MRSA

This past couple of weeks have been a blur. I ended up in the hospital last week very unexpectedly and have been trying to recover since. It all started last Tuesday with a boil on my chin. I was at work that day and noticed that I felt a lot of pressure in my chin. I didn't think much of it until it got more swollen by dinner time. I was worried about it but decided to go to the dentist first to rule out a tooth problem. On Wednesday, I went to the dentist and they determined it was infection in my soft tissue and gave me some antibiotics. I thought that would be the end of it....Boy, was I wrong! By that evening it had swollen even more so Eric insisted that we go to the ER. They put me on another antibiotic, numbed the "boil" and scraped off the top of it so it could drain. As soon as I got home, I started shivering very hard and just didn't feel good. I was able to fall asleep but woke up at 11:30 and the swelling had spread. By this time I started running a fever. Eric had been up since 3am for work so I knew there was no hope trying to wake him up so I drove myself to the ER. The same doc was still there so he numbed my face all over with an injection, made an incision, gave me a shot of ANOTHER antibiotic, and squeezed as hard as he could to get some drainage out. It was so painful! I was crying because it hurt so bad even with it being numb! I didn't want them to give me pain meds because then I would have to call Eric to get me or wait in the ER until I could drive home. I left the ER at 1am with some gauze inside my cheek and was told to come back the next day. When I returned at 5pm the next day (Thursday) I knew it was not getting better. I still had a fever, was shivering, and had been throwing up all day, and my pulse was in the 130's. They started IV antibiotics after a CAT scan to see if there was an abscess they couldn't get at. Thankfully, Dr Blotter, who is a ear, nose, and throat specialist; was at a meeting. He took one look at me and said, "you have a raging infection." They determined I didn't have an abscess but just really swollen tissue. They admitted me to the hospital immediately. I ended up spending 4 days in the hospital. They found out from a culture that I had MRSA which is a Staph infection that is resistant to a lot of antibiotics. So, all of those antibiotics they had been giving me weren't doing anything! I struggled with horrible headaches from the narcotics, couldn't eat, and still was very nauseous. Thank goodness I was able to come home on Sunday with an IV, administer antibiotics twice a day for a week, and with packing in my cheek. After a couple of days in the hospital, my cheek started to drain nasty green/yellowish drainage that just oozed out when you put any pressure on my cheek. Dr. Blotter decided he needed to do a little "bedside surgery" and cut my cheek open a little more. I was so scared! They had to numb it up with more injections and then he packed gauze in the pocket in my cheek that was appr 2/3 size of a golf ball! Since I have been home Eric has been helping me administer these antibiotics that cost $90 a dose! It takes appr 2 hours in the am/pm and they are really hard on my veins. My cheek has been doing really well and you can hardly see where my incision was. Hopefully I am on the mend! It is so hard being a mom and sick but Eric has been wonderful! We have awesome family, friends, and neighbors that have helped so much. We are truly blessed!