Rising Threat of Infections Unfazed by Antibiotics
March 2nd, 2010 . by TexasFredRising Threat of Infections Unfazed by Antibiotics
A minor-league pitcher in his younger days, Richard Armbruster kept playing baseball recreationally into his 70s, until his right hip started bothering him. Last February he went to a St. Louis hospital for what was to be a routine hip replacement.
By late March, Mr. Armbruster, then 78, was dead. After a series of postsurgical complications, the final blow was a bloodstream infection that sent him into shock and resisted treatment with antibiotics.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think my dad would walk in for a hip replacement and be dead two months later,” said Amy Fix, one of his daughters.
Not until the day Mr. Armbruster died did a laboratory culture identify the organism that had infected him: Acinetobacter baumannii.
Full Story Here:
Rising Threat of Infections Unfazed by Antibiotics
Acinetobacter baumannii. Iraq bacteria.
Some may call it coincidence, some may call it fate, maybe the hand of God was moving, I really don’t know what it was or why it happened, but my wife sent me the link to the above story and we were sitting here discussing events from August through November of last year when we nearly lost my daughter Lisa to acinetobacter baumannii. UNMC Researchers Note Growth Of Bacteria From Iraq.
We were talking about how sick she was, about how we nearly lost her and the baby, my little grandson. We were talking about how this story brought back the terrifying nightmare that is the killer known as acinetobacter baumannii, Iraq bacteria.
We were talking about how wonderful it was, the miracle we witnessed when Lisa had survived. The baby survived and is growing like a little weed. There’s a lot more here in regards to our plight with AB, H1N1 mutation found in some flu fatalities and there’s also this comment from Lisa after she was finally able to come home:
comment number 2 by: KrzyBeautiful
November 20th, 2009 at 5:10 PMI am Fred’s daughter. And indeed it was the scariest time in my life. I almost didn’t make it home to my husband and kids.
You see…I had to fight. They need me, and I need them. Keith is 5 and Carson is 3 months. And it is such a sobering thought to know that I am the only woman to survive in LA.
And I can’t begin to imagine the toll this all has taken on my husband, parents, brother, sisters, and family. I am just thankful for their faith and the wisdom of my doctors.
But people be wise, you never think it will happen to you! Its always someone in another state, town, or country. Its never your sister, daughter, grand daughter, mother, or wife….until it is!!
Lisa has been, to date, the only person in Louisiana to survive this killer. We were both, the wife and I, reminiscing and very thankful that my beautiful daughter and grandson had survived.
Then the phone rang.
It was my son. There’s nothing unusual about him calling in the evening, it’s nothing out of the ordinary, he’s a Sheriffs Deputy and he works extra security jobs to pick up a few bucks and it gives us a chance to talk when he’s not under the stress of patrol duties.
Anyway, he asks me what I’m doing and I told him, we were sitting here talking about Lisa and Iraq Bacteria and that I was writing this post for today. What he told me next sent this post off in a totally different direction and sent chills up my spine.
My daughter-in-laws niece is in the hospital in Sulphur, La. and she has everything wrong with her that my daughter Lisa suffered last year except, so far, she hasn’t shown full blown signs of AB.
Her name is Brooke, she’s 18 years old and was 2 months pregnant when she got sick. She’s lost her baby. Brooke has ARDS, acute respiratory distress syndrome, H1N1 and pneumonia, all the same things that nearly killed my daughter Lisa.
