Tis the Season

Apparently the respiratory/flu season is here, it is going to be a long 6 months. This week every single child I cared for, except one, was in the hospital for respiratory reasons. They were having difficulty breathing for one reason or another. Those children with asthma were having a particullary difficult time earlier in the week when it was dry and windy outside. We are already seeing a lot of pneumonia and of course H1N1. It's not that every child that is having respiratory symptoms actually has H1N1 but the doctors are testing for it anyway. The test takes several days to be confirmed. In the meantime every child tested for H1N1 is put under isolation precautions. This means that any time I want or need to enter their room I need to put on the following -
1. Isolation gown - it covers me from neck to calf.
2. Gloves - they need to overlap the cuffs on the gown.
3. Mask - covers the nose and mouth and makes everything I say sound quite muffled.
4. Eye protection - this year the hospital has sprung for reusable "glasses" we each have a pair to use until we loose them or they break. They fog up easily as your breath escapes out of the top of the mask making it that much more difficult to see things in the dark.
No more running into a room when an alarm is going off. In the least I need to throw on a pair of gloves and a mask. This is going to last until at least April. Yay me!