Under-Staph-ed and Overwhelmed

I hate it when something is stapled to Sprite's daily event sheet.

Every day, when I pick her up, I get handed her daily event sheet which lists her activities of the day, what she's learned, what she's eaten, how long she did or didn't nap, and it also helps to distinguish some of the stains decorating her clothes. (Oh, that's spaghetti sauce! I was starting to look for wounds..)

Sometimes, the day care staples a brochure to her event sheet. Sometimes, they staple an information sheet to the event sheet. Usually, it is something to remind parents of a fund raiser, a biter in the classroom, please bathe your children, etc. This last time, it was more serious.

4 weeks ago, a warning letter for MRSA was stapled to Sprite's event sheet. A case of staph infection had been confirmed. In the one year old room. Sprite's class. Dum da dum dum...

One of the toddlers had an infection on his bottom (buttocks, bum, tushy, cutey patootey) and when it was checked out, it was confirmed to be MRSA, a form of staph infection.

The sheet informing the parents of this contained information on the MRSA. It can a relatively minor bacterial infection in the skin, but is extremely contagious, sometimes highly resistant to treatment, and if left untreated, can become serious and even fatal. The parents naturally freaked out and asked questions of the staff bordering on the ridiculous. ( I overheard the parent of a 4 year old who was not even in the classroom ask where the infected child sat in the lunchroom to make sure her child had not occupied that seat. Uh...huh.)

I brought Sprite home, informed John of the "outbreak" (if one child only is confirmed to have the infection, is it really an outbreak?), and read the information sheet. I didn't really think anything of it after that.

Until last Wednesday.

Sprite had gone to school and we had gone to work. Your typical ordinary day. