My oldest brother Jon is in the ICU in one of the hospitals here in town. Here's what happened...
He was at a friend's house for dinner on Monday night when he dropped his steak knife. He tried to catch it as it fell; however, it stabbed into the palm of his hand. It wasn't a bad cut. He licked it (gonna have to ask him about that once he's on the mend), cleaned it and bandaged it. He noticed that his hand hurt on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he woke up with a very swollen hand and streaks running all of the way up his arm. He went to the hospital. They discovered that he had a staff infection in his hand from the cut and saliva. They put him under and removed all of the bacteria from his hand. His friend that was there with him was told that he would be out in the recovery room in a hour. After several hours had passed, he still hadn't come out. The doctors finally told her that he was having trouble breathing. What most likely happened is, since they put the breathing tube in while he had food in his stomach, he regurgitated some of that when they pulled out the tube and sucked it into his lung. He's able to breathe on his own, but his body is not absorbing enough oxygen. Therefore, he's on a full oxygen mask. They think that his hand will recover and that the bacteria was taken care of. However, he has to stay in the ICU until his body is absorbing the oxygen as it's supposed to. He has a mass in his lung, and they are not sure what it is. It could possibly turn into pneamonia...but hopefully not. He'll likely be in the ICU for a few more days before being moved into a regular room...assuming everything continues to improve.
~~~
So, three morals:
1. Let the knife fall to the floor and then pick it up
2. Keep saliva away from open woulds (you know how you'll stick your finger
in your mouth after a paper cut or knick on the finger tip?)
3. Jon recommends avoiding full anastesia unless absolutely necessary
~~~
This is such a strange course of events with odds stacked against it every happening to anyone ever again, but we've all been struck by what damage can occur to a body by
getting saliva into an open wound. I thought I'd pass it along to all...
6 comments:
OMG!!! Scared the hell out of me! I hope he'll get out of ICU SOON. We always tell the kids NOT to share the same cup/utensils..etc, cos' we don't want them to pass germs to each other, yet we never think about it when we have paper cut and SUCK on it?! Thanks for the lesson...but I wished Jon (and your family)didn't have to go through THIS!
Wow. It does sound like a strange turn of events -- what are the odds? But it definitely pays to be careful...thanks for the warning!
Weird...our best wishes and prayers go to you and your brother.
I am so sorry to hear that. I hope he gets better quick!!. And that's gonna be a hard habit to break --not to a wound.
Oh, Katie, so sorry to hear about Jon, but I'm glad that acted quickly early on, rather than let it get any worse. Give him our best and we'll be thinking about you.
Thinking about you all!
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