Doug Larson

Hello, my name is Doug and I am a 65 year old severe sepsis survivor that now suffers a very diminished life after my bout of sepsis back in 2019. A simple meniscus surgery that was not followed up upon by my smug surgeon ended up with me contracting MRSA staph infection in my knee that was drained but not sent to a lab as I asked because my then surgeon was sure there was not an infection even though my knee had swollen and was incredibly painful after 3 days post surgery. (Sepsis and Surgery, Sepsis and MRSA)

After being sent home the second time with only opioids and instructions to ice and elevate my leg, I ended up having to be taken to a different hospital by ambulance the following morning, a Saturday, because I simply could not even move my leg off the pillow it was resting on due to the intense pain. Since I was taken to the nearest hospital and my surgeon did not work there. He did not allow them to do any lab work until he sent over one of his colleagues that worked our of both hospitals. Unfortunately, his partner refused any lab work saying he did not want to possibly introduce any infection by another needle insertion, which was preposterous in my opinion and left that day with only a change in pain meds.

Luckily the following morning the hospitalist that was making rounds was appalled to find me in my condition and wrote a quite nasty letter to the associate, who when he finally arrived late in the day on Sunday afternoon gave the ok to do a lab. Within an hour I was being prepped for emergency surgery by a different surgeon and had surgery on a Sunday evening. Monday I was told that I had a nasty staph infection and that a PICC line was needed so they could administer vancomycin for a duration. This was on a Monday morning. On the following Tuesday though the nurses came rushing into my room and pulled the PICC line out and started wheeling me down to the heart lab telling me to be prepared for heart surgery. Apparently the hourly blood testing showed that the staph had caused sepsis and they were afraid that my heart valve that the end of the PICC line was laying against had probably contaminated the heart valve since staph apparently loves to attack anything foreign in one’s body. Luckily they caught it just in time and I was spared any heart issues, but I did end up having to spend 8 more days in the hospital as they would rotate my IV around giving me my vancomycin until I finally was able to have another PICC line installed. I was then sent home for complete bed rest and received two doses of vanco via a traveling nurse twice a day for 6 more weeks. The vancomycin started causing hearing issues but my epidemiologist said that unfortunately that sometimes happens and the vanco was keeping me alive.

At the end of it all I recorded a one third hearing loss and also ended up without an ACL as the staph had completely eaten it all away. I had to wait over a year to then have a knee replacement as they were afraid of any latent staph in my body attaching to the new artificial knee. That however has turned out to be the least of my problems. Now I completely fade by early afternoon even though my doctors have me on a generic Adderall extended release just to give me a half of a day of semi normal quality of life. I can no longer drive or do anything outside our home after midafternoons now, or I should say, I certainly do not feel like doing such.

I feel like a burden and totally alone and it seems like my doctors are thrilled that I even have 1/2 a day of semi normal life now. My wife and I did try a vacation to the Virgin Islands a couple years ago but it turned out to be a complete flop as I would have to return to our hotel room by early afternoon and would usually just sleep or read the rest of the day. Actually, I am so depressed and discouraged with everything that I kind of hope to simply not wake up any one of these mornings, especially since my wife and I did not have any children. In that case I would be fighting harder, but I am just totally worn out now by the smallest things once my medicational induced energy wears off.

Thanks for reading this long saga, sorry for all my complaining too.