Personal Narrative: Lemierre's Syndrome

My fighting spirit served as my incentive and allowed me to

ICU to the floor. She has essentially stabilized. Again, she is having some type of

On the 21st of February 2005, Bill Aydt went into surgery for a lung transplant after being diagnosed with terminal idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. His daughter, Karen Curtiss, now tells her father’s story in order to raise awareness for other patients and family members. According to Karen, he emerged nine hours later after a successful surgery and a positive prognosis from his pulmonologist. When recovering in the hospital after his surgery, Aydt was left in the bathroom alone while his nurse needed to tend to other patients. He became tired of waiting and decided to walk back to bed without the help of his nurse. Unfortunately, while making his way back, he took a fall and hit his head on the side of the bed. He was placed in horizontal traction with a cuff around his head and was not seen by the doctor for a staggering 57 hours. By this time Aydt had developed pneumonia and a pulmonary embolism and was sent to the ICU, where he was later diagnosed with MRSA. After recovering from MRSA he contracted Clostridium difficile. Although his body fought to overcome these nosocomial infections, it became too much and he was unable to survive his hospital stay (Patient Safety Movement, 2015). After suffering numerous medical errors, Bill Aydt died at the age of 71. His daughter Karen is now part of the Patient Safety Movement and founded CampaignZERO, helping to prevent the more than 400,000 preventable patient deaths each year (Patient Safety Movement, 2015). The ultimate goal of

Her family decided she needed to get to a hospital around 10 pm and that she’s still there while doctors are trying to stabilize the reality star’s

A.W.’s chest tube is inserted successfully and she is stabilized. She is admitted to the ICU and will be in the hospital on bed rest for a minimum of several days as she recovers.

also ended up dying and no treatment was given to infected adults and children. The primary document

Infected. One simple word, not one simple story. One simple prick of the finger, a two minute wait time, then your entire world comes crashing down. I was carted away to a desolate camp of sorts, the place where they send you when you’re going to die. You would expect a very clinical setting, linoleum floors with fluorescent lighting and not a speck of dirt in sight, but this place was quite the opposite. You see, when you’re dying of Grayscale, nobody cares.

I learned to keep going. I decided it was more worth it to persevere than to let the sorrow get the best of me. What had all that hard work been for anyway? Am I just going to throw it away? No. I will go to the barn tomorrow. I will ride tomorrow. I

suffered through two years of a deadly virus that no one would speak of. The virus was

Give an example of a time when you made a commitment to something and saw it through from beginning to end.

A time in my life when I had to faced a mortal challenge and I had to make a decision, came

Adversity had caused me to battle tremendous hardship both physically and mentally, it instilled great courage and will in myself, so I would not be reluctant to take responsibility in the

An individual slowly, painfully, and agonizingly wanders into the emergency room. They complain of having a fever, vomiting profusely, and are experiencing a severe headache. The physician notices in the patient history that this individual recently went on an excursion to the Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa. The physician inquires with the patient about their recent trip and the patient excitedly, but wearily, tells the doctor all about the African safari. The individual also informed the doctor that they arrived home just a few days ago and recalled coming across several dead fruit bats and even a large dead gorilla; in which he got close enough to take a picture with, similar to as if he was claiming it for a prize. With this information, the physician immediately sends the patient to the laboratory to have their blood drawn, mentioning in the order to handle the patient and the specimen with utmost care and caution. It is crucial for healthcare workers, especially phlebotomists, to practice proper standard precautions to prevent the spread of contagions and blood borne pathogens. The patient mentioned above would be a prime example for why such measures are taken and why the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has implemented particular protections. Every day phlebotomists are exposed to various infections, therefore, it is crucial that their daily practice concerning universal precautions does not fail; the consequences could be deadly

I never knew what a struggle it would be to understand an emerging, deadly, unknown illness.  It shocked me to watch the constant roadblocks arise, mainly concerning minimal cooperation.

Just a few hours after being checked in, Dr. Hahn helped my mom deliver me as my dad watched. I remember the blindness of the white light as I first emerged into the fray. Aside from being premature, I seemed fine, but several hours later I was in the Neonatal Intensive Care part of the hospital; I was dying. Despite the tests they were constantly running, they couldn’t find what was wrong with me. The next day, a young intern in the NICU acted on something he remembered from Medical School. He found the answer when he got the blood test back- I was a 1 in 80,000 baby born with Galactosemia type I.