MRSA & Shingles While Pregnant (detailed post)

*I will start the post with a "Readers Discretion". If you get grossed out/queasy easily, you may want to think about skipping this post. I will discuss in great detail my MRSA skin infection, and it gets a little gross.*

The last two weeks of my second trimester, my immune system (or lack there of) got the best of me. One morning, I woke up and noticed what I thought was a mosquito bite on the left side of my belly. Over the next two or three days I complained a lot about how it hurt more than most bug bites usually do, and I remember my co-worker telling me that I was a big baby, and sounded like her 9 year old. It just didn't feel like a normal bug bite though- it was more swollen than usual, and really hurt a lot. I tried taking some Benadryl to help with the swelling, but that didn't help. I ended up going to the ER that evening (a Thursday) as the swelling had grown to about the size of my palm, and was starting to get red. The ER physician saw me in the triage bay (didn't even take me back to a bed), and told me that I had been bit by a spider. He prescribed me Bactrim and Keflex. After doing some research, I found out that Bactrim is a pregnancy category C drug, and called my OBGYN right away. I informed her I was uncomfortable taking a category C drug, and asked if it would be fine to just take the Keflex. She told me that was ok, so I continued taking the Keflex as ordered. The swelling still got worse, the redness got larger, and the pain got worse… a lot worse. Sunday afternoon I got a bit of pus to come out when I picked the scab off and applied pressure. I was so happy, and expecting to wake up Monday feeling much better. Well I was WRONG about that! I was not able to sleep that night. I woke up at about 3am, in an insane amount of pain. I tried adjusting my position, moving to the couch, the recliner, etc., but nothing I did would take the pain away. I tried my hardest to wait until 8am for an urgent care to open, as I had just spent $100 in the ER that Thursday for my bite, and that Friday for some spotting. There was no waiting however. I was in tears the pain was so bad, so at 6am, I got off the couch, dressed myself, and drove myself to the ER. This time, the ER physician (a different doc), saw me very briefly in the triage bay, then in the waiting room (they were not busy at all!) where he told me I had MRSA, and then told the nurse to give me a tetanus shot and discharged me. I asked him begged him to incise and drain the wound and do a culture. (After all, with MRSA, you have to do a culture & sensitivity to determine if it is MRSA, and if so, what drugs it is susceptible to) I KNEW there had to be a pocket of pus there. But, he said he couldn't feel any pockets of pus. He prescribed me Augmentin (which DOES NOT work for MRSA!) and Clindamycin. Meanwhile I was so unbelievably frustrated, I just cried and cried. I called my mom and told her I was so upset, I was in so much pain, and no one was willing to do squat! My next step was trying an urgent care. Surely enough maybe they would be willing to incise and drain me, to do a culture to confirm it was MRSA, SOMETHING! I called a local urgent care and asked to speak with the nurse. They said they would not incise and drain me as I was pregnant. I told her “I know if I pull the scab off I will be able to get some pus out. If I do that, will you guys culture my wound so I can figure out if it truly is MRSA or not? After all, I know MRSA can kill people!” She said yes, so I was off to the urgent care! Unfortunately the NP I saw didn’t want me pulling the scab off with my finger nails, so she decided she would poke a hole in the scab with the needle. Well, that didn’t work. She tried, and pressed on my stomach, and I cried and about threw up I was in so much pain. I asked her to stop, and didn’t care at that point that I had wasted $50 on the visit for absolutely nothing. She did advise me to use warm compresses and take probiotics, plus drink a lot of water though. I took her advice and used the warm compresses, and the following afternoon I attempted to drain the abscess again. I (thankfully) sat down prepared with toilet paper, and peeled the scab back. It started gushing out pus like a river!!! That lasted for about a minute and a half, without me applying any pressure to my stomach at all. I then spent the next 30 minutes draining about 2 cups of pus from the abscess… Yea Dr. _______, there wasn't any pus in there… IDIOT! Thankfully I started feeling a lot better, and the pain decreased drastically after it drained. In case it was indeed MRSA, I covered it, and then went out and spent like $30 in bandages and tape to keep it covered so I couldn't spread it—after all, MRSA is highly contagious. In the hospital they keep patients in contact isolation when they have MRSA, which means anyone who enters the room must wear a gown, gloves and a mask. I still continued working, but I let the infection control nurse know what was going on, and kept them up to date with my appointments and efforts at figuring out exactly what was going on. I made an appointment to see an Infectious Disease Specialist that Friday, Dr. Bachir Younes, in Palm Desert. I saw his wound care specialist at my appointment, where they took a swab of the fluid draining from the abscess for a culture. They gave me another appointment for the following Tuesday to review the results. MRSA cultures take a few days, as they have to wait for the bacteria to grow, and then test different drugs on it to see what it is resistant and susceptible to.  Fast forward to Tuesday… I’m sitting in the room waiting to see the doctor. Brett, the wound care specialist comes in and tells me it is indeed MRSA (which we were all pretty sure of anyways at that point), and that the doctor would be in soon. My hole from the abscess had fully closed by this point, and Brett said I may be just fine, but we’d have to see the doctor to see if I needed further treatment. Dr. Younes came in, introduced himself, and then the rest happened so fast. He said I was infected with MRSA, and needed 4 WEEKS of IV antibiotics (Cubicin), 4 weeks of putting an antibiotic ointment (Bactroban) up my nose, and needed to use a special body wash (Hibiclens) once the first day of treatment and once the last day of treatment. (Usually he would make patients wash with it every day, but I am pregnant and it is a pregnancy category C wash) I would be off work for at least two weeks, if not four, and my roommates and boyfriend would need to use the special body wash and put the antibiotic ointment up their nose as well. My treatment began an hour later, after I went out to get something to eat, as it’s not advised to get the infusion on an empty stomach. (Picture on right is of my first day of IV treament)

