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I ask myself, why me, as Wheel of Fortune glares down at me from
the elevated television screen. I didn’t have it when
I came here. I thought I would be in and out in a few hours.
Unfortunately, I had no such luck. I can remember clearly
how my nightmare began. I woke up smiling, knowing everything
would go as planned. Today I was scheduled for a ¡°routine¡±
outpatient surgery. My doctor told me that this surgery had
few complications and assured me I would feel right as rain in a
week or so. When I was walking into the hospital the halls
seemed so bright and clear, the sheets white and crisp, and the
doctors first rate. There wasn’t a worry in my heart.
It wasn’t long before my picture perfect vision became
uncomfortably dark. A few hours after my surgery my doctor
informs me that I have contracted a mysterious bacterial infection
because of my surgery. Yes, this same doctor assured me I
would feel right as a rain only a few hours ago. At that moment,
the rain began to pour. Suddenly the cleanliness and brightness
of the hospital fades. The halls seem dirty and grim, the
sheets not so clean and white, and the doctors inadequa! te. It
was almost as if I could see the germs floating around my room.
I am now on my way to becoming a statistic and dying from
the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, hospital
infections. I had heard that there was a risk of acquiring
infection while being treated in a hospital, but why my hospital?
Now my outpatient surgery has turned into a weeklong stay.
I have thought long hours about how this could have happened
but haven’t come up with any definitive answers. My
situatio! n could be due to unsanitary facilities, germ covered
instruments, unwashed hands, carelessness by doctors and nurses
or a combination of other things. What am I to do now? Now
that I think about it, the only way to prevent this from happening
is for hospitals to implement infection control programs. Until
then the nightmares will continue. And where is the remote,
I hate Wheel of Fortune.
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