socaligirl72

Respiratory MRSA is very contagious. I am an ICU RN and was unfortunate enough to get bilateral MRSA pneumonia from a patient who was coughing non stop. I placed her in isolation only to find out i wasnt allowed to do that unless the patient had a diagnosis that deemed her to be in isolation. I am a young health person who went from perfect health back in march 2010 to not being able to work since then. Come to find out the coughing patient came back with a positive sputum culture with MRSA. I ended up intubated for a week and went untreated for mrsa pneumonia for over a month and a half because some how my sputum cultures never made it to my doctor or to the hospital i was flown to. I found out i had it from the infection control nurse and i then had to call my doctor to let him know. Sure enough he was able to pull them up in the computer and there they were I had been treated with multiple drugs that didn't help at all. i walked around for a month and a half feeling like i was dying and possibly passing this on to everyone i came in contact in. By the time they realized it was mrsa it was to late it had already taken hold in my lungs and was colonized says the infectious disease doctor i now see. They were able to clear the infection in my lungs but the damage to them was already done. Now i got this from work was put on LNI and I still cough, still am very SOB and am now very self concious about going out in public for fear i will pass this on. Now my doctor says the chance of me passing it to a healthy individual in less then 1% but passing it on to someone who is already immunocompromised is about 90%. As it is the hospital i worked at has since fired me due to my illness and i have to have 3 negative sputums within a year all 4 months apart before they will even think of releasing me to go back to work. I have a new daily routine have to wash with hibaclense everyday i have to spray bactroban up my nose twice a day and so does anyone who lives with me my animals have to have it rubbed on their noses twice a day as well. I have since had to cough up multiple sputums and all have come back positive. The sad thing is this could have all been prevented had they just left the original patient in isolation. Its better to be safe then sorry and they are lucky i am the only one who caught it. I make sure i tell every doctor, nurse or any healthcare provider that i am positive with resp mrsa because i dont want to pass this on to anyone. They say only 4% of people are colonized with mrsa but it is going to be a lot larger then that if the nurses arent allowed to make educated decisions on their own. The one thing i loved doing was being an ICU RN and now I can't even do that. I am wondering if anyone else has any stories similar to mine and what they are doing to deal with what has happened to them?