She dismissed it as just another seasonal cold on Jan. 2.
Two days later she had a 104-degree temperature prompting her to go to the Allegheny General Hospital emergency room, where she was diagnosed with pneumonia, prescribed antibiotics and sent home.
What happened next was a full-blown life-and-death emergency that Terri Thieret, 48, an AGH nurse of 25 years, never could have imagined after she forgot to get a flu shot because of the rat race of daily life: When her condition deteriorated further, she was forced back to the hospital and placed in the intensive care unit.
And there she would remain for the next three months...
...Two months without any bodily movement had left her feeling paralyzed. She was unable to lift her hand or raise her legs. She couldn't hold a pen or a phone. The months in bed also left her with a pressure ulcer on her back 5 inches in diameter and 3 inches deep into the muscle. Early in April, she was transferred to the West Penn Acute Rehab Unit and was released at the end of April, finally returning home to continue physical and occupational rehabilitation there.'''...
Hers was an exceptionally long time on ECMO-54 days-which is testament to the phenomenal nursing care she received that didn't result in any permanent complications," he said. The length of time on ECMO "is almost a record here and probably a record for someone with as good an outcome as she had. She may be coming back to work in a week." She was in fact cleared to return recently...
Of course, the big public message here is the importance of flu vaccines. Theiret and her husband, a drugstore manager, say they are newly committed to getting immunized to help prevent the ordeal they just experienced.
