Microbiology Diary, Day 1
Well, today I did many things that involve microbes, including eating, using the lavatory, brushing my teeth and using mouth wash, bursting a pimple, washing my hands and washing my office. Many of these are things that everyone does every day, and as such I won’t talk about them in detail, but I will assure you that, though I probably won’t write about them, I will do many of these on each of the remaining 6 days as well.
Eating lunch involved heating up left-overs from dinner two nights ago. The meal was composed of potatoes, canned salsa, and pork. Given these things, there are a number of microbes that could easily have been present in the food, some of which (any of the Clostridium species for example) could potentionally cause illness. As such (and at my wife’s insistence) I microwaved my meal for two minutes before eating it. I’m honestly not sure if this was enough to destroy any bacteria that may have been there, but as this is my normal routine, and I can’t remember the last time I was really ill, I’ll assume that it either worked, or the microbes were essentially absent.
Using the lavatory is always a microbe rich experience, as there are many intestinal and urinary tract flora that are excreted with every bowel movement or urination. As far as what I did or what the microbe did, I won’t go into any more detail about what I did, and the microbes, had they the ability to think or scream, probably would have done both as they were unceremoniously removed from their homes and thrust to their eventual death in the sewage systems of Salt Lake City. But, as they do not have these abilities, they simply fell with my excreta into the appropriate waste receptacles, possibly scattering to the air around them.
After this activity, and after cleaning my office, and multiple other times throughout the day, I washed my hands. This hand washing consisted of wetting my hands in water as hot as I am able to tolerate, lathering with antibacterial hand soap (the antibacterial soap may not have been shown to make a significant difference over regular soap, but it sure does make me feel better), long enough to sing one verse of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” as per the reccommendation of my EMT-Basic instructor, and drying with paper towels. I personally hate the hot air dryers and the cloth towels present in so many of the University restrooms, so I refuse to use ones that I don’t KNOW provide paper towels.
Brushing teeth would normally just scrub some of the microbes (mostly true bacteria, just like verything else I’ve mentioned so far today), and a lot of the gunk out of my mouth, mechanically removing them, and not necessarily killing them. Unfortunately for me and the commensal bacteria in my oral cavity, I had a bad taste in my mouth this morning that normal brushing didn’t seem to take care of, so I used mouthwash in addition to my normal toothpaste routine. The mouth wash boasted the ability to kill 99.9% of the microbes in my mouth, and if the producing company is to be believed that is what it did. The mouthwash sure did sting enough that I think it must have killed not only microbes, but also some of my own oral epithelium. I hate using the stuff.
Washing an office usually involves contact with hosts of microbes that I wouldn’t even know where to begin discussing, so instead I’ll move on to bursting the pimple. This is an everyday activity for most teenagers and a common one for many adults. I noticed a pimple ready to burst today, so I burst it, releasing the puss that had built-up subcutaneously. The pus I released was likely caused by Staphylococcus aureus, at true bacterium and normal resident of human skin, though I didn’t have it cultured to find out for sure. In releasing it, the bacteria was returned to the surface of my skin, where it is normal flora, until I used alcohol to clean my face after bursting the pimple, at which point the microbes in the immediate area were probably destroyed.
Ultimately, I don’t expect every day to be quite this long, which is probably a relief for you, as I’m sure you’re sick of reading this, but I figured I’d start of wordy so that if I’m a little less than wordy toward the end of the week, it’ll balance out.
