Thursday, November 15, 2007

Super Bug

Every night on news (both local and national) there are stories about the latest "health scare" (remember Sars, West Nile, Bird Flu, Mad Cow). The illness "du jour" happens to be this MRSA staph infection, aka "Super Bug". MRSA kills more Americans annually than AIDS (yet the federal AIDS research budget is over 13 times larger than that for the whole field of antimicrobial resistance)...kinda crazy. How do I know?

I had this MRSA staph infection last year (where were the news reports then?) I got it in the hospital, after I had Brooke, and let me tell you...the staph was WAY worse than delivering any baby (trust me, I've done it a few times). At the time, my doctor said it was the worst case he'd ever seen. I had eight different spots on my body that were infected, 4 of which had to be drained and packed with gauze every day/other day for nearly a month. Yes, lovely visual, I know. I made it through 3 pregnancies with no stretchmarks on my belly, now I have 2 big ugly scars like eyes on each side of my belly button...nice. It was an awful experiences and the worst pain I've ever had. Of course, my immune system was down as I was recovering from childbirth (double whammy) and I had my 2 other children that never slowed down.

I love that doctors refer to it as the "cockroach of bacteria".

But the flu kills twice as many people than MRSA each year, it's weird what the media will focus on.
Don't get me started on the whole Britney thing again.

1 comment:

twiceknit said...

so scary. I had no idea! Glad you didn't have any lasting complications.