Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Masked

On September 21, 2010 my brother Charlie had his double lung transplant.  He got out of the hospital a week ago.  After transplant the doctors suggest you wear a mask for a while after the surgery just because you are on so much anti-rejection drugs.   I only wear mask now during the flu season and on the airplane, but he is wearing one all the time.  Today a mother and her children were in Target and they saw Charlie and the mother pulled out her hand sanitizer and gave all 3 kids some as they stared at Charlie.   If the truth be known he is more likely to catch something from them, then they are to catch something from him, but they didn't know that.  When I had my transplant in April 2004, SARS was a big thing, and in December 2003 they had seen the first case in the United States.  I got so many people starring, thinking that I had SARS.   One lady at Wal-Mart ran her cart into the aisle and knocked off a whole shelf of shampoo because she was starring so hard.  For the longest time I would just smile at everyone but then I realized that they can't see me smiling through the mask.  I really admire the children that look at us (with the mask on) and just look away.  So if you see someone with a mask on, unless it's in a hospital, it is probably that they have had a surgery or are on chemo or something.  More than likely it's not that they have something contagious.

2 comments:

  1. Both this posting and the previous are very good - thank you for your insight! : )

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  2. I wore a mask last fall everywhere, including to class. Imagine having to sit with a bunch of classmates all staring at you. But after this girl came in, sick as a dog, and plopped right down beside me, you bet I wore a mask! Mostly it was due to the bird-flu thingy going around. Doubt I'll need one this fall unless everyone starts getting very sick like last year.

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