G.W.
Dear L.,
My heart is pounding and I feel a lump in my throat as I read this post and now respond to it....
On Sept. 8th, 2008, my three year old son, Bryce was admitted to Children's Medical Center with a very high fever, inability to walk anymore and his thinking becoming vary strange. Within eight hours of being there, my son was literally fighting for his life. (You can find my past post where I was pleading for prayers for his life). My son ended up having MRSA staph that got in his blood (also called septic shock, sepsis or blood poisening). He was in multiple organ failure before anyone knew what happened. On Sept. 9th, the doctors took my husband and I into the consult room to tell us our son would die within the next hour so we needed to get his twin and older sister to the hospital ASAP so we could all be together when he died. We were devastated - one day we had a perfectly healthy son, the next he was on life support.
The great news is that God heard the prayers of THOUSANDS of people and mercifully saved our son. The doctors were literally stunned, they had never seen a child survive that degree of staph and septic shock (infact, Children's is doing a story on his amazing recovery). That doesn't mean it was an easy recovery. My son spent 99 days in the hospital (38 in the PICU with a respirator), he ended up losing his right thumb and has had a large amount of skin grafting on his right hand and arm. He was so damaged by the infection that he had to learn to walk again and is still in OT/PT five days a week. His organs are bouncing back slowly but surely and cognitively, he is perfect (that, too, was a miracle!). He still has a long way to go to be the perfect normal child he was before Sept. 8th, but we are so thankful that our prayers were and continue to be answered.
All that being said, staph infections come in different varieties but they can be very deadly! They are not something to take lightly. Staph is everywhere....we have no idea how our son picked it up - the doctors said 3 out of 10 people carry it (mostly in their noses) and it's even higher for health care workers. Hand washing is the absolute most important thing about preventing the spread of staph. If one is prescribed antibiotics, they must be FINISHED because staph becomes easily resistant to the drugs.
I didn't share my story with you to scare you but to let you know that you do need to be concerned and diligent that he receive proper diagnosis ASAP. Blood cultures will tell the doctors the type of staph, it usually takes a day or so to grow them.
I send my best to your nephew and your family...I pray that it's not anything like what we have been through and are still recovering from.
Many Blessings,
Glenda Wilson
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sorry, just re-read and realized it was a friend of your family and a girl, hope every thing turns out well