Forty-six: glove


Forty-six: glove, originally uploaded by meganknight.

I had minor surgery on the back of my right hand yesterday, which is why there was no picture, and why I am wearing this glove.

I’m not supposed to get the wound wet, so, in order to take a bath, I put on one of the delightfully purple nitrile gloves the NHS provided. They didn’t actually provide the gloves for this purpose, they provided them for when I was injecting myself with disease-modifying-anti-rheumatic drugs.

The NHS takes this VERY seriously. First of all, I had to persuade them to let me inject myself, as I had been doing for years before coming to the UK. Then, they started delivering the drugs, in preloaded syringes, each one encased in layers of plastic, sealed in a pouch, placed in a cardboard box with half a ream of warnings! and heldpful advice!, then six boxes were placed in another box, sealed with more plastic and delivered to me, along with a box of alcohol swabs (fair enough), a box of nitrile gloves, a sharps and cytotoxin disposal box (bright yellow with a purple lid), a set of safety goggles and so help me god, a full hazmat suit, just in case I suddenly became radioactive, I guess.

I confess I never actually used any of these things, except the syringes and the sharps box. Alcohol swabs are always useful, but I think this is the first time I have ever used one of the gloves. The hazmat suit was tossed and I gave the safety goggles to the Manchester Hackers group along with a whole bunch of old tech kit.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *