It wouldn't be right to try and say that all of my experiences in the various hospitals I've been to throughout this ordeal have been negative. Many were positive, including and especially most interactions with my nurses who were always extremely hard working and usually very caring. Here is an especially memorable moment...
I had just been moved to Select Specialty. I was scared, lonely, depressed, etc. I hadn't been able to properly wash my hair in a couple of weeks. A nurse and a CNA fashioned a hair washing station on the end of bed, bringing in cups of hot water and catching it behind my head in a garbage bag. They brushed it out, which took over an hour, washed it, then braided my hair so it wouldn't get tangled again. It was so thoughtful and by the time they were finished I felt like a new person, ready to face all that was happening around me. These women continued to be wonderful to me throughout my stay at this otherwise awful facility. On one occasion, it was taking so long for the pharmacy to get in medicated shampoo for me, that they just got fed up and walked across the street to buy it for me at a Rite Aid. I'm so grateful for people like them who made the hospital stays tolerable.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
LTAC
After my initial hospital stay in mid-summer I was too weak from antibiotics, MRSA, and other issues, to go straight home - so the plan was to go to rehab. My case worker decided the best place for me would be an LTAC (long term acute care) facility. I ended up in Select Specialty, or as it shall hence forth be known, the place where dreams (and people as it were) go to die ';'. Really, lucky to be alive after spending a month at this horrendous shit hole. My family would look around nervously and smile weakly when they came to visit, wanting to be comforting but confused themselves about I had managed to not yet contract the ebola virus or something.
It was dirty, loud, unorganized, shady, and complete with people screaming unintelligibly all night. Just a few examples of their general ineptitude: on several occasions I was given medication meant for other people, I often had to ask staff to clean the injection site before pushing something into my IV, from my room I noticed people pushing the help light in the shower room and it taking up to 30 minutes for a response, nurses rarely came to check on me but one day I had an especially attentive nurse - turns out my phone charger matched her phone and she asked me to answer and take messages while it charged, she stopped by periodically to see if anyone had called! I heard more than one staff member say that they didn't like the facility and they felt like their ultimate goal was to get people to stay longer and run unnecessary tests to bill insurance. Most nurses didn't do my skin treatment so all the progress I had made at the first hospital was negated there. There was a giant blood stain on the wall in one room I was in for a night. It was, in short, a horrible place. They were supposed to rehab me but instead kept me hopped up on morphine, ambien, benadryl, and vicodin (all at once) - and I left four weeks later essentially worse than when I was admitted. I have a lot of other horror stories about this place - but for now I will just say - be careful where you or your loved ones go to receive care, talk to people you know and go somewhere you really trust not somewhere a case worker tells you is best. There was nothing best about this place.
It was dirty, loud, unorganized, shady, and complete with people screaming unintelligibly all night. Just a few examples of their general ineptitude: on several occasions I was given medication meant for other people, I often had to ask staff to clean the injection site before pushing something into my IV, from my room I noticed people pushing the help light in the shower room and it taking up to 30 minutes for a response, nurses rarely came to check on me but one day I had an especially attentive nurse - turns out my phone charger matched her phone and she asked me to answer and take messages while it charged, she stopped by periodically to see if anyone had called! I heard more than one staff member say that they didn't like the facility and they felt like their ultimate goal was to get people to stay longer and run unnecessary tests to bill insurance. Most nurses didn't do my skin treatment so all the progress I had made at the first hospital was negated there. There was a giant blood stain on the wall in one room I was in for a night. It was, in short, a horrible place. They were supposed to rehab me but instead kept me hopped up on morphine, ambien, benadryl, and vicodin (all at once) - and I left four weeks later essentially worse than when I was admitted. I have a lot of other horror stories about this place - but for now I will just say - be careful where you or your loved ones go to receive care, talk to people you know and go somewhere you really trust not somewhere a case worker tells you is best. There was nothing best about this place.
Monday, January 24, 2011
how zyvox fucked my life
I have now had MRSA infections in my blood, tissue, and skin. I can say without (much) hesitation that I'd rather risk any one of those infections again than ever take another dose of Zyvox.
While I was in the third week of my stay at Select Specialty (an LTAC - long term acute care facility, that from my understanding specializes in making sure that anyone who is ever a patient there will never live a normal life again) - I developed a second MRSA infection from a PICC line they had put in to administer IV medication. They treated this with a week of Vanco. After that my cultures were clear, but they decided to put me on oral Zyvox for a week to be sure the infection was gone. They started me on it while I was in the hospital, and once I was discharged we couldn't get the prescription due to insurance reasons. I got home and for about two weeks, began to improve steadily. I was getting stronger every day, more alert, able to walk farther and faster etc. Once the Zyvox prescription actually was filled, my condition began to decline immediately. My legs became severely swollen, and I was suddenly too weak to get out of bed or to walk without a lot of difficulty. At the time I didn't attribute these problems with Zyvox and just figured I had MRSA again, or was detoxing from all the morphine. I slowly began to recover from this set back, but in two months, still wasn't back to where I was a week after leaving the hospital. Then, in october I was hospitalized again for MRSA in the tissue, once again I was treated with Zyvox, and once again my legs became severely swollen. I was released a week a later, the swelling gradually subsided, but the numbness, incredible weakness (couldn't even stand for two weeks), tingling, and pain persisted. At first I thought it was a circulation problem, but after months it had not gotten any better - and a little research uncovered the truth - it was was the Zyvox. Zyvox has been known to cause nerve damage, some people who take it are afflicted with peripheral neuropathy - many even go blind.
This nerve damage may or may not be permanent. At the very least, it will be a long term recovery. I don't have a lot of feeling in my feet, and what I do feel is pain, like I'm being shocked. This has also damaged the musculature of my feet, and all together has made learning how to walk again harder than I ever imagined. I also have incredible weakness in my whole lower body - it has been 7 months since I have been able to stand unaided from a normal sitting position. To make a long story short - if at all possible, please investigate any and all alternatives before taking Zyvox!
While I was in the third week of my stay at Select Specialty (an LTAC - long term acute care facility, that from my understanding specializes in making sure that anyone who is ever a patient there will never live a normal life again) - I developed a second MRSA infection from a PICC line they had put in to administer IV medication. They treated this with a week of Vanco. After that my cultures were clear, but they decided to put me on oral Zyvox for a week to be sure the infection was gone. They started me on it while I was in the hospital, and once I was discharged we couldn't get the prescription due to insurance reasons. I got home and for about two weeks, began to improve steadily. I was getting stronger every day, more alert, able to walk farther and faster etc. Once the Zyvox prescription actually was filled, my condition began to decline immediately. My legs became severely swollen, and I was suddenly too weak to get out of bed or to walk without a lot of difficulty. At the time I didn't attribute these problems with Zyvox and just figured I had MRSA again, or was detoxing from all the morphine. I slowly began to recover from this set back, but in two months, still wasn't back to where I was a week after leaving the hospital. Then, in october I was hospitalized again for MRSA in the tissue, once again I was treated with Zyvox, and once again my legs became severely swollen. I was released a week a later, the swelling gradually subsided, but the numbness, incredible weakness (couldn't even stand for two weeks), tingling, and pain persisted. At first I thought it was a circulation problem, but after months it had not gotten any better - and a little research uncovered the truth - it was was the Zyvox. Zyvox has been known to cause nerve damage, some people who take it are afflicted with peripheral neuropathy - many even go blind.
This nerve damage may or may not be permanent. At the very least, it will be a long term recovery. I don't have a lot of feeling in my feet, and what I do feel is pain, like I'm being shocked. This has also damaged the musculature of my feet, and all together has made learning how to walk again harder than I ever imagined. I also have incredible weakness in my whole lower body - it has been 7 months since I have been able to stand unaided from a normal sitting position. To make a long story short - if at all possible, please investigate any and all alternatives before taking Zyvox!
Friday, January 21, 2011
Stoner Files?
My first hospital stay
Just like I had never been admitted to the hospital before this experience, I had also never been into drugs in a serious way. I was curious like most teenagers but got over that by the time I was 18 or 19. When I went to the ER in hopes of getting my psoriasis under control, I had been living for months in severe pain. I was covered head to toe in red, flaking, dry, tight skin. Unless I was slathered in Vaseline, every movement felt like my skin was being grated off. This was coupled with the pain of arthritis, which was rampant in most of my joints. Even so, when I got to the hospital I had never even contemplated pain killers (besides Advil). After watching my struggle to get from a wheel chair to the ER bed, and after determining I would indeed be admitted, a Dr asked me if I wanted something for pain. It caught me off guard, it was something I had never considered, but after looking around the room at my encouraging friends and family who were all tired of seeing me in pain, I said "okay." The Dr asked if I had ever tried morphine, I hadn't, and he said he would have the nurse bring some in. After awhile the nurse came in and pushed morphine into my IV.
