Just A Bump
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MRSA Nearly Took His Life—Just One Week After It Started…
What one brave mother wants you to know.
by Erika Kurt
Dallas mom recounts harrowing battle to save her son’s life. Kathryn Librizzi’s son Andrew was born healthy but early and placed in the newborn intensive care unit (NICU). Six days later, he started showing symptoms that doctors later discovered was the superbug MRSA and believed entered through the IV placed in his foot just after being born. Even though doctors knew that other newborns in the NICU had been infected with MRSA, they never suspected that baby Andrew’s symptoms indicated MRSA and were quick to dismiss the early warning signs. Kathryn had never heard of MRSA and had no idea that other babies in the hospital had been infected. Kathryn is sharing her powerful story to warn others so that they can recognize the signs of MRSA sooner.
Kathryn with her son Andrew in NICU just days after being born and before. The bandage on the heel is where the IV had been inserted and through which doctors believe MRSA entered. The foot already appears reddish. Photo credit: Kathryn Librizzi, 2005.
At nearly 32 weeks pregnant, on January 12, 2005, Kathryn went in for a regular prenatal check up. Suddenly, her doctor informed her that she would have to deliver her baby via c-section that day. Kathryn was suffering from preeclampsia, and her blood pressure was dangerously high at 175/125.
Just a few hours later, Kathryn and her husband Andy welcomed baby Andrew into this world, weighing in at 3.5lbs and measuring 19 inches long. Although he was born healthy and all of his organs were fully developed, as a premature baby, he was placed in the newborn intensive care unit (NICU) and given an IV in his foot.
As an observant mother, Kathryn recalls that hospital staff interacting with her son were going from one baby to the next without washing hands or changing gloves, wearing outdoor clothes, and allowing young children to visit. She found this alarming in the NICU. About six days after being born, Andrew suddenly started having apnea (trouble breathing) and bradycardia (a slower than expected heart rate) and began screaming at diaper changes. Kathryn alerted staff, but they were quick to dismiss these issues as normal and gave her baby caffeine.
Over the coming days, Andrew’s breathing got progressively worse, and he began to have swelling in his hip and foot. Staff propped his leg up on a gel pad to reduce the swelling and took an x-ray. Nothing showed up. Then, they did a sonogram. Still nothing.
Andrew’s breathing continued to deteriorate, and he was put on a CPAP machine. This is a machine that delivers air to help with breathing. As he got worse, he was put on a ventilator for a couple of days. About a week after the symptoms started appearing, hospital staff still had no idea what was happening. Not knowing terrified Kathryn and Andy.
Then, Kathryn recalls, a chickpea-sized bump appeared on Andrew’s chest, and she alerted hospital staff. At first, a nurse reassured her that the bump was normal and probably part of his rib cage. However, the nurse then called in other hospital staff to look at it. They did not know what it was but decided to surgically remove it and put Andrew on three antibiotics. When the culture came back, Kathryn and Andy finally had their answer.
The bump was Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). While Kathryn had heard of staph infections before, she had never heard of MRSA.
MRSA is a Gram-positive bacterium that causes infections in different parts of the body. It is tough to treat because it is resistant to many commonly used antibiotics. In 2017, the CDC found MRSA responsible for more than 323,700 hospitalizations, 10,600 deaths, and $1.7 billion healthcare costs that year in the US.
Anyone can get MRSA. Yet, people involved in activities or places that involve crowding, including athletes, students, military personnel, prisoners, and hospital and nursing home patients, are at increased risk. Non-intact skin, like an abrasion or incision, is often the site of a MRSA infection. MRSA used to be known as a hospital-associated infection but is now passed in the community and even spread from livestock.
Image Credit: CDC. Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States, 2019. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, CDC; 2019.
Following the surgery, Andrew’s health declined. His hip and foot continued to have problems, and he turned ash gray and listless. Andrew’s immune system was trying to fight off the infection, and he developed sepsis. With chemicals poisoning his blood, he was given two blood transfusions. Another MRSA infection site was removed from Andrew’s thigh.
After another week passed, a different doctor finally suspected that Andrew’s hip and foot issue could also be MRSA and did an MRI. He determined that Andrew needed to have surgery immediately, and Kathryn found a surgeon that could do it that same day. The new surgeon refused to do the procedure at the same hospital as he was concerned about MRSA and moved them to another hospital.
Fighting to breathe. Photo credit: Kathryn Librizzi, 2005.
andrew at the second hospital where he underwent emergency surgery and acquired a secondary infection, klesiella. Photo credit: Kathryn Librizzi, 2005.
Andrew sleeping at 3 Months. While out of the full body brace, he had to wear a leg brace for the next two years. Photo credit: Kathryn Librizzi, 2005/
At just three weeks old, Andrew had a major surgery to clean out the infection in his leg. Following the procedure, he was placed in a full body brace and had a PICC line inserted to deliver three antibiotics. When the catheter that delivered these vital drugs kept falling out, Kathryn grew concerned about the risk of another infection. Right when Andrew was nearly finished with his rounds of antibiotics, he acquired a secondary infection. This time, it was Klebsiella, a Gram-negative bacteria that likes to hide in all of that medical tubing and catheters. After more antibiotics and prayer, the next test was thankfully negative!
