My MRSA story
Forgive me if this is long nobody else can relate but some of you probably could.
This is a more than 20 years ago but its a pretty wild story.
I was living on Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas doing some restoration work. On the 4th of July I felt an ingrown hair in my armpit, shrugged it off and went ro work.
By noon I had a fever and my armpit was no longer hollow but solid, hot and painful to the touch. I asked a park ranger for a hypodermic needle to relieve the swelling while I waited for a sea plane. After intibating myself I laid down and waited for the plane , I laid for nearly 12 hours.
Eventually I flew to Richmond VA where my family lived and was admitted with a fever and cellulitis across my chest. The on call saw me and quickly had me lie down while my partner laid on my legs because they feared the infection would block the anesthesia, he made a 6" incision lengthwise in my armpit and replied "oh it tunneled". After scooping out rotting flesh he packed my wound and hit me in the hip sockets with two doses of rocephrin and sent me home.
The following morning I was told to come back immediately as tissue samples were positive for a bad case of community acquired MRSA.
I was given an IV and demarol then sent to nuclear science for a Pic line and another surgery.
A woke in the infectious disease ward, my armpit was totally excavated and packed with sterile packing strip material because the wound was so large and the amount of flesh removed was significant.
I was given two bags of vancomyacin via Pic line for several hours a day, often in the middle of the evening for a week straight.
Twice daily nurses unpacked my wound and repacked it which was incredibly painful.
After a week I was released and put on home vancomyacin using the Pic line and small grenade like objects in my fridge, this lasted a month.
I was finally back at the Hospital with my Pic line removed. I won't ever forget feeling like I woukd get sick again, my infectious disease specialist offered me brief advice "wash your hands and live tour life".
To this day the scar in my armpit reminds me of this brush with death had it not been for modern medicine.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far.