Like women all over the world S and I enjoy being pampered and having someone else do the tricky task of painting your toenails. When I moved to San Diego and had to take on more responsibilities financially, that lovely pampering and colorful toes was one of the first things to go. S has kept up with pampering her tootsies.
A few weeks ago, S got a pedicure. While she was getting the pedicure she and the woman doing the pedicure noticed she was bleeding. For those of you that don’t get mani/pedis this is actually kid of normal. That is the part that should make everyone cringe! The woman put a band aid on her foot. S paid and went on her way. There was a lot of traffic getting out of PB and she didn’t get home until late. When she got home she took the band aid off her foot and got a little worried. But it was late and she figured her foot would get better.
She sent pictures to her family and when they all came down to see her for her baby shower they made her go to urgent care. We saw her Friday night and the foot was nasty! Her foot was swollen compared to her other foot and the wound was a huge gaping black hole. The geniuses at urgent care gave her antibiotics and weren’t able to get a culture. They told her they thought it was a spider bite. Geniuses.
When I heard the story about she bled while getting a pedicure I had that gut feeling it was an infection related to that. When I told my mom (emergency room nurse) about it she said it is probably a bacterial infection. People (aka so called doctors at urgent care) often think they are spider bites.
S went to a dermatologist and they told her it is an atypical mycobacterium. I found one website that has pretty good info on the bacteria. http://www.wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_unit/3963 It says, “The infection, caused by a fast-growing microbial cousin of the tuberculosis bacterium, left some of the customers taking antibiotics for months, and even that did not always clear the infection. Some women suffered scarring or have needed skin grafts, and estimated medical costs for some have exceeded $10,000.” S has been told she would have to take SEVERAL antibiotics for a long time. This would be a disaster alone, but let’s not forget, for me the scariest part, she is PREGNANT.
Right now it sounds like she has a good specialist doctor that she visits weekly to watch the infection. It is currently not being treated because the antibiotics she is supposed to take can be harmful to little Ethan. She is pretty much in constant pain. You might be thinking this could never happen to me, the place I go is clean. Her doctor told her this common bacterium can’t be sterilized with the stuff they use in nail salons. They need to be using medical strength stuff. My advice, give yourself a pedicure. Save money and stay healthy!
This is not a picture of S. This is a picture I got from this article. In August of 2006 a woman DIED from the same thing that happened to S. Ok?
