I am a MRSA Survivor !

 Hello Again! Today I have decided to share my story with you instead. My interests and hobbies will come up soon I promise, but for now I feel that since I have started my blog, this would be a great opportunity to bring awareness to those who have no idea what MRSA is and how it can affect you, your families and those loved ones around you. A few years back (2014) I experienced a traumatic experience with MRSA and I would like to share with you all my story to bring more awareness. 

MY STORY MRSA AWARENESS

“June 7, 2014 was the best day of my life, “It was our special day, our wedding day. It was the most amazing day ever.”

Just a few weeks later, I never knew I would be lying in a Northern California hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, fighting off a deadly bacterial infection that I had never heard about.

June 24^th 2014 when I was only 25 years old, I had just returned from my honeymoon with my husband. My husband and I had finally tied the knot after dating for seven years and were both very excited about our future together.

While at work one day, I began feeling ill. As the day went on, I felt more and more tired and finally decided to leave work early. I remember going straight to the pharmacy for my over-the-counter medicine which always helped me feel better. I purchased some Dayquil since it was still early in the day, I arrived to my in-laws home where my husband and I were currently staying.  After having over-the-counter medicine a few minutes later I began to throw it up, I gave myself some time before taking another dose. After the second attempt, I stopped because I threw it up again. My symptoms did not improve and actually began to get worse. My chest and back began to hurt and I could not lie on my back when night time came around. I kept getting up throughout the night due to the pain on my chest. I decided to go home to my mom’s that morning because I thought to myself, maybe I can have home remedies and it might just help. I told my husband if that was ok? he said that whatever I thought would make me feel better than it would be fine with him. I took off to my mom’s house in the same town, arrived early in the morning almost 6 am. I called both my parents and told them that I was not feeling well and I needed there help. My mom tried to tell me to lay on the bed but I had to lay down with my back kind of sitting down because of the pain I was feeling on my back and my chest when I laid down completely. The shortness of breath began to kick in, I told my mom I needed to go to the hospital because I couldn't take it anymore. I waited in the E.R. for hours before I was taken in. I told the doctor how I was feeling and all he did was tell me, he would send me home with a prescription and that I would feel better soon. He then told me to open my mouth to check if there was something unnormal and then checked my vitals. Out of that he had diagnosed me with a strep throat and sent me home with a prescription and pain relievers (6/26/14). My mom drove me back to the house while she went to the pharmacy to pick up the prescription. Later on, that day my husband had arrived at my parents with more over the counter medicine such as: cough drops and pain relievers. Nothing was staying down. Not the prescription medication nor anything else that was bought or given to me. I did although continued to feel weaker and in more pain (no kind of medicine). Again, I couldn't sleep that night due to all the pain I was having, and aches I was feeling. The fever than became another issue. By the time it was 7am that next morning I couldn't walk and my mom had to carry me to the car, to take off to the emergency room once again.

This time around the doctor's admitted me in right away due to the high fever my body was trying to fight, by this time my fever had reached up to 103 degrees. I began coughing up blood and my lungs began shutting down. Blood tests and consultations with several doctors, including an infectious diseases specialist began to look at me and diagnose me very carefully the pain got worst, my fever was not going down, I began to cough very deeply, This went on all morning up until 1 in the afternoon. By 1pm I finally was able to take some Motrin to stop the pain, but that was definitely not enough. We waited and waited for hours, eventually I stopped feeling pain because by this time I didn't know what was going on, the pain literally took over me for the next few days. 3 days had passed by, and I finally knew that I had been hospitalized. I had been in the intensive care unit for a few days now. At this point I had no idea what had been going on, I woke up in a hospital bed in the IC unit, with cables all around me, a pic line, a catheter, IV's... I mean it was something that I had never been through and was scared at one point because of all the facial expressions I saw on my family.  I had finally been diagnosed with something commonly known as a staph infection. In my case, a difficult to treat infection called Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

MRSA, which refers to a bacterium commonly found in humans, Staphylococcus aureus, which has mutated so that methicillin, the antibiotic that once could control it, is no longer effective. It can cause a variety of complications, including skin infections, pneumonia and bloodstream infections.

In the hospital, I was in isolation as doctors worked to treat me. I was given an antibiotic that is active against MRSA and I began to show improvement. I was released by the Fourth of July, but was readmitted shortly after with the infection still in my lungs. I had also contracted a secondary infection which was hospital acquired but I don't exactly remember what it was. Following a second round of treatment and testing, I was finally released on July 12, 2014.

How I contracted MRSA still remains a mystery.

Today, I am doing well, but continue to have a chronic cough. I also feel like any sign of a cold scares me because I feel like MRSA might strike again.

Looking back on my experience, I hope that my story helps raise awareness around antibiotic resistance.