110 degrees magazine - Index

110 degrees magazine - magazine_08 - Index

GUEST EDITORIAL I NEW BAD GUY IN TOWN
Several years ago a terrible disease took my
hand and led me through the Valley of Death. I
contracted MRSA, which is a potentially deadly
mutant form of staph infection that began to
appear several decades ago.
MRSA (pronounced “mursa”) is the short-hand
form of a deadly bug called Methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus Aureus.
Health officials categorize it as multiple-resistant
because of its ability to survive the doses of
penicillin and other antibiotics that knock out the
un-mutated varieties of the bacteria.
Hospital patients with MRSA are five times
more likely to die than patients who don’t have
the disease.
About a third of infected patients die within
30 days. In 2005 the disease was responsible for
94,360 serious infections in the U.S. and for
18,650 hospital deaths.
In January 2004 I gave birth to my second child at
Sutter Delta Hospital. The event was a normal delivery
of a healthy baby, but within 24 hours I was on
life-support with my life hanging by a thread.
The infection began with fever, rapid heartrate,
plus difficulty in breathing and swallowing.
Once the infection begins to spread MRSA
is amazingly swift and the disease swiftly raced
through my body.
The scariest thing was losing my ability to
breathe. It was like somebody had punched me
in the diaphragm. I felt that I was going to die
of suffocation.
62 www.110mag.com January/February 2008
“I’M A FORTUNATE SURVIVOR OF THE ATTEMPTS
OF A DEADLY KILLER TO END MY LIFE. MY ILLNESS
WAS A WAKE-UP CALL THAT ALERTED MY FAMILY
TO THE PRESENCE OF THIS THREAT.”
The effort to breathe finally exhausted me
completely. “I can’t take one more breath,” I
said, so they put an endotrachael tube down
my throat and hooked me up to a ventilator.
My husband, Greg, and I are both trained
paramedics so we completely grasped the significance
of what was happening to me. It was
a frightening experience! My final thought as I
slipped into a coma was that I was going to die.
It was a near thing and, in fact, on the third
day the doctor informed my parents that I was
not going to make it.
Miracles happen, however. I’m a living illustration
of how prayers change things. At the
depth of my illness some of our friends fasted
and prayed for me for 24 hours, and I survived
the ordeal. However, I spent 15 days on life support,
and it would be nearly a month before I
was finally released from the hospital.
My survival really was miraculous! We had been
scheduled to leave the hospital in the morning but
my doctor was delayed and so, lacking her signature
on the release forms, I was still in the hospital when
the onset of the infection occurred. If I had been
home there would have been no chance that I
would have survived the illness.
I learned later that Sutter Delta had thrown
all their resources into the struggle to save my
life and at times three or four doctors would
simultaneously be working around my bedside.
The disease was spreading through the hospital.
While I was there fully half of the beds in
ICU were occupied by MRSA victims.
My bout with the infection occurred four
years ago and I’m still experiencing chronic
effects including aching muscles, pains in my
joints, and insomnia.
I remain on alert status and at the first appearance
of a temperature or sore throat I’m under orders to
immediately check in to the hospital. My chances
for survival of a serious re-occurrence of the disease
will improve dramatically if I can be in the
hospital within 20 minutes of any outbreak.
MRSA was first discovered in England in 1961
and has been spreading since that time. Two
billion people worldwide are carrying the bacteria;
95 million of them are in the U.S. MRSA
now claims more victims in the U.S. than does
the AIDS virus. Because it is so virulent and so
resistant to treatment, MRSA is sometimes
referred to as a “superbug.”
New antibodies have been developed that
are effective in treating MRSA, but even newer
strains of the bacteria have appeared that are
resistant to the new treatments.
The “Community-Acquired MRSA” (CA-MRSA)
version of the disease continues to run rampant
through our East County communities.
The threat is so serious that school officials are
spraying school busses and public areas at the
high schools.
Parents need to be alert to the appearance of
the MRSA infection in their family. They should
be prepared to move fast. Seconds count. It
might be a matter of life and death!
I’m a fortunate survivor of the attempts of a
deadly killer to end my life. This was a wake-up
call that alerted my family to the presence of
this threat.
And now I’m trying to wake you up.
Jennifer Cooper
Send an email to editors@110mag.com for
questions or comments.