It’s been a while since I made a post. How much is there to say about poop anyway?
I finished my course of Vancomycin every six hours for fourteen days. I’m better, but not cured. This week, I take one Vancomycin a day. Next week I’ll take one every other day. The curve-ball came a couple days ago when I suspected a bladder infection (the third one in three months). Red pee was the clue. I asked Dr. O’Connor what to do because I am super leery of antibiotics these days. He recommended going to the doc-in-a-box for a urine test and a culture (to find out what causing this) and getting an antibiotic prescription for only three days. The doc in the box agreed. He also gave me a big lecture on the overuse of antibiotics and how C-diff is running rampant. He’s preaching to the choir here.
My friend Karen sent me an interesting link to the University of Virginia about a new discovery regarding C-diff.
Apparently some of our white blood cells, the ones to blame for asthma and allergies, may be the answer to a cure for C-diff. This sounds better than the “fecal transplant” I read about on the Mayo Clinic web site.
What really got my attention on the UVA article was:
“About one out of seven people with this infection dies in North America.”
and
“There were almost half a million C. difficile infections in the United States in 2011, and more than 29,000 patients died within 30 days of infection, according to a study released last year by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency has classified the bacterium as an “urgent threat,” noting the rise of a new epidemic strain in recent years that has made the infection even deadlier.”
Yikes, maybe I’d better double up on the probiotics!
Just to make life a little more interesting, we are having electrical problems with the motorhome. The lights flickered a few times and then went out completely. We have no power except for the refrigerator and the microwave. Only two outlets, next to the bed work. No air conditioning, no hot water. No lights, except the one on the microwave. Even the propane stove won’t light. I can’t figure that one out. The roof vents with fans built into them don’t work. It doesn’t matter whether it is AC or DC. The RV repair place in this part of the state can get to it in five weeks. Andy called around and found a place in Indiana to make the repair. That is on our way to daughter Jennifer’s house.
So, we are going to miss Michigan again this year. We’ll spend its allotted time at the repair shop.
We have not seen the Misovec grandchildren at all. I can’t visit with Mother Moulton for fear of passing on C-diff; the elderly are more susceptible. And, we’ve only seen Andy’s brother Paul one time. We had planned to spend a good bit of quality time with him this year, but it just didn’t work out. I don’t want to give him this bug either. Not seeing my loved ones is a bad side-effect.
Gotta go.
Dinata Misovec 