I tolerated the infusions well, absolutely loved the nurses at the infusion center (connected to Dr. Younes’ office), and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy being able to sleep in for two weeks.

Two days before I was due to go back to work, I started feeling nerve pain radiating down my right arm, on my right upper back, and up the right side of my neck. At first I thought maybe I had a pimple on my back or something because it was irritated, but then the nerve pain started radiating to the other areas. I asked my roommate, as well as my mom the following day if they saw anything on my back or arm, and they both said no. The night before I was due to go back to work, I was still having the radiating pain, and my back hurt (nerve pain) quite a bit. I looked in the mirror and noticed a small rash on my back, and a small rash under/on my armpit, both on the right side of the body. I took my brother to the doctors and helped him a lot when he had shingles in high school, so I had a feeling I had shingles. I can be a hypochondriac at times, so I figured I wouldn't stress on it and would just ask the infusion nurses to take a look at it the next morning. I was hoping I was just having a reaction of some sort to a medication I was on—God knows I was taking a lot!

(On the left is a picture all the different bottles of medication I was on during this month long ordeal.) Sure enough, the following morning when I went for my daily infusion, the nurses all agreed it looked like shingles, and immediately put me in the isolation room (in case one of the other patients hadn't had chicken pox before). I was there for four hours before the NP could squeeze me in. She initially didn’t think it was shingles because it didn’t seem to have the characteristics of shingles to her. She wrote me a note however to keep me out of work for two more weeks—until the end of my iv infusions, as she wanted to be safe (Yes! Two more weeks of sleeping in every day!). She believed it to be contact dermatitis at that time. Over the next couple days, the rash began to get bigger, more painful, and start to blister… There we go, more characteristics of shingles. At my next appointment with the NP, she agreed it was shingles, and wrote me a prescription for Valtrex (see picture of giant blue pills on right, which I had to take 3 times a day),

and told me to use calamine lotion to help dry it up, and oatmeal baths to help with the itching. My lord did it itch! Thankfully we either caught it soon enough or it was just a mild case, because by the time I went back to work, the scabs were already gone. To this day (two weeks later), the scars left from the shingles still itch a lot; but thankfully I do not have PHN (postherpetic neuralgia), which happens when the shingles virus damages the nerves on the skin (PHN can last up to a year!) I am so thankful the MRSA and shingles are behing me now, and I can focus on the task at hand— moving, and getting ready for baby Delaney to arrive. J

Our Miscarriage Scare

I found out I was pregnant the evening of March 9^th. It was a surprise pregnancy (I don’t believe in considering pregnancies accidents), but regardless of that, I was beyond excited! Three days later, while at work, I had some bleeding and ran straight over to the ER to see what was wrong. About 5 long terrifying hours later, the doctor came in and told us that they did not see anything on the ultrasound, and I had miscarried. For the next week I was a wreck. I didn't want to do anything other than lay in my bed and cry. I had wanted to start a family for over 5 years, and now that it was finally happening, that dream I had was being ripped away from me. Exactly a week after my ER visit, I had a follow-up visit with my OBGYN to see if I needed to have a D&C or not. They gave me a form for lab work, and the nurse said “Who knows, maybe it was just too early for them to see anything on the ultrasound.” I remember being so upset that she had said that; I called my mom on my way to school and cried to her, telling her it wasn't right for her to say that and give me false hope. I had lost my baby, and that wasn't going to help me grieve at all. Welllllllll…….. The following day I had the blood work done, and as it turns out the nurse was right! It was too early for the ultrasound techs to see anything on the ultrasound! I WAS STILL PREGNANT!!!!! As you can imagine though, I was terrified that something was wrong, something HAD TO be wrong; after all, I had still been spotting/bleeding. I continued spotting/bleeding until around 11 weeks (which was completely and totally terrifying), when I found out I had a very common bacterial infection pregnant women get, and after a week on antibiotics, the infection was gone, along with the bleeding and spotting. I am now happily almost 34 weeks pregnant! J I encourage any pregnant woman who is experiencing spotting/bleeding to ask for a culture test to be done. Had I known sooner, I would have asked my OBGYN to do a culture sooner, and would have avoided unneeded stress and worry for weeks!

