Living with MRSA Infection

I have been a Type I diabetic for 24 years. Late March, 2005, I developed an ulcer on my foot due to dry skin. I immediately called the doctor and was being treated for it. Due to health problems, I had to move to another town to be closer to my family, which meant finding all new doctors. In September, 2005, I ended up in the hospital and found out that I had osteomyelitis. Shortly after being discharged from the hospital, another culture was done and I found out that I had picked up MRSA while in the hospital.

I was started on Vancomycin. Six weeks later, a second MRI was done, I was told I still had an infection and was started on a second course of Vancomycin. At the end of December, I had a culture done and it came back with an infection. The beginning of January, 2006, I finished my second round of Vancomycin and had my third MRI At that time, I was told that the infection was gone. They started me on some oral antibiotics and started me on VAC therapy.

In February, 2006, I was starting to have alot of problems. My foot became macerated from the VAC. I had also tripped and almost fell. I was having alot of pain in my foot. I later found out that I had actually broken my foot.

The doctor decided to schedule surgery to clean out the wound. I was given a local and was awake for the surgery. He told me that the bone in my foot was fine. That was on a Friday. The following Wednesday, I saw him and he told me that my bone was soft.

By then, I was pretty sick and decided I was going to see another doctor. I could not understand how my bone could be fine on Friday and soft by Wednesday. My sister knew someone that had taken her mother to a doctor in Pittsburgh, a three hour trip for us. She called to get the name of the doctor. My sister was a nurse and she also called my nurse at the wound center to talk to her. My sister was told that the MRI I had in January did show that I still had the infection, even though I had been told that the infection was gone.

That same night, I was taken by ambulance to the hospital because I was so sick. The next day when the doctor came in to see me, he did a bone culture. While I was in the hospital, they did the fourth MRI and I found out my foot was broken and still had the infection in my bone.

My sister had already called and made an appointment for me in Pittsburgh for the following Monday. I had already decided that I was keeping my appointment with the new doctor, even if it meant checking myself out of the hospital there. When I left the hospital on Sunday, I asked about the bone culture that was done – I still had an infection in my bone. The next morning before leaving for Pittsburgh, we got the rest of my records because I had been asked to bring all that stuff with me. I found out that the culture I had at the end of December and the bone culture I had in February both had the same organism.

After seeing the doctor in Pittsburgh, he wanted me to come back the following week to the wound center that he participated in and wanted me to see one of the other doctors there, a podiatrist He felt that I needed a team of doctors. He also told me to plan on being admitted to the hospital and they would do surgery on my foot.

I was admitted to the hospital there in March, 2006, and ended up having three surgeries on my foot over the course of several months – the first to remove the infected bone in my heel and insert antibiotic beads, the second to remove the beads and the third for a bone graft. Before my first surgery, the doctor called me a challenge and was not even sure what he would end up doing until he opened my foot up. The day after he did the first surgery, he came to my room to talk to me and told me that my foot was a mess. He ended up removing the bones in the center of my heel and left the outer bones as a shell. The second surgery to remove the antibiotic beads was done three weeks later as outpatient surgery. The third surgery for the bone graft was done two months later on May 31, 2006 – I was originally supposed to be admitted to the hospital but did well enough during surgery to be allowed to go home that day. The doctor used a material called AlloMatrix to fill in the void in my foot.

In August, 2006, I started a 12 week course of hyperbaric oxygen treatment. Early March, 2007, my wound was finally 100% closed, 23 months after my ordeal started.

I did everything that I was supposed to do, however, things spiraled out of control very fast. I also have neuropathy so I didn’t get warning signals like normal people do. I was lucky and had the resources and support system in place to allow me to travel to a larger city to get the treatment to save my leg. I was also extremely lucky to find some really good doctors that did everything possible to save my leg. I was on Vancomycin for 17 ½ weeks plus several weeks of another IV antibiotic before they discovered the MRSA. I had weekly trips to doctors, home nurses coming in, several hospital stays and four surgeries. I also did twelve weeks of HBOT, which required my staying in another city during that treatment because of the distance I would have to travel on a daily basis. I was not allowed to put any weight on my foot after the surgery to remove the infected bone and had to use a wheelchair for over 5 months. I am now allowed to use my treadmill everyday, so I have come a long way! Even my PCP told me that he was surprised that the doctors in Pittsburgh were able to save my leg.

Two of the new doctors both said that “we have to be aggressive.” The doctors I originally saw talked about using the antibiotic beads and surgery, but those treatments were never pursued. My doctor that I saw before I had to move was someone that was always very aggressive. I have learned a new appreciation for what being aggressive means.