Superbugs in Ontario
Liz Smith* can't remember if it was the fourth or fifth time she had taken her daughter to the hospital that year. She thought it would end as it had before, with Jennifer* returning home after a few hours without any real answers. But this time turned out to be different. Much different.
It was April 2004. Jennifer, then 17, had been strangely unwell in her final year of high school, complaining of stomachaches, pain and fatigue. Liz and her husband took her to her family doctor and gastrointestinal specialists, but the tests turned up nothing. "There was a point where we thought there was nothing wrong with her," recalls Liz.
But this time, X-rays showed a spot of pneumonia on Jennifer's lung. She was treated with antibiotics and sent home into the care of her mom. Liz is an experienced nurse who works at a hospital in Sarnia, Ont.
Introducing antibiotics to Jennifer's body
Several days passed, but Jennifer didn't get better. That Saturday she was too weak to lift her head off her pillow. "She was blue-looking, so I called an ambulance. When they came her oxygen level was very low. She was not well," recalls Liz. "In hindsight, I sort of think we should have done something earlier, but we had had her to emergency so many times, we were feeling like we were crying wolf."
Within hours Jennifer's condition became critical. One lung had collapsed entirely; her other lung was compromised. "They were trying to show me the X-ray, but as I look back on it, I realize I wasn't really comprehending what was going on," says Liz.
Jennifer was rushed by ambulance to London, Ont., for emergency surgery. She had an empyema -- a massive infection of the lungs. Surgeons had to open her up and clear her lungs of pus. The 4-hour operation was successful in clearing the matter, but Jennifer became septic -- the infection raced through her entire body.
Annihilating the infection
She was moved to the critical-care unit and put on a ventilator. Doctors blasted her system with the most powerful antibiotics they had in a last-ditch effort to beat back the infection that was ravaging her body. The doctors told Liz that Jennifer was in critical condition, and Liz was worried she might not live. She knew her daughter was angry with her -- a typical teenage-rebellion situation -- and she was overwhelmed at the thought of losing her daughter while they were not getting along.
For five days, Jennifer's life hung in the balance, but the antibiotics had worked -- on the sixth day, she opened her eyes. She recovered quickly after that and, partly because Liz was a nurse, was allowed to go home. But a few days later, Jennifer developed boils on her legs. Tests revealed she had methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, commonly known as MRSA.
Jennifer may have contracted MRSA in the hospital, but her mother is convinced she got it from the community, and that it's what caused her lung infection. "Looking back, at how she had been ill for some time, before she got really sick, I think she had it [MRSA] prior to the hospital," she says.
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*Names have been changed.
