Round 2, MRSA makes a comeback

         So, life went on for 9ish or so more months with no mention or worry about the ordeal that we had gone through.  As I said, I had thought, okay so Farrah got an infection.   It got bad enough to require hospitalization, but we took care of it.  We’re good.   I had no idea that it could return.  I also had no idea that I should have stayed far far away from google.  I mean, everyone kind of knows they should never google, but I had to because I didn’t understand this infection and Farrah’s pediatrician, although good, couldn’t offer me many answers.  I came to find out later that many people don’t have solid answers about MRSA. 

            Farrah was still in diapers at this point.  She was 17 months old and it was May of 2011.  I went to change her one day and I saw a very familiar looking pimple in the crease of her leg along the diaper line.  It was not your normal looking pimple (for anyone currently freaking out about a pimple)  It’s more red, with or without a whitehead.  Farrah’s already had a whitehead at this point, but was still small.  I used mupirocin on it (the cream) and just kept a close eye on it for changes.    To my pleasant surprise it went away after a couple of days.  It never got bigger or formed a boil. 

            A few weeks later I found another one.  This one was on her inner thigh very close to her diaper.  I wasn’t so lucky with just using the cream this time.  It quickly turned into a very painful boil.  It was the size of a small egg underneath the skin and very red on top.  She couldn’t walk right because of the pain.    I quickly made a doctor’s appointment for that day and my doctor agreed right away that it was probably MRSA again and we got her started on another 10 day round of clindamycin.  This stuff tastes awful.  I tried a bit just to make sure she wasn’t being a baby about it.  Thankfully, applesauce masked the taste well enough to take the full course.    We saw the doctor 3 times during the treatment to make sure it was getting better.  I wanted to get better answers now, so I made an appointment with a pediatric infectious disease specialist in the city.

            Also, then was about the time I started googling, and it was the best and worst decision of my life.  Seriously.  I have general anxiety to begin with, so reading about people with MRSA who have lost limbs, lives, lbs of flesh…let’s just say panic set in.  This was my baby girl.  I read stories about people who had reoccurring MRSA for years with no explanation and drugs that were becoming resistant to their strains.  My mind started spiraling into thoughts of, what happens when the drugs stop working? What happens if Farrah gets it and it spreads to her organs and she becomes septic?  What happens if the worst happens?  I can be a bit dramatic I guess, but that’s what anxiety does to you.    I imagined burying her.  I cried countless hours praying to God to keep her healthy and rid her body of MRSA.    This is what google does to you. 

I can’t say that my experience was all bad though.  Google did point me in the direction of many MANY sites with ideas, possible natural cures instead of antibiotics, ideas about the cause of reoccurrence of MRSA and things that might possibly help to prevent its return. 

            See, the hardest part about MRSA is that it is a bacteria (remember I’m no doctor, so if I don’t say something completely right, I apologize) that lives on your skin and colonizes in your nose.  How does one protect a person from themselves????  This was my biggest question.   I could bleach bomb the entire house, which I did, TWICE.   I spent hours wiping every single toy.  I washed and dried every single stuffed animal.  I stripped the beds and washed everything on hot twice, with tide and borax.  I vacuumed and cleaned the carpets.    Still, the bacteria was partial to living on her.    I don’t know the percentage of people who carry this kind of staph, but it’s a decent number.   How does one rid someone of microscopic bacteria?  How do I keep her safe? 

            As a mom, this was a very difficult thing to comprehend.  I didn’t know how to keep her healthy and safe.  Yes, I am more paranoid than most, but I knew more now.  I knew how dangerous this could become.  Feeling helpless is one of THE worst feelings you can have as a parent.  This is how I felt.  

I wanted you more than you will ever know, so I sent love to follow wherever you go

Hey MRSA, Hold it right there!

  Going over this blog again makes me cringe.  If it is at all unclear, I sucked at English.  Writing papers was probably my least favorite thing to do.  I'm not sure how I skated by so many years in school being so terrible at correctly expressing myself on paper.      Besides being a mediocre writer and editor, I am reeealllyyyy clueless about blogs.  Really!