The minutes before the nurse came back with the morphine would be the last time I would be sober for the next two months. It was quite a ride, one I have to say I enjoyed, it was great to be out of pain for the first time in a long time. But in the end, detoxing from all of the pain killers and sleep aids etc, really slowed down my recovery from MRSA. More on this later!
Just like I had never been admitted to the hospital before this experience, I had also never been into drugs in a serious way. I was curious like most teenagers but got over that by the time I was 18 or 19. When I went to the ER in hopes of getting my psoriasis under control, I had been living for months in severe pain. I was covered head to toe in red, flaking, dry, tight skin. Unless I was slathered in Vaseline, every movement felt like my skin was being grated off. This was coupled with the pain of arthritis, which was rampant in most of my joints. Even so, when I got to the hospital I had never even contemplated pain killers (besides Advil). After watching my struggle to get from a wheel chair to the ER bed, and after determining I would indeed be admitted, a Dr asked me if I wanted something for pain. It caught me off guard, it was something I had never considered, but after looking around the room at my encouraging friends and family who were all tired of seeing me in pain, I said "okay." The Dr asked if I had ever tried morphine, I hadn't, and he said he would have the nurse bring some in. After awhile the nurse came in and pushed morphine into my IV.
The minutes before the nurse came back with the morphine would be the last time I would be sober for the next two months. It was quite a ride, one I have to say I enjoyed, it was great to be out of pain for the first time in a long time. But in the end, detoxing from all of the pain killers and sleep aids etc, really slowed down my recovery from MRSA. More on this later!
Thursday, January 20, 2011
The beginning
I had just finished my first year of law school and almost immediately after my last final was finished, my body began to fail me. I had already been plagued with head to toe psoriasis for months on end, but something else was wrong now and I didn't know what. I would later discover I was battling a MRSA blood infection. At the time however, I thought I was perhaps recovering from a stressful school year. Although I woke up every day and forced myself to go to my internship, it was a struggle just to keep my head up. I would sleep 12 hours a night, sit at a desk all day guzzling caffeine, and still be beyond exhausted all the time. When I drove some where I would sit in my car for 30 minutes or more in the parking lot with the heat blasting (despite it being 80 degrees outside) trying to work up the energy to walk inside. After a couple of weeks I just gave up completely and spent 4 days in bed with a temperature that fluctuated from 95 to 105. I new I needed to go to the hospital but I still thought the problem was my psoriasis. After those four days, I hobbled slowly to my mom's car and she drove me to the emergency room. It is 7 months later and I still haven't been able to walk unaided since then.
I was admitted to the hospital to receive steroid treatment for my psoriasis. Unlike many unfortunate sufferers of MRSA who are misdiagnosed for months or years, they ran a blood culture on me right away and discovered the problem. They put me on IV Vanco - every 8 hours for 2 weeks. Two weeks later my infection was gone, along with any trace of energy or strength I had. At this point, I could no longer stand, sit up, or turn over in bed. Because of this, I didn't go home after the Vanco was finished but on to a second hospital where I supposed to be rehabbed. I owe my life to the care I received at the initial hospital I went to. Because of the wonderful job they did I was naive in thinking I could trust all doctors to really take care of me and do what was best for me. I was beyond wrong, and like many people, I have paid a high price for this misjudgment and will likely now be permanently disabled. At this point, my emergency MRSA infection had been treated but I was still left with the chronic issue of reoccurring MRSA as well as my psoriasis. Western medicine dropped the ball and not only failed to help me but actively harmed me in their misguided attempts. Don't let this be your story too, if you are not in an emergency situation like a blood infection, take the time to extensively research the side effects of proposed treatments, and genuinely consider natural aids like those described on this site. It may seem stupid or tedious, but you have no idea how much I wish I had been less trusting of traditional medicine, and I have a lot of time to wish it since I have been essentially bed ridden for 7 months now.
This blog will serve as an outlet for my story and and my battle with MRSA. I hope my struggle with MRSA and experience with both traditional and non-traditional medicine will help other people find a way to treat their MRSA and perhaps get rid of it once and for all. I plan to update at least a few times a week, and posts will vary between sharing my past experience and detailing my daily journey. Stay Tuned!
-Chelsea
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)