.
Okay, I'll ask the hard questions:
Why would you need a TB test? Have you been hanging out with winos at the Y? Have you been practicing safe blogging?
Anyway, it's been a least 40 years since I had the test, which they used to do at school. They'd line up the entire school and feed them through the TB test assembly line. I even had a friend that had more tests because they didn't like the way the spots looked after a few days.
Sadly, I've heard that the influx of people from south of the border has introduced a threat of exposure to diseases that damn near disappeared in the United States. It's another of the hidden costs associated with illegal immigration.
I always have a positive Mantoux test. I did clinicals in the old tuberculosis hospital back home, and quite a few of my patients had active TB. I make the antibodies.
Yes, it does freak people out when they read my test results.
Regards,
Rabbit.
hehe...you do have such an evil streak - love it!
Seriously tho', living in a country where TB is a huge problem and people either won't get tested or won't finish the treatment, it's a good thing to have done every now and again just so you know you're still ok.
*gigglesnort!*
HA that'll teach em to mess with ya huh Plemmy?
schnoob
Get em :-) At least you didn't have that, and typhoid and yellow fever and tetanus all the same day... (that was standard just prior to deployments...)
I have to get one every six months. The ship I work on has Norwegian officers, a Filipino marine crew, and the people in the rocket segment are Russian and Ukrainian.
And they rotate every three months.
I'm constantly exposed to bugs from all 4 corners of the world.
I wish you had taken a picture of the staff's faces at that moment...that would have been EPIC!
I was TB tested every six months in the army when I was in Central America... The old Tine Test...
No TB here!
And I still have a very faint Polio vaccine scar...
LOLOLOL! Excellent shot.
I've got two of those round scars, as I immigrated when I was little so got one in each country.
I could never figure out how that eety-beety needle could hurt like a bastard.
I thought the "round scars" were from smallpox vaccinations?
Lots of my friends have those, but I don't remember ever seeing anybody with a scar from a TB *test*.
My polio vaccine was oral, the Sabin version. Salk's was, I think, injected.
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