Strange Bacteria???

southphilly

Along with all the normal preemie issues, my son has been dealing with an infection for most of his stay in the nicu.  I kept being told that antibiotics would handle it, he has completed two rounds-they stopped giving him antibiotics but there was still some "strange bacteria" apparent in his culture, so they started again.  He is due to be off again today, but something is still lingering.  This said, he is doing pretty well and looks well.  The doctors aren't sure what it is-perhas it's benign?-but they are sending it off to infectious disease this morning to check on it.  This is totally freaking me out as "infectious disease" just sounds really creepy-like a house episode or michael chrichton novel.  Then I was reading in my preemie book that very young preemies only survive innfections 3/4 times.  We got a letter from the hospital apologizing for the infection-I'm just having a hard time understanding how serious this is.  Anyway, not sure if anyone else has had a similar experience???  I should find out this morning what the infectious disease people think.

SBMBride406

I have had an infectious disease (c.diff) - it is fairly common in a hospital setting.  If he's not acting sick and his white cell count isn't growing by leaps and bounds every day, I wouldn't be too worried (easy to say, I know). Luckily, he is in the hospital where they are keeping a close eye on him.

My DS wasn't a micropreemie (he was a 32 weeker), but he had a very serious infection when he was 6 weeks old. He had late onset Group B Strep which developed into sepsis and then bacterial meningitis. After a very scary few days of antibiotics and oxygen, he was his old self again (although we had to stay in the hospital a full 2 weeks). He has had no long term issues from that illness.

SuwaneeGirl

I'm really surprised that the hospital sent a letter to that effect. I mean, how many times have you gotten that type of letter? I have never heard of this.

It might be a good idea to get your own clinician in there--one who is not affiliated with the hospital--to get a second opinion on just how "strange" the bacteria is.

 

southphilly

Thanks guys-that's basically what the doc said-that he's not "acting sick" and so they're not worried.   Plan to stop antibiotics and extubate-the thinking being the tube is creating the conditions for the infection and that it will resolve upon extubating.