Sunday, January 06, 2013

Pneumonia

Not me!!

Peyton,  my beloved little grand-daughter,  spent four days as an inpatient at the Elliot Hospital in Manchester being treated for what turned out to be a rather vicious episode.  She actually staeted getting sick about 10 days ago with a cough and sniffles.  It blossomed from there into fever then chest congestion that would not clear.  The fever also refused to go, and that was the laat straw.

Chest x-rays confirmed the presence of infiltration on both lungs.  Combine that with the fever and dehydration (regardless of how much we forced fluids she was in defecit) it bought her a 5 day hospital stay.

Fast forward to today.  She is being discharged as I write this.  She is definitely doing better,  albeit a little bit cranky.  She is going to be home-bound for the next week while she recovers and she needs to follow up with the pediatrician at the end of the week.  But she is definitely better.

This has been an especially bad season for anything respiratory or pulmonary.  Lots of influenza that seems to be getting around this year's vaccine plus the non-flu stuff (like this) that is simply wreaking havoc. On my way home from work I was listening to a news story that was a report on virulence of diseases that are showing up a lot,  and one of the points of the story was the presence of gram-negative bacteria that is much more resistant to anti-biotics than ever before.  This is quite true;  it is becoming more difficult to treat a lot of gram-negative bacteria now than it ever used to be because the resistance of many of these microbes is much more present now.

As I'm studying this a lot more (by virtue of the courses I've been taking)  I understand this much more than I ever expected I would. It certainly gives me a much better appreciation for precautions around patients,  plus I can understand why some people get so wigged out about disinfection. All I can say is that precautions and vigilance will go a long way at keeping us from getting sick. And if you or someone you're close to does get sick, pay attention to the symptoms.
Dealing with them early could potentially save your life.

1 comment:

Elizabeth @ The Garden Window said...

I am **delighted** that Peyton is on the mend and being discharged home at last - you have all been through the mill.
I too am becoming increasingly concerned about resistant bacteria; my youngest is now on her second consecutive course of abx to treat a repeating E. Coli UTI. Hopefully, nitrofurantoin will finally get rid of it......