Washing Your Hands vs Dominos Falling Down

I trust that you all had a wonderful holiday and a great start to 2013!  We caught a red eye flight home & theoretically would have celebrated New Year's while in the air but I believe we were all soundly asleep well before the proverbial clock struck 12.  With that said, sleeping upright in economy class gave me a greater appreciation for developing ischemic pressure ulcers as I just couldn't find a comfortable position, if you get my drift.  Luckily, no one's calves are swollen & tender after both the outbound & inbound flights.

However, if you've been following Secretary of State Hilary Clinton's health of late, you'll note that she hasn't been as lucky.  Apparently she caught a bug, let's say a common variety stomach flu, and got dehydrated.  As a result, she fainted.  Then due to the impact of hitting her head on something hard, presumably the floor, she got a concussion, which was diagnosed later in the week.  Like a line of dominoes, when the first one falls, it knocks over the next which knocks over the next, ad nauseum (pun intended).

But where she was really dealt a bad hand of cards was after following doctor's orders for bed rest.  And so she was admitted over this past weekend after developing a blood clot.  More commonly, the typical blood clot resulting from bed rest (and potentially long flights) occurs in one's legs.  However, in the case of Mrs. Clinton, she developed her blood clot in a vein in her brain, presumably from less movement & fluid.  All this resulting from that simple stomach flu just weeks earlier.

Ironically, the same week that Mrs. Clinton suffered her fainting spell for which she was apparently not hospitalized, a population-based case-control analysis of over 37,000 Danes was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology in which the authors concluded that hospitalization for unexplained first time fainting portended greatest risk over the ensuing 4-5 years for those 25-75yo.  Which goes to show you the importance of washing your hands when dealing with the public!  So in the spirit of the New Year, how about adding hand washing to your list of resolutions?  

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