lap band surgery with hernia in abdomen

[steelemagnolia 7]

Hi Steelmagnolia,

I haven't posted anywhere for a long time. I ended up having to have my 2nd lapband removed because of complications and a huge 6th abdominal hernia repaired at the same time. I had a new surgeon as I'd lost faith in my other one. I came close to losing my life during that operation as my body was in such a bad state. Not good memories. Having caught the MRSA bug during a previous hospital stay, i now have to have the tests before every hospital stay. I was even sent home after 3 days of my big op in March and had nurse visits at home because the hospital didn't want to risk the bug there, even though I'd tested negative. Apparently once a person has caught it, they become carriers. GREAT!!!

I'm going in for a shoulder operation next week and have to go through the tests again. Very humiliating.

I hope your brother is well now.

Best wishes, Katydid.

Hello Katydid,

My brother in law is fine now. I am so sorry that you have suffered so with this infection. The following is a dr's description of staff infection. It seems we carry it in our bodies...

Staph is not contagious in the usual sense, however. We all periodically have staph on our skin and even in our noses, and most staph infections come from bacteria that have "colonized" us for some time. If you have contact with a person with impetigo, you could pick up their staph and develop an infection. But such contact will not automatically cause you to develop a bloodstream infection, so being around a patient with this problem is usually not a major concern.

Many years ago, nearly all strains of staph could be killed by penicillin. But staph bacteria soon became resistant to the drug, and researchers created synthetic forms of penicillin such as oxacillin and methicillin to treat staph infections. In the 1970s, however, some S. aureusstrains developed resistance to all of the penicillins. Because laboratories routinely use methicillin to identify resistance to drugs in the penicillin family, these resistant strains were named MRSA for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. It became necessary to use vancomycin (Vancocin), an antibiotic that is unrelated to penicillin, to treat such infections. In the last few years, over half of all staph infections of patients in some hospitals are MRSA, narrowing the treatment options. Also, there are now strains that are at least relatively resistant even to vancomycin.

It is thus very important to prevent the spread of drug-resistant strains among patients in the hospital, most of whom have intravenous catheters in place and are susceptible to developing staph infections. Outside of the hospital, however, most S. aureus strains are still vulnerable to penicillins. Since serious infections acquired outside the hospital are relatively uncommon, MRSA is not the type of infection most of us have to worry about. It is not spread by airborne routes, and even if you become colonized with a resistant strain, the chance of your developing a serious infection is rather low.

[Katydid 0]

Hi Steelmagnolia,

Thanks for the info on the MRSA bug. It is a frightening thing. They did tell me that when elderly patients from nursing homes are admitted to the hospital, they are automatically tested for the bug. That says a lot for nursing homes, doesn't it.

Best wishes, Katy.