Troubles with MRSA

For those who don't know, Olivia has had several boils in her short little life. Most of them have been in her diaper area. A boil is an infected hair follicle or oil gland. It is essentially a glorified (and much more painful) pimple. The doctor has told us that there are some people who are, unfortunately, just more susceptible to developing them. One of Olivia's worst boils was infected with a bacteria called MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). This bacteria is unfortunately common, and many people can carry it on their skin and never develop a problem. We hoped that Olivia's MRSA boil was just a single occurrence, and that once she started potty-training, the boils she would get in her diaper area would go away. Jeremy and I were happy to see that Ellie hadn't seemed to develop Olivia's predisposition for boils.

On Saturday December 3, I noticed that Ellie had a little bump in her groin. Not a real big deal, they usually hang around for a day or so and go away just like a pimple. On Sunday, it had gotten a little bigger, and it looked a little deeper. I was a little concerned, because this is what usually happens to Olivia as a boil is developing. I got a sewing needle and poked a small hole right in the head so that any infection would hopefully start to drain out instead of collecting under the skin. Sunday night, we were up a lot with Olivia. She had a stomach bug, and was having tummy cramps and some diarrhea. I decided to keep her home the next day (Monday) and kept Ellie home, too. Monday morning, it was clear that Ellie's pimple was developing into a boil, unfortunately. I got an appointment with her pediatrician for later that day. I expected that we would get an oral antibiotic, the doctor would drain it of the pus, and we would send some of the pus for a culture to see if it was MRSA. I expected that this would follow Olivia's trend, with the next few days being somewhat uncomfortable and painful for her, with me having to drain the boil a couple times a day, until it would resolve itself in a few days.

For those who have never had a boil, they are INCREDIBLY painful. Draining a boil, although necessary, is no fun. My girls scream bloody murder for good reason, and absolutely hate diaper changes as they know that there will be incredible pain. Just the act of lightly touching the boil to apply ointment is painful, I cannot imagine how painful it must be when I have to put pressure on their skin to get the infection out.

Ellie's appointment was traumatic. She screamed when her boil was being drained, and sobbed for about 20 minutes afterward. However, when we got home, she seemed to be a bit happier, since some of the pressure had been relieved. She was really clingy - I spent the rest of the day just holding her - and she pretty much just slept on me the whole time. I was somewhat concerned by that, since she was acting so lethargic, but I thought it must be because she had had a bit of a traumatic time at the doctor's. She never seemed to have a fever, but I was giving her tylenol religiously for the pain, so it is possible the fever could have been masked by that.

A few hours later, I had to set Ellie down to use the restroom. I knew she would scream, but I had to go. So I set her down, and ran to do my business as fast as I could. I could hear her crying in the front room, and I could hear it getting louder, so I knew she was crawling towards me in the bathroom. When I was done I went out to find her sprawled on her stomach only a few feet away from where I left her. The poor girl had started to crawl towards me, but just crawling was so painful she couldn't continue. Sitting on her bottom was out of the question as that would put pressure on her wound, so the only thing she could do was lay on her stomach. At that point, I was concerned that this would be a little worse than Olivia's experiences.

The rest of the night went fairly smoothly. Ellie was still clingy, but seemed happy and comfortable in my arms. Once she fell asleep for the night, we were even able to put her in her crib. With the pain she was in, I wasn't going to take her into daycare the next day, but we had decided that Jeremy would take Olivia, since I would mostly just be holding Ellie all day, and Olivia would have more fun at daycare with her friends anyway.

That night Ellie woke up at 2:30 AM in incredible pain. Neither Jeremy or I could calm her down. Although we knew it would be painful, Jeremy and I decided that we should try draining it to see if we could give her any relief. Without being too graphic, there was so much pressure built up that when I drained it, infection shot out all over my face. We were able to drain it quite a bit, and give her some relief. She finally fell back asleep.

Around 7:00 AM, she started acting really fussy again. I went to change her diaper, and was shocked to see that the boil had literally increased 10 times in size since 2:30 that morning. The crease in her right groin had become so inflamed that the skin was swelling outwards. Her entire groin area, up into her stomach, and down her leg had turned red and you could feel the inflammation beneath the skin - it felt rock hard. I called and made another appointment with her pediatrician for 11:30 that morning.

We waited anxiously for her appointment. She was incredibly lethargic and sleepy, which really worried me. The only way i could hold her was chest to chest. She was so swollen that her right leg was stuck in an open position. I was concerned that I wouldn't even be able to get her into her carseat to get her to the doctor's.

Once we got to the doctor's hetold us she needed to go to the hospital. He sent us to the Primary Children's Medical Center ER. The doctor said that most likely she would get antibiotics administered through an IV, and that we would probably need to stay the night. He thought we would probably be home in 24 hours, and that they wouldn't need to cut it open to drain it, since it mostly felt inflamed and didn't seem to have that much pus.

To be continued...