  Anyhow, the point of this post is because this blog is unfinished.  I "intended" on sharing Farrah's story and THEN explaining our attempts at warding off the MRSA monster for good.      After I wrote the last entry, life got hectic, and I didn't get a chance to sit down and murder punctuation and grammar again.  Plus, my computer is from the cretaceous period :(.  I do a mental sigh every time I have some desktop related task to do because that means dealing with the beast.

  Okay. Wanna hear about it?  Here it go.  Following Farrah's last battle with MRSA and my complete freak out, all I could do is my best.  I researched and researched and researched.  I cried and cursed people for not finishing their antibiotics, doctors for giving them out to everyone with a runny nose, and for not having a livable bubble invented yet....kidding.  I think I mentioned my tendency towards dramatics.  It is an unfortunate part of having severe general anxiety.   Wow, can I stay on topic?

This is a fairly complete list of everything we incorporated into our lives.  I overdid it a bit, but I wanted to be sure, so...
--Potty training was numero uno.  Farrah was still 18ish months old and hadn't really shown interest in the potty, but since it was her diaper area that kept being the open wound portal, I figured this was necessary.  I rolled up the carpets and she was free.  We did a half ass version of the 3 day boot camp.  It really did take only 3 days.  I was pretty impressed.

--We used mupirocin, which I think is also called bactroban.  It is like a suped up neosporin.  We all swabbed it in our noses for 7 days.  

--No more baths with a caveat.   Because I was told that bathrooms are high powered germ factories (perfect environment), we switched to showers only.  They hated it at first, but quickly grew to like or maybe just tolerate them.  They really didn't have a choice.   The caveat was that Farrah did take a bleach bath once a week for two months, tapered to one every two weeks, once a month, and then done.  We used one cap of bleach to a full tub.

--All wounds were cleaned and dressed immediately with waterproof bandages.  They seem to seal and stay better.  Wounds are a point of entry for nasty bacteria, so it helps to stop them in their tracks.

--No sharing of towels, razors, etc...  I don't think we did, but I can't be sure.  I mean, I remember growing up in a house with 10 people, and 1 bathtub.  We shared water and towels.  Apparently, since MRSA colonizes in your nose,  you can spread it with your towel when you dry off.

--I made sure to wash bedding once a week on hot.  Towels never got rehung and everything we was thrown into the laundry at the end of the day.  We didn't wear or use anything twice.

--I switched from everything antibacterial, to everything natural.  We started using vinegar, dr. bronner's soap, tea tree oil, lemon, garlic, turmeric.  The idea is that antibacterial products are super strong and kill all bacteria.   We have beneficial bacteria on our bodies that keep the bad bacteria crowd in check.  If you kill all, then either or has a chance to pick up and take over the leader role.   That was a bit how the infectious disease doctors explained it to my little un doctor mind.
 I sometimes even dabble in the crunchy  "cures" so to speak.  My husband's finger was very infected around the knuckle.  He is a mechanic and can never keep his wounds clean.  I made a paste of garlic, onion juice and turmeric.  I washed and bandaged his finger 3 times a day over a long weekend and by the time he went back to work, it wasn't full of puss and pain.  It healed over the next week.
There are so many natural and holistic ways to treat things like infection, cold, flu, etc.. I am very slowly learning more and more on a daily basis.  

--Finally, we did little things like eat better.    We cut down juice to once a day.  We went organic, grass fed, and local.  I cut out a lot of processed foods and started making dinner every night.    It can never hurt to be healthier no matter if you have MRSA or not. 

  I feel like I'm leaving so many things out, but since it has been 2.5 wonderful years of being MRSA free, I am almost glad to forget.    Farrah will be 4 on Sunday <3.    We still incorporate a lot of things, like showers and not reusing things, but I have relaxed on being such a germ freak.    My son started school when Farrah was younger and I had to realize that we couldn't keep germs away from her no matter how much I tried to drive myself crazy.  I had to let go and hope that we were doing the right things to keep her healthy.

  She is now in school as well and I want to just squeeze the daylights out of her about once an hour.   She makes me laugh a lot.   She's imaginative and beautiful, inquisitive and playful.  Her brother, her, and I are the best of friends, and I couldn't be happier with how things have worked out.

Wants to be just like her brother!

1st day she learned to ride her bike without training wheels, AND as a devil.

A costume a day makes life more exciting :)