tb or not tb?

That was the question; the answer, fortunately, is no, I do not have tuberculosis! And now my mom is frowning, wondering why such a thing would even be an issue.

It’s an issue because way back in January, for my 40th birthday H got me the opportunity to be a Zookeeper for a Day at SLC’s Hogle Zoo. The ZfaD program is a fundraiser, basically, where you can pay (and call it a charitable donation) for the privilege of following a real zookeeper around for most of a day, and help clean cages and feed animals. But to be allowed to be a ZfaD, you have to prove that you do not have TB so as not to infect all the zoo critters.

This was actually an easy way to establish a presence at the new doctor’s office (yeah, established as the crazy lady who requested a TB test) and it went smoothly. I didn’t have an appointment but walked in around 4:45 p.m. last Friday; they injected my forearm with a small amount of tuberculosis squirmies and told me to come back in 48-72 hours to have the test “read” – but if the injection site got red, hot or swollen, I should come in sooner. Because that meant I definitely had TB, you see. I stopped back in this morning on the way to work and a NP took a quick look at my arm – no bump, no heat and no redness, just a teensy bruise – and deemed me ready to be a zookeeper. Well, not in so many words but that’s the effect anyway.

I don’t have my zoo keeping date scheduled yet but I’m hoping to go sometime in April when it’s a little warmer but schools (and multitudes of school children) have not yet gotten out. And in the meantime, you can all rest assured that I am TB-free!