Update on Ava's lip

After I posted about Ava's lip, it continued to not improve. It really didn't get any worse, but still, it showed no improvement. She continued to bleed at night and seemed to be in pain. On Monday after posting, I decided that I didn't want to wait until the following week to have her seen by her regular dermatologist. I called her pediatrician, and his nurse was very kind and got us an appointment for that very day for a dermatologist within their clinic. That doctor was wonderful, and in fact, we may switch because I liked her so well.

Anyway the lip...she preliminarily diagnosed her with impetigo and gave us an antibiotic and cream but still took a culture and said she would call us if it came back as something other than impetigo. Well she (not the nurse the actual doctor!) called our house phone 3 times Thursday. It was too late to talk to her by the time that I got home Thursday evening from work, but I was able to leave my work phone number with her nurse. Friday, she called me at work (I still can't believe the doctor called me herself! That makes me think a lot of her!) and told me that it was not impetigo, that it was actually MRSA. Well the only thing I knew about MRSA was that it had been all over the news a while back and that people had died from it. So naturally, my heart started racing and I was getting out of breath, but still trying to listen to everything she was trying to tell me about caring for the "super bug." Her lip had already begun to heal and looked tons better by then so she felt like we were on the right track, and continued the same treatment, only adding a topical antibiotic to the oral antibiotic and topical ointment we already had.

That night, after spending the afternoon googling (in between teaching of course) MRSA and now knowing just how contagious it is, I checked over my other two children, and to my dismay, found a spot on Ainslee's bottom that also looked like the dreaded staph. I took her directly to our urgent care clinic, where they confirmed my suspicions, and thanks to Walgreens (you know how I love my Target pharmacy, but they close at 9:00) we were able to get her on an antibiotic that night as well.

Then Wednesday when we picked the kids up from the babysitters, we noticed that Ava's face was starting to look infected again. It was looking so good! Pretty much healed. I don't know why the change of events, but through my reading, I learned that this strand of staph adapts rapidly and can become worse fast. We knew we needed to get her seen again. Well evidently dermatologists take off more than pediatricians so we weren't able to get her back into see the new doctor, but we were able to get her into a pediatrician (not our regular one but who cares) and she prescribed yet another antibiotic ($45 medicine!) and another cream (another $45 medicine). It's looking some better, but we're not blown away by the progress. I figure I will call the dermatologist again on Monday if things haven't improved.

Ainslee, on the other hand, is looking great. She has a persistent eczema spot on her bottom that she scratches a lot. I guess she came into contact with Ava's MRSA, got it under her fingernails, and transferred it to her bottom. Nevertheless, it is pretty much healed.

Thank for the emails and well-wishes. I really hope we get this taken care of soon!