I’ve never been a germaphobe. Even so, a possible bacterial spore infection, a sleep deprived old mom, and a diseased backpack almost, as Eliza Doolittle (My Fair Lady) would’ve said, “done me in.”

Ian had surgery to replace his bone flap (piece of skull taken out to reduce brain swelling after the accident) on a Friday, by Saturday, the possibility of his having C. Diff (clostridium difficile) was flagged on his computerized records. The nurse explained to me that the illness was serious for those who had been in the hospital for an extended period, for children, and for the elderly. By Sunday, we were waiting results.

In a text to family sent on Monday, Jillian my middle daughter, a nurse educator who is a month away from completing a master’s degree in nursing, explained that “C. diff is a diarrhea that people who have been hospitalized for long term are at risk for.” She echoed Ian’s nurse that it was dangerous in babies and that we needed to gown and glove, followed by washing hands with soap and water, as soap and bleach are the only means for killing the bacteria. But Ian’s nurse spoke in terms of contamination.

On Sunday, after telling me that we were awaiting results, the nurse cautioned, “For now, we should consider the room as contaminated. Gown up and glove up every time you go in.”

Saturday, she had donned a gown over her scrubs. Sunday morning, she gowned. I gowned. Sunday afternoon, though, she didn’t. The night nurse didn’t.  Monday, she didn’t. Nurses who came to help her with any of Ian’s needs didn’t.

Respiratory techs and housekeeping did. I did.

“So, you don’t really think he has C. diff?” I asked both the day and night shift nurses. While they never explained why they had stopped gowning up, they continued to explain why I should.

“Listen,” the day nurse assumed a stern tone. “We assume he does. Everything in this room is contaminated. Every surface. Why once, I worked with this crabby doctor and leaned against the wall. ‘Your ass is covered in C. diff. Stand up when you work with me.’” She had lowered her voice to mimic his. We swapped a couple of “men doctors can be such jerks” stories, but she continued. “You’ll need to watch your stuff—your book—” She pointed to the text I was planning to teach in two days that peeked from the top of my backpack. “Your computer and phone, your backpack—you’ll need to wipe things down with bleach wipes.”

Sometime after that conversation, I noticed a plastic container of the wipes by the door.

Every time I left the room—someone calls, a case worker stops by looking for Ashley, I finally have to eat or drink, someone else calls—I grabbed the gown at the shoulders and rip. It would catch in my hair, and I’d have to rip a little more. Then I peeled off, gloves last, and stuffed the blue wad into a trashcan. I washed and dried hands and left the room. I’d return to do everything in reverse.

I sat in the corner of Ian’s room, the plastic gown covering my tee shirt, sweat jacket, and coat; the large purple-blue latex gloves over my black cotton fingerless gloves. His room was so cold that I finally teased the edges of my black neck scarf above the plastic, even with the threat of contamination and unclipped my long crazy-frizzy hair was clipped to warm my ears. (Yes, if you’re wondering, I clipped my hair to minimize contamination. Once again, I tried again to focus on processing the text I’d try to teach my graduate class.

I stared at the print with visions of deathly-ill grandchildren, a grad student or two in the ICU, sick from having picked up the textbook I was holding that I’d likely drop from being sleep deprived but not have wiped down well enough. That night, my dreams were wound in plastic tubing, smelly, yellow bodily secretions, and beeping boxes.

Though the nurse’s concerns were of all things sanitary, mine were simply of sanity. I began counting gown ups and symptoms. Each day, we continued to wait for results. Each day, I was less careful.

During this time, I learned that I could text with gloved fingers and that my phone would survive a bleach wipe.  Sunday evening, when I couldn’t tell if Ian needed to be covered with a sheet because of the gloves, I tore off a fingertip of the glove to touch his skin. Stuffing the tip into the wrist of the glove as if the nurse would make me wiggle my gloved hands so she could check for subterfuge, I returned to sit and stare at page 120 of my book.

That night, I left without wiping down my backpack.

That afternoon, after I had left to go home, Jillian texted the family that the C. diff test was negative.  Ian would leave ICU that night for the neuro floor which meant that I would wouldn’t have to gown up when I returned.

I had a sort of weird pleasure in having used almost two boxes of those blue plastic gowns and frankly, had a sense of relief in having taught my grad class, albeit badly, without causing the physical death of any of my grad students.