Finally, at two months old and 8lbs, Andrew was able to go home with his parents. For the next two years, he had to wear a leg brace due to the lasting impact of the infection.
Today, Andrew is a healthy and active teenager in the 9th grade. Without antibiotics, he would not have survived. Looking at him now, you would never know that MRSA nearly took his life…except for the few scars on his hands from all of the IVs and the surgical scars on his leg.
According to Andrew’s doctor, the theory is that he got MRSA from the IV that was put in his foot just after being born. Kathryn later found out that the hospital where her son was born was having an issue with MRSA in the NICU prior to her son’s infection. She was not told about this, and she wonders why staff did not suspect or test for MRSA sooner. In retrospect, she feels that staff were not candid about what was happening and suspects they were primarily afraid of being sued and receiving bad press.
The Dallas Mom Today. Photo Credit: Kathryn Librizzi, 2019.
Kathryn is not sharing the names of the hospitals or staff involved because she believes any faults that occurred are indicative of a bigger problem, and she wants to help understand and fix the problem and not assign blame. Kathryn wishes that there had been more transparency and that doctors and hospital staff had been more informed and aware of the problem with MRSA so that they could have done something sooner. It took over two weeks to find out what her son had, and no one even suspected it even though there were other babies with MRSA in the NICU before her son. Kathryn also wishes that the NICU had been more careful about spreading diseases. What happened to Andrew could happen to anyone, and Kathryn hopes that sharing her story will help other families.
Andrew’s medical journey highlights the problem of hospital-acquired superbug infections, the importance of antibiotics in treating them, and the need for practices that reduce the spread of infection. That is why the new policy approved by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicaid Services (CMS) in late September is so important. It requires hospitals to develop and implement infection prevention and control and antibiotic stewardship programs for the surveillance, prevention, and control of hospital-acquired and other infectious diseases to be eligible to bill Medicare and Medicaid. It also helps ensure patients receive the right antibiotic at the right dose for the right duration and reduce rates of antibiotic resistance. These provisions become effective in early 2020.
Take Action Against Superbugs
It is up to all of us to take action on the most pressing global health challenge of our time. If everyone steps up, we can slow the spread of infection, protect existing antibiotics, and find new treatments. Here are some things you can do:
Support the Small World Initiative! Get involved in our efforts to tackle the crisis by sharing your superbug story, participating in our programs, staying informed by subscribing to our newsletter, and donating. To share your story or support our efforts to tackle the most pressing public health emergency of our time in another way, please contact us at info@smallworldinitiative.org.
Wash your hands! This slows or even stops the spread of infection when done before eating or preparing food and after using the restroom. This seems like a simple step, but even most doctors do not practice good hand hygiene. Be part of the solution!
Only buy meats from animals raised without antibiotics! 70-80% of medically important antibiotics are used in agriculture. This is primarily done through animal feed and drinking water for growth promotion (to help the animals put on weight faster) and as a disease prevention strategy to allow animals to live in crowded and unhygienic conditions. Consumer pressure really works! Several major poultry producers and fast food companies, including McDonald’s, Tyson Foods, Subway, Perdue Farms, and Chick-fil-A, announced plans to reduce use of medically important antibiotics. Help apply pressure to keep this trend going!
Take antibiotics only when necessary (and exactly as prescribed)! Make sure you are taking the right antibiotic at the right dose in the right duration. Understand that antibiotics only treat bacterial infections and are not always necessary. They do not treat viruses like a cold or flu. Antibiotics are wonderful and save lives when taken and prescribed correctly, but 30-50% of antibiotic prescriptions are unnecessary or inappropriate. When this happens, you risk the downsides for no return as antibiotics also kill off good bacteria putting you at risk for diarrhea and yeast infections and cause selection pressure, which can lead to more superbugs.
Get appropriate vaccines! For example, the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine has reduced the rates of antibiotic-resistant invasive pneumococcal infections caused by vaccine strains by 97% among children under five and 60% among adults.
Call your elected officials! Support policies that promote infection prevention and control, proper antibiotic usage in humans and animals, and adequate funding to develop and access new diagnostics, antibiotics, and treatments.
Prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STIs)! Practice safe sex if you are sexually active. Condoms greatly reduce the risk of getting STIs. The CDC reports that there are more than 550,000 resistant gonorrhea infections each year in the US, twice as many as reported in 2013. They are resistant to all but one remaining class of antibiotics.
Use sterile needles! According to the CDC, injection drug users are 16.3 times more likely to develop invasive MRSA infections.
This story is part of our series: Superbugs – Real People, Real Stories.
About Superbugs – Real People, Real Stories: This series is part of the Small World Initiative's public health campaign to raise the alarm about the severity of the growing global antibiotic crisis and share what people can do to protect themselves and their loved ones from antibiotic-resistant infections (commonly referred to as “superbugs”). The series shares the powerful stories of real people who understand the true consequences of antibiotic resistance and want you to learn before it is too late. Recounting journeys filled with enormous fear, heartbreaking loss, and extraordinary triumph, we hope these stories engender a strong sense of urgency and compel readers to act.
If you have a story to share, please email info@smallworldinitiative.org.
