Monday, April 05, 2010

Dishwashing is contraindicated

I went to visit my GP last week, and as usual I had a shopping list full of things to ask her about. But to omit the TMI and suchlike, I'll just tell you that I was advised to stop doing the dishes if I want my hand eczema to get better.

Actually, what she recommended was that we get a dishwasher, but a) we can't afford any big ticket items at the moment and b) the boy is biased against them. And apparently wearing rubber gloves religiously for all dishwashing and cleaning tasks is not good enough, because the gloves themselves can harbour nasty fungi and bacteria. So I thought about how I was going to break the news to the boy.

The boy was not overjoyed to hear that he'd have to cook and do the dishes, though in my own private opinion which I pretty much keep to myself and a couple of hundred of my most attentive listeners/readers, he should count himself lucky that he's a bloke and therefore completely blind to all the dusting, mopping and bathroom cleaning that he hasn't had to do thus far.

I had told the boy this news over the phone, and all the way home I stressed that he might rebel and leave me with no option but to produce a line-by-line report of all the household chores that are mysteriously done, without his input, in order to avoid us living in a veritable pigsty, over the last decade we have shared.

But when I got home he was already finishing off a sinkload of dishes, and I mentally kicked myself for assuming the worst.

I promised that as soon as my hands got better I'd start doing dishes again (until they got worse again anyway). But it's been a week and they haven't, so he might be in for a long haul...



 

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excellent. Hope hand eczema gets better tho must be itchy/scratchy!

Antoinette said...

Hope you can figure out the other culprits so the eczema improves!

Violet said...

Unfortunately I appear to be allergic or sensitive to the world - eggs, horses, cats, moulds, house dust mite poos, chicken, carrots, grass pollen, Christmas lilies, many moisturisers...
I should get me one of them plastic bubbles eh!

Pollyanna_H said...

You sensitive wee thing! Too delicate for the mundane things of this world ... (cleaning, feeding chickens, arranging flowers)

But seriously, it does sound like an absolute pain - literally as well as metaphorically.

Unknown said...

Hope your sore and itchy hands get better soon.

Anonymous said...

Mite poo. How exactly did you find that out?

Violet said...

pollyanna_h - it's not normally too bad, but if my bod's going through a sensitive stage e.g. change of seasons, then I'm more sensitive to irritants than at other times.

emma: yeah I'll be right sooner or later ;-)

donnasoowho:I fell into a dust mite toilet one day and broke out in hives....actually, anyone who starts sneezing in a dusty home is probably allergic to dust mite poos - as opposed to the dust mites themselves. That's what they say.