Glad Press & Seal Plastic Wrap

Okay, first of all, let me start by saying that I am not, nor have I ever been, an employee or spokesperson for Glad. That said, I would like to take a minute to extol the virtues of this modern day miracle product!

To back up just a bit, let me tell you about the glorious day when I first discovered Glad P 'n' S. You may recall that I ended up with a post surgical infection after my brain surgery several years ago which necessitated me having a peripheral internal cardiac catheter (PICC) line "installed" so that I could infuse myself twice daily with an elixir of antibiotics. Stay with me here, I'm getting to the good part.

Because the PICC stays in your body for about 6 weeks, and because it ends up very close to your heart (hence the "cardiac catheter" part of the name,) it is imperative that the external part of the line (the part than hangs out of your arm) is kept very clean. It must also be kept very dry. Which is where the Glad P 'n' S comes into play.

For the first few days I tried encasing my arm in a plastic trash back, taped to my arm pit and shoulder with duct tape. Yeah, well, I am sure you can see the problems with this. Duct tape is waterproof, which is the good news - it also tries to become permanently adhered to your most tender body parts, which is the not-so-good part. After several days of this, I was becoming desperate. Not only did my arm have bits of duct tape stuck to it, but I was quickly going through our entire supply of plastic garbage bags. Never mind that I couldn't hold the bar of soap in my right hand because said hand was encased in a plastic garbage bag. And forget about maintaining any level of attractiveness for my poor husband!

So, somewhere I had read about people using plastic wrap to cover wounds and other things that need to stay dry. Really? Sounds great! So off to the store I went to search the plastic wrap aisle. And, as I was inspecting the goods, my eyes landed on ... Glad Press 'n' Seal! That looked like it just might work - and if not, I could always use it to wrap food!

Okay, I'll confess right now - Glad Press 'n' Seal changed my life!! I was able to wrap a big hunk of it around my arm where it stayed tightly sealed and water tight, allowing me to shower in comfort. And, best of all, it came off easily and didn't cause any sort of adhesive rash. Bonanza! Since then, I panic if I see the supply running low.

So, why bring this up now, two years later? Last week I came down with some sort of icky wrashy thing on my arms. The doctor proclaimed it to be "contact dermatitis" which is doc-speak for "yep, you've got something and we don't have a clue what it is." So, in addition to several prescriptions, the doctor instructed me to put Domeboro Astringent compresses on it several times a day. Since the affected areas were on my inner forearms, it was pretty awkward to sit there with wet, drippy compresses - every time I so much as twitched, they'd slide off and I would have to start all over again. And, then I though "Hey, wait a minute! You've got Glad Press 'n' Seal!" So now I sit here typing this with both arms wrapped snuggly in Glad, compresses in place, happy as a clam. (And, what does that mean - are clams really that happy?)

To the people at Glad - if you've got your Google alerts set to pick up online mentions of your products, I just want to say that you are missing a marketing opportunity here. There is money to be made in the post surgical, wrash, PICC line community. Personally, I think you're sitting on a gold mine. But that's just me...

Have a great day! (And, to the people at Glad, if you want to send me a check, feel free...)