MRSA Notes

11 responses so far ↓

• Deana // Oct 29, 2007 at 11:19 am

  I lost my husband to mrsa in August,2007. He contracted it while in the hospital. The hospital was aware this was going on. The hospital was full of patients with the infection. They did not take proper techniques to ensure that the infection was not spread to other patients. By the time they transferred my husband to another hospital, it was basically too late. This infection that could of been prevented killed nearly every organ in his body. He was a healthy 36 year old man. He went to hospital for gastrointisitis. No one told us that the hospital was filled with people with mrsa infections. It has been kept under wraps here in Arkansas that someone has died from it. My husband died a horrible death. We were told by the bigger hospital in Little Rock that it wasn’t contagious. Yet at the same time I had an infection also. I had stayed with my husband at the hospital. Something has to be done to ensure safety for our loved ones. They are saying that it cannot attack healthy people and I can beg to differ. Not only can it attack healthy people it can kill them. People here look at my family now like we are crazy and the doctors here in our hometown blow us off if we come in. It is very frustrating that something that is capable of killing is not taken seriously by doctors. I just hope and pray that no one else goes through what my family has gone through. We lost a husband, daddy and friend. My heart goes out to Ashton’s family. All I can say is May God help us all. We are going to need it, especially in small towns where the doctors doesn’t think things like this hit us, that we are immune to the outside world.

• Mourningdove // Nov 1, 2007 at 4:58 pm

  I am so very, very sorry for your loss and suffering from this terrible infection. I still come across doctors, nurses, and assistants that act like they do not know what it is and I have to explain it to them!! What is going on that there is such a lack of education and understanding on this!?

• Christy // Nov 8, 2007 at 7:58 pm

  There are currently 2 MRSA cases in my sons’ school district in PA (not far outside Philadelphia) and it is very scary. I am trying to stress to them just how important it is to wash their hands but I’m afraid that might not be enough. The scariest part is that I read this is very hard to treat since it does not respond to antibiotics?
  Deana, I am so sorry for your loss and my prayers are with you and your family. I can not even put into word how sorry I am for you. I can not believe that you are being treated this way because of something out of our control, that angers me more than anything!!!! How dare people disregard you in that way. One thing I do not excuse is ignorance.
  Deana, if you ever need to vent, feel free to send me an email. God bless you and your family.

• Deana // Nov 9, 2007 at 9:45 pm

  Thank you all so much for your compassion. Christy you are so right, it is ignorance that is the problem. The ones(doctors and nurses) that do know about it brush it off and therefore the ignorance continues. Our local paper contacted me about John’s death only after they were told of a possible lawsuit against the hospital. I informed that I would not talk about the lawsuit but would be more than happy to inform of just what this MRSA staph could do to a person. I also informed them that there was no treatment for it that was a definite win. I am still battling outbreaks from it and live in fear every time that this may be the time that it gets in my bloodstream and leave my children without any parents. My children live in constant fear. Our family doctor will not even drain the abscess caused by the infection. He sends the patient home and tell them to mash it out. That is what he done to my 11 year old daughter in June when she picked up the infection from his office. He did not bother telling us about serious it was, his office just called and told us that it was MRSA staph and she needed a different antibotic. I still thought nothing of it. I just went and got the medience. When I think back now of how things could of went I get angry. She orginally went to him to get out a blackberry thorn she had gotten when she was picking blackberries with her daddy. It was in a very dangerous place as I later found out. It was in between her eyes on the bridge of her nose. Her new doctor told me when he read that in her files that it could of easily got into her brain and it would of been no saving her. It had tunneled an inch and half upward. He was very upset at her other doctor that he sent her home and told us to get it out. He also informed that now that it was in her system I had to be very careful with any kind of trama to her skin and to get her to him if anything showed any signs of infection. I was so outraged that a doctor could that callous with a child. This was the same doctor that brushed my husband off as having a staph infection. I may not win the lawsuit but I do intend on letting other people know about this contagious infectious disease. I want no one else suffering the way we have. I know that the doctors that brush this off may not answer to our courts but I hope they ask for forgiveness for they will have to answer to a higher court one day. Thank you all for your support and prayers and please just help me get the word out that this disease doesn’t just prey on the weak, it also preys on the healthy.

