From PEOPLE Magazine
Click to enlarge
That thing was a virulent strain of the common staph bacteria known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. The microbe—which doesn't respond to the most commonly used antibiotics, such as penicillin—has for decades been found in hospitals and nursing homes, where it can enter the body through IVs or catheters, sometimes with deadly results. But recently a new kind of MRSA has emerged outside hospitals, where doctors least expected it—among athletes, healthy adults and kids with no known risk factors, like Jeffrey Van Gundy. At Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, for example, the number of patients admitted annually for MRSA has doubled in the past three years, from 551 to 1,193; in 2003, five St. Louis Rams football players came down with MRSA infections, and Baltimore Oriole Sammy Sosa battled one just last month. Says Dr. Brad Spellberg of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center: "We can't just say, 'If you're diabetic or you use drugs, you're at risk.' MRSA is everywhere."
If MRSA sounds like something to be afraid of, it is—though experts are quick to add that simple steps like hand-
washing can stop its spread (see box). Typically, common staph bacteria live harmlessly on the skin and in the noses of about a third of all Americans. But MRSA, while much rarer, can have grave consequences if it gets through a break in the skin. While most of an estimated 74,000 patients a year who contract MRSA outside a hospital end up with only a skin infection, a quarter of them will require hospitalization, some for serious illnesses such as pneumonia, blood poisoning and, rarely, necrotizing fasciitis, or flesh-eating disease.
Strong antibiotics can beat the microbe, but doctors don't always recognize it in otherwise healthy patients. Last Christmas Dee Dee Wallace, 44, of Nashotah, Wis., a homemaker and mother of two, found a boil on her left leg similar to one she'd had a few weeks before. Soon she was suffering from itchy blisters and bone aches and was diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis eating into her left knee. "I prayed that they'd caught it quick enough," she says. They had, but Wallace—who has no idea where she contracted the MRSA infection—underwent surgery to remove a 7-in. chunk of tissue from her leg and months of antibiotic treatment before rebounding.
Fortunately, full recovery is possible. A year after his MRSA bout, Jeffrey Van Gundy's final checkup showed his shoulder had completely healed, and he was given a clean bill of health. For his ninth birthday in April, he went on a special outing. "It was my way of thumbing my nose at the bug," says Lisa. " 'Look at Jeffrey! He's rock climbing!' "
Susan Schindehette; Macon Morehouse in Washington, D.C.; Steve Erwin in Philadelphia
