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.
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.
ReplyDeleteBut 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.
ReplyDeleteGuy 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.
ReplyDeletei 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.
ReplyDeleteit'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:
ReplyDeleteWhy 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.
ReplyDeleteYes, it does freak people out when they read my test results.
Regards,
Rabbit.
hehe...you do have such an evil streak - love it!
ReplyDeleteSeriously 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!*
ReplyDeleteHA that'll teach em to mess with ya huh Plemmy?
ReplyDeleteschnoob
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...)
ReplyDeleteI 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.
ReplyDeleteAnd 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!
ReplyDeleteI was TB tested every six months in the army when I was in Central America... The old Tine Test...
ReplyDeleteNo TB here!
And I still have a very faint Polio vaccine scar...
LOLOLOL! Excellent shot.
ReplyDeleteI've got two of those round scars, as I immigrated when I was little so got one in each country.
ReplyDeleteI could never figure out how that eety-beety needle could hurt like a bastard.
ReplyDeleteI thought the "round scars" were from smallpox vaccinations?
ReplyDeleteLots 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.
ReplyDelete