MRSA----Sepsis----Disaster

I do not have to go work tonight.... that could be considered a good thing as this is my Sunday off and it would be nice to really spend the evening getting some things done before the next 18 hectic days begin. Today however, I am a bit saddened by the reality that the reason I am not working is because MRSA has taken another victim. Staph sepsis, as you all know, is a horrible disease and hits uncomfortably close to home for my family.
This 9 year old's process began much as my brothers story.... an unsure entry.... most likely a bug bite or a scratched sore.... an emboli that showers septic clots .... this young mans showered his lungs from a brachial vein clot.... and over the course of the next three weeks his lungs were eaten away by the septic clots. The MRA determined there was no viable blood flow to his lungs. and we had known for weeks that there was zero gas exchange going on.... we had all hoped it was a ventilation issue, that can resolve, not a perfusion issue....
This family's story ends tragically.... a 9 year old to rest forever in the arms of God. How does that seem possible? What of the doctors who for two weeks sent him home with over the counter pain killers for what they thought was a pull or strained muscle... or even "growing pains" in this ever active boy who was awake ...through a drug induced haze....until the drugs let him rest permanently. What of those of us who met him early on, the sweet boy who did not even have enough strength to cough, but apologized when we had to torment him with a suction catheter.
Those of you who know me well... know that I refuse to bond with my patients... the heartache would kill me.... but even so.... how can a bug that lives everywhere.... that is a single cell organism smart enough to mutate itself so the drugs and disinfectants we have developed no longer work against eradicating it. It will mutate again... and the initials will grow... MRVRRR----but always Staph aureus....
I must admit to having rethought my words of doom when it was my own brother.... 60% mortality I told few.... and the mortality goes up 10% with every organ system involved.... lungs + kidney + heart + neuro ( brains..nerves)... his mortality should have been in the 90th Percentile... yet he beat it... his doctors, his nurses, his RT's...his family.... my family.... maybe I was wrong I have often thought.... maybe the tears shed at his daughters wedding simply watching him walk her down the aisle were a bit dramatic.... Now I am reminded that no.... we rejoiced for a reason... and will continue to rejoice and hug and love... because our family's story is not the same as this family... and I will forever be thankful of that.