Ryan Dowling’s father sent me their son’s story a couple of days ago - Ryan suffered a life threatening MRSA infection, yet another victim of MRSA in an athletic setting.
Ryan’s father says he is still battling the effects of MRSA, and may possibly need a hip replacement - please keep Ryan in your prayers, and with school starting back up across the U.S., please take extra care with your children involved in athletics:
Ryan Dowling thought he was just sore from baseball practice.
The Lake Fenton freshman hoped for a shot to make the varsity team, so he wasn’t about to complain. But the pain in his hip got worse and worse every day to a point where one morning he woke up and couldn’t even walk.
His parents, Gary and Nancy Dowling of Fenton, had to face one of their worst fears of not knowing what was wrong with their child. He had an emergency MRI and CAT scan, he saw an orthopedic surgeon, but no one could give any answers. They thought it might be a tumor, so they sent him to the cancer center at the University of Michigan hospital. There the department head determined it wasn’t a tumor, but ordered more blood work.
“I didn’t think it was a big deal at first. I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know what a tumor was or anything,” Ryan said.
It ended up being a big deal.
About the ‘Superbug’
The Dowlings finally found out the problem when the blood work returned. It was a really bad infection called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA. The relatively new threat has morphed from bacterium called Staphylococcus (commonly called a Staph infection) that is carried by approximately 30 percent of the population, either in the nose or on the skin. Staph infections in most cases will cause skin boils. They have been a widespread problem in hospitals for a long time, but in the last few years the newly formed “community MRSA” has spread all over including, athletic fields and locker rooms.
MRSA (often pronounced mer-sa) previously existed as a rare germ, but is becoming more and more common. Most of the bacterium won’t cause illness on its own, but sometimes the bad guys beat the good guys. The germ then colonizes and the bad guy, like MRSA, can invade even the tiniest of cuts or scrapes on the skin and start making its presence known. At this point it still isn’t an emergency as the body can still fight it off. However, if it spreads problems soon follow and antibiotics may need to be used. But it’s not that easy anymore as the new forms of the bacteria have become resistant to most drugs. Deadly pneumonia and blood and bone infections can result.
Some have named this new strain of MRSA the “superbug” and it is sweeping across the nation.
The Dowlings don’t know how exactly Ryan contracted the bug and it is impossible to tell, but they have a guess. One scenario is that he had a simple infection somewhere on his body and then he suffered a severe hip pointer while playing hockey. The microorganisms attacked the weak spot in his hip and started making a home.
Story from the Tri-County Times
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1 response so far ↓
Dowling // Apr 7, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Ryan did end up with a hip replacement, he had hip surgery in August 2007. This was his 8th surgery dealing with MRSA.
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