Keeping my hands clean. My 80 year old father had open heart surgery 4 years ago to replace a worn out aortic valve, and when they sent him home, they said that infection was his biggest threat and they told us to make sure that we kept our hands clean when we were tending to him and preparing his meals.
A year later my brother was diagnosed with a serious congential heart condition that had gone undiagnosed for 51 years, they told us that most babies with the condition die before they’re a year old, so no one at our hospital had even seen a case of an adult with this condition. Again, they told us that infection was one of the biggest obstacles to avoid. So I clean the kitchen before, and after I cook, and I wash my hands multiple times while I’m cooking, like if I touch the fridge or the microwave handle, or my cat, or the lid of the trashcan or the phone or the TV remote or anything else.
A good friend of mine, who had non-hodgkins leukemia died last year from what started out as a simple cut on his finger. He was 60. His cancer had been in remission for about 8 years, then he was doing some gardening and cut his finger. He died 3 weeks later.
I’m not one of those people who actually have OCD, I don’t rub my hands raw. I just pay very close attention to what I’m doing when I’m cooking or when I’m around people who are ill so as not to make their situations worse and I try to avoid picking up anything from sick kids that I could inadvertenly pass along to my Dad or brother.
I always carry wipes in my bag, when I go to a restaurant I usually wipe down the table myself. Have you ever noticed the waitresses carry around those disgusting wet rags and they use the same dirty rag to “clean” all of the tables.
I used to get very bad colds and bronchitis several times a year, before I started up my current cleanliness routine. Now I don’t.