• Mourningdove // Nov 11, 2007 at 9:52 pm

  Deana,

  I am glad you are considering a lawsuit. I had MRSA in late January and the doctor did not recognize it as MRSA. I didn’t get serious treatment until February. I was very lucky. Doctors should be aware and recognize this! Keep us informed! We are behind you! I started a blog on my own experiences with MRSA at: http://mrsa.groups.vox.com/.

• Misty // Nov 15, 2007 at 7:55 pm

  Christy: Have your school contact Electrostatic Spraying Systems in Watkinsville, GA. They are giving away sprayers that schools can use to combat the spread of MRSA on surfaces and in cracks and crevices that other sprays can’t reach. They have offered 50 free to use sprayers to the first 50 schools in 50 states to respond. Contact them at www.maxcharge.com. I don’t think there is anything on their website about the small sprayer but you need to get your school to contact them and get one of the first deals!

• john kiesling // Nov 16, 2007 at 7:36 am

  I’m currently colonized with MRSA and am having trouble getting help at the local hospital. I’ve been colonized for quite some time and am having kidney, liver, and heart problems. When I go to the emergency room here in southwest Florida, they run standard tests like CBC, Chemistry, and a urinary screen, declare me fit and send me home. The doctors don’t even realize they need to do blood/urine cultures. I need help and I’m not getting it!!!

• Mourningdove // Nov 16, 2007 at 11:53 am

  I am curious…how do you know for sure you are colonized? Did a doctor do a culture on you? I suspect my husband is colonized, but I don’t know how the test is for this.

• john kiesling // Nov 17, 2007 at 8:25 am

  U must send your husband to an infectious disease specialist. Nobody else will know enough about it and have the ability to test for it. I suspect I am still colonized because I’ve had a positive nasal swap in the past, as well as lesions on my leg years ago, and several people close to me have developed lesions on there skin over the past few years.

  There are several tests : obviously they can swab any skin lesion and culture it, as well as your nose and underarms. If you suspect it’s gotten into your system then they can take blood, urine, and sputum? (flem) samples and culture that. They then test different antibiotics against the culture for vulnerability to different drugs.

  I’ve just been to the specialist and need to wait until the antibiotics clear my system before I go in for various testing because it would throw off the results . She also imformed me that taking Zyvox long-term reduces your bone-marrow and will alter your blood cell counts and hemoglobin and lead to serious complications.

  Good luck all…hope this helps.

• Eva // Nov 30, 2007 at 6:20 pm

  This is to Christy in PA…check out ESS on www.prevent-staph.com and get your school to take advantage of the 50-50-50 program. What can it hurt? They get to disinfect the school with the use of an electrostatic spraying machine and all they have to do is give honest feedback. Go to the website, download the information and go to your school and demand they give it a try.

• Joe Salowitz // Dec 14, 2007 at 3:22 am

  My 91 year old father caught MRSA on the 4th day of his hospital stay for a respiratory infection, this past July. It was very dramatic. We were walking in the hospital corridor, for exercise, when suddenly he began feeling chills and weakness. We barely made it back to his room, before he basically collapsed and had to be covered up with many blankets. He survived, thank God, and was discharged after a 32 day hospital stay. He had walked into the hospital, by himself, and was discharged as a cripple, who still can not stand up on his own, without the support of a walker. This is due to an overdose of heparin, given to him for a blood clot that he developed, due to being bed-bound for so many days. The heparin caused internal bleeding, requiring 4 pints of blood to be transfused into him. His neurologist thinks that the internal bleeding irritated a “nerve plexus” in his right leg, taking away his ability to use that leg. If the MRSA doesn’t kill or cripple you, the hospital itself, will kill or cripple you. I submitted a complaint to the Medicare “Peer Review Board”, and was told, by them, that, after reading, and evaluating, my father’s 536 page hospital record, (which they claim to have done in less than 48 hours), that they concluded that no one in the hospital had done anything wrong. Then, when I requested a copy of his record, from the hospital, they had the nerve to charge me $425 for the record, after nearly killing my father. So far, I’ve had no luck finding a lawyer to handle the case. They are looking for cases where the drug companies or medical firms have ALREADY admitted their guilt, so that all the law firm has to do, is deposit 30 or 40 percent of the award into their own bank account, without actually having to WORK at proving malpractice or medical incompetance.

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