I’m sure many of you have already caught it. There is a flu variant — a virus — sweeping the nation right now, with symptoms of a high fever, nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, occasionally with a racking cough. My doctor has treated dozens of cases in just the past week, and I’m hearing reports from newscasters about them having to take a day off or two due to it as well.
It’s profoundly unpleasant to have, and to clean up after.
Anyway, 3 of our kids got it, and so did I. I had the presence of mind to basically live on Pepto-Bismol for three days, so I avoided the most disgusting side-effects, but I still got the hacking cough. So did my son, Zack.
Well, he didn’t get better. In fact, he seemed to get worse after the gastrointestinal side-effects wore off, with a temperature of just over 103 degrees and lethargy, along with night sweats and lack of appetite. Last night, he complained of intense pain in his right side beneath his armpit. We took him to the doctor today, of course. Emergency room care, for anything other than imminent death, has always proven worse for my family than waiting for daylight to see our family practitioner… but that’s another story which involves scary, ancient abortion doctors willing to work Sundays, a miscarriage, and massive hemorrhaging during Choir Practice.
Anyway, he seemed fine to our doctor, and other than not being quite his usual peppy self, OK to us too. He didn’t hear anything unusual in his lungs, and the sensitivity Zack complained about earlier seemed to be mostly gone. Regardless, he suggested we take an X-Ray to be sure…
…and found that Zack’s right lung was heavily consolidated from pneumonia.
Anyway, after hours of tests, forms, talking, buying lunch at Arby’s, more forms, more blood samples, and an IV drip of antibiotic, we finally got back home and I could head off to work. He’ll be heading into the hospital for the next two days, and then will have a follow-up with our doctor on Friday to make sure it’s clearing up, when he will received a prescription for a second type of antibiotic for the next week or so. We’ll also know the results of the tuberculosis test at that point. Although rare in the US, the number of drug-resistant strains of TB are rising, as are the number of infections as a result.
Public-health education played a large part in reducing infection rates from tuberculosis in the 1800s. If a new drug-resistant strain of TB became widespread in the US as it has in some other countries, I wonder how we’d respond?
Largely…
This is two threads.
One: I’m never moving to Utah if finding an ER doc is hard on a Sunday.
Emergency rooms are there for a reason, and as a nurse, I reccommend them. Sure.. they misdiagnose sometimes, but largely they are there to detect the big problems. I will say this.. my course of treatment is ALWAYS to see the doc if its available, but if not, I’ll be in the ER that night, AND the doc the next day. I’m a big fan of multiple opinions anyway. I guess my point is that scary, imminent death often seems like just a little jaw pain, and ends up with a body in the morning.
Two: Drug resistant TB. Scary. Rifampin is a powerful tool, and there are some second-line defenses.. but we need to make sure that if isoniazid and rifampin is given, it is taken for the course of the infection. If TB is allowed to become reistant to these meds, there are some others, but the side effects get worse.. and if multi-drug-resistant TB is what you have, the death rate is 40-60% whether or not you take antibiotics.
That being said.. the biggest factor is prevention. TB is taken VERY seriously.. and every person who has come in contact with the infected person should be under a physician’s care for the disease. When it is detected, it needs to be wiped out.. and people can’t be willy-nilly about it. I’ve only encountered it once at work.. and my tests (every six months) still put me as negative for exposure.
As for antibiotic reistant bacteria in general, don’t take antibiotics for viral infections.. and if you have antibiotics, don’t skip doses, take them on time, and FINISH them. Do NOT stop when you feel better. Even if you don’t get “sick” again, you may be helping to create a resistant bug.
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