The Perils and Pitfalls of Small Towns

Here's a story for you: I'm off to my cousin's college graduation party in Massachusetts with my mother this past June. Fearing the Deviled Eggs had fallen over in the back seat, my mother pulled over on Main Street in my quaint, New England hometown. I jumped out to check on the damage. As I got to the back of the car, I felt something piercing my left foot, just at the edge of my heel where the sole of my sandal ended. Thinking I had just stepped on a bee, I took the most appropriate action and shook my foot away from my body as though I was possessed in order not to see or touch anything insect-y (I may have grown up in the country, but I live in NYC now - we don't interact with nature on a daily basis). When that did nothing to stop the supposed bee attacker, I finally looked down to see a used medical needle sticking out of my foot. 

The lady of the hour.

I plucked the thing out of my foot, looked at it and thought, "Well, shit." It's one of those moments when you hurt yourself or witness an emergency where you have to remind yourself that you need to act. "I just saw someone get beaten up, cue the 'I should call the police' reaction." "I just burned half of my hand off, cue the 'I should seek medical attention' thought." I held it up, walked back to the passenger side window (I did manage to check that the Deviled Eggs were ok. Priorities), and after explaining to my mom said, "I think this is the part where we go to the ER."

We, my mom, the dog, the Deviled Eggs, and myself all drove over to the sleepy country hospital, just over the line in the next town. There were a lot of "Oh, my God"s coming from my mom during this part of the ride. I was admitted to the ER (cue more "Oh, my God"s from my mom) and sent my mom off to the party and told my dad what was happening so he could get me when I was released. 

Side note: I spent a very odd morning into afternoon listening the the stories of the people in beds next to me. The first patient was a young man, whose father was picking him up after the patient, the son, had spent the night in the ER. Turns out, he had gotten very, very drunk the night before and needed to go into detox. He was very polite, if a little, woebegone.

The second one of my ER colleagues, was a girl from two towns over who was on suicide watch, because of a fight she and her boyfriend had gotten into. She was joined by some sort of security personnel who actually had to sit in a chair and watch her. That was disconcerting especially because he was also essentially watching me from his vantage point. He kept telling her to smile, that she looked so sad. No shit, dude. Maybe don't try to do the misogynistic "smile" thing to the girl on suicide watch. Just a thought. 

Anyway, a day spent at the ER really makes you think about how easy you have it, even with the fact that you may have just contracted some horrible illness. Silver linings. 

Back to our story: It turns out that the needle I stepped on was most likely an insulin needle. Because the needle was on the side of the road, out in the hot sun, for at least a few hours, possibly a few days the likelihood that I contracted anything from it is very low. On top of that, rates of transmission specifically for HIV are very low from needle sticks. About 0.3%. Very low, but not impossible. So the answer seemingly would be to test the needle. Wrong. The ER doctor said that when he's sent orders to have a needle tested before the lab technicians essentially laughed in his face. Nope, my medical treatment was to basically act as though the needle was infected with everything. 

First course of business was getting a new tetanus shot. Now, I don't know if the ER doctor was just off his game or what, but I told him that I had had my last tetanus shot in 2009 before I left for India. He ordered me to have another, making me think that the shot was only good for five years. Not so - note to future self - tetanus shots are good for 10 years. So at least I'm all set until 2025. Despite how on it they were about my tetanus shot, they were very 'lax about whether or not I had received my Hep B shot. I said I thought I had, but couldn't tell them where or when. They thought that answer was satisfactory. Whatever. Then a whole lot of blood samples to test against later if I had HIV. And finally, the initial doses for the anti-retrovirals I would have to take for the next month to prevent HIV. Woof. 

When I finally got back to New York City, I made an appointment with my primary care. I foolishly hoped for a loophole for having to deal with the HIV part of all of this. My primary care is pretty laid back, not one to over prescribe me when I'm sick, so I thought when I saw her that because I'd been so good and went to the ER right away that I wouldn't have to take the month of anti-retrovirals, that I wouldn't have to do all of the blood testing, etc. That there was an out. Wrong. Again. 

I just finished my month of meds last week and those things are no joke, made me feel all kinds of sick and awful. And I have my first round of blood tests to look forward to this month and another set in October and another set in December. Six months that I will have to deal with this simply because that one insulin user hadn't properly disposed of their needle. This one person has inadvertently cost me hundreds of dollars, many days of my life, and my reassurance of my health. Oy. 

Here's my best advice on this subject so far: don't step on a medical needle if you can at all avoid it.