Welcome to My New Life As "Mommy"!

Hello Everyone & Welcome to My New Life As “Mommy”!

For my initial post, I figure it would be best to tell you a bit about myself, my pregnancy thus far, and what you can expect from this blog.

For starters, my name is Chelsea Marie Allen. I’m 23 years old, a nurse working as a Nurse Chart Auditor at a local hospital, and currently pregnant with my first child. I have an amazing boyfriend, Jesse, who I have been with for over 5 and a half years now. We are expecting our first daughter, Delaney, on November 12^th, 2013. Not gonna lie, I think 11/12/13 is a pretty awesome due date! J

My pregnancy thus far. I’ve had an interesting pregnancy to say the least…

FIRST TRIMESTER-

I found out I was pregnant the evening of March 9^th. It was a surprise pregnancy (I don’t believe in considering pregnancies accidents), but regardless of that, I was beyond excited! Three days later, after an ER visit for bleeding (I will be writing a smaller more detailed post about this even in a little bit) I was told I miscarried. After a long miserable & depressing week I found out I was actually still pregnant. I continued to spot/bleed for another 5 weeks or so; those few weeks of spotting/bleeding were terrifying, nerve-wracking and torturous to say the least. I was so terrified I would still end up losing my baby! Aside from that issue, my first trimester was a breeze compared to most. I was completely exhausted 24/7. At the time I was working full time at the hospital, and going to school full time as well. I HAD TO nap every day between work and school. I lucked out with morning sickness though. I had it from about Week 8 to Week 10 or 11, very mildly, and only in the afternoons. I never (to this day) threw up, and eating always seemed to make my nausea better.

SECOND TRIMESTER-

My second trimester was the best (up until the last 2 weeks)! I had normal amounts of energy, gained very few pounds, only had heartburn 2 or 3 times, and was happy all the time! I started showing around 20 weeks, but really didn’t “pop out” until my third trimester. At 19 weeks we found out we were having a girl (the day of Jesse’s best friend’s wedding). We also found out that day that they were expecting their second child. Yeay! Our cupcake (as I call her) would have a cousin to grow up with! The last two weeks of my second trimester my immune system (or lack there of) got the best of me. I will save the story for another post, as I know I am already rambling on. Long story short, I ended up getting a MRSA skin infection on my belly. I also ended up in Labor & Delivery one night with some spotting and contractions (which I couldn’t feel, but were picked up on the monitor), but thankfully that turned out to be from stress and dehydration.

THIRD TRIMESTER-

My third trimester didn’t start off great as I was still dealing with the MRSA infection, which wasn’t confirmed MRSA until about 29 weeks. Once confirmed, I had to be off work for at least two weeks, for 4 weeks of IV antibiotics. Two weeks after I started by IV antibiotics I developed shingles in my right armpit and on my right upper back. There went another two weeks off work, and more doctors appts. I was put on Norco to help with the shingles pain, which caused my bad back to act up and caused even more pain. I went a day without taking the Norco, and Voila! My back pain was gone! Since finishing my antibiotics and getting back to work, I’ve been doing MUCH better than before! The tiredness is still present, along lovely pitting edema, stress and being overwhelmed this last week or so because….. WE’RE MOVING! J We were approved for a cute 2 bedroom condo in Bermuda Dunes, and will be moving October 4^th! This sums up my third trimester to this point (33 weeks and 3 days). I will try to post pregnancy updates at least each Tuesday, which is the day of the week I move up a week in my pregnancy. ONLY 6 MORE WEEKS!!!!! AHHHH!!!!!

What can you expect from this blog? Well as you can see, I ramble on. I enjoy writing, although at times I may not be that entertaining. What I accomplish with this blog is to document my excitement, struggles, and life as a first time mom; an online journal if you will. I will pour my heart out, be brutally honest, and most likely sound crazy at times. It will be very personal, but I love the idea of sharing my experience with others. Not to mention, my soon to be niece Daisy is teaching abroad in Spain until next summer, and I want to be able to keep her up to date with baby Delaney!

I hope you enjoy this blog as much as I know I will. J