Codfish Press

Warning To Cape Parents: Take MRSA, A Deadly Staph Infection, Seriously!

We know firsthand in our household about the horrors of MRSA

By Greg O’Brien, Codfish Press

Sandwich parents were notified this week that an Oak Ridge School student had been inflicted with a serious staph infection that has killed four students nationwide, the Cape Cod Times reported. “The infection, known as Methicillin-resistent Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, is a form of staph infection that cannot be treated with common antibiotics. Extreme cases can lead to serious complications, such as wounds that don’t heal, bloodstream infections, organ damage, and even death,” the paper noted, citing recent student deaths in New York, Virginia, New Hampshire and Mississippi.

While there is some question as to whether the Sandwich staph diagnosis is that of the "superbug," we know firsthand in our household about the horrors of MRSA. Two years ago, our son, Brendan, then a junior in college, was diagnosed with the killer infection, and doctors were not sure they could save his life.

Here are excepts from a column I wrote on this at the time:

“I received a call at 2 am from an emergency room several hundred miles away in North Carolina, from a doctor who wanted to speak with me. My 22-year-old son, Brendan, a senior at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, had been rushed to the hospital by ambulance with a life-threatening case of staph infection. He had contracted the disease several weeks ago while surfing in a coastal area where effluent had leaked into the sea. You can’t put an old head on young shoulders, they say.

“Brendan, a graduate of Nauset High School and a member of its state championship golf team in 1999, had been taking antibiotics, but the staph, a resistant strain called MRSA, accelerated when he cut his right knee during an intramural football game, a lesion that quickly ballooned to the size of a grapefruit, then spread up his thigh. After consulting with disease control specialists, a hospital surgeon called in the dead of night to say he had to operate on Brendan to remove part of his leg, the infected tissue. There were no guarantees, he said. I would know my son’s fate at 4 am.

“Brendan, I was told, could die.

“I was allowed to speak briefly with him, and wondered if it was to be the last time. I then spent the night in prayer and reflecting on all the lost opportunities between father and son, the times I had taken for granted.

“Brendan safely made it through the operation; doctors successfully removed the infected tissue. He’s on heavy duty antibiotics and morphine now, as doctors wait to see if the staph returns (if it mutates there is no cure). My blessing that night was realizing the gift I had before I lost it.”

Brendan still has bouts with this infection that never leaves the body. Months ago he was on antibiotics again after his immune system had worn down. It will happen again, doctors say.

Google “MRSA, staph infection” for a candid clinical assessment of what Time Magazine has called one of the new killers of the 21st Century.