Do Not Taunt Happy Serratia marcescens*

Does this bacterial culture look like trouble?

How about now?**

If a person is already mainlining copious amounts of antibiotic medication and they happen to get the former in to their bloodstream, it will start posturing like the latter. At least that is what happened to me a few weeks ago. With an immune system already suppressed by several weeks of antibiotic treatment, the body doesn't take well antibiotic-resistant micro-organisms. My new friend Serratia marcescens fit that bill. My body's reaction was a persistent two-day fever that peaked at 102.7 degrees Fahrenheit. That was enough for mom to shuttle me off to the Emergency Room and another three-day stay at the hospital. The length of the stay was determined by the length of time it took to culture and identify the bacteria that grew out of several samples of my blood. The hot zone in this instance turned out to be the PICC line in my left arm that was placed to dose the IV antibiotics that were supposed to get me healthy after my most recent surgery. Somewhere in the two and a half weeks after the surgery, the bacteria got into the line and reared its ugly head. Treatment of the fever consisted of knocking back the occasional Tylenol, and alternating between a cold washcloth on the forehead and shivering through fever chills; treating the infection consisted of ten-days worth of a couple different oral antibiotics to kill off Mr. Graham-negative stain, as S. marcescens is sometimes known.

For me, going to the hospital is becoming such old hat that I'm starting to not care what the diagnoses are anymore, and mostly just focused on when they will let me go home. It becomes a dance of how can I answer these doctors' questions so that I'm properly diagnosed, but yet don't set off too many alarm bells that will keep me here more than a day? It's the same type of attitude that keeps me from seeking medical attention in the first place and that will probably be my ultimate downfall:
“Tell me sir, how did you get your legs cut off?”
“Uh, I think I was hit by a train.”
“And when exactly did this happen?”
“I think it was Tuesday?...Monday or Tuesday.”
“Tuesday! You realize today is Friday?!”
“Um yeah. Well, you know, 'Lost' was on last night and it was a new episode and I wanted to see it on a big TV.”
“You've lost an insane amount of blood.”
“Well, I can't really feel it, so I figured...”

In summation, a week after I left the hospital I saw my infectious disease doctor and he decided to have me finish out the course of medication I was on when I left the hospital and then to stay off of any further antibiotics. The good news was the bone biopsy that was done in January didn't reveal any further bone infection and the wound site of my pressure sore seems to be healing up properly this time around.

*I was all set to recount this episode but then the day after I left the hospital I found out Deep Purple was playing a command performance at the Kremlin and then things got a little crazy around here.

**The amount of time I spent in MS Paint trying to get this image to look just right probably far outweighs the amusement value of the intended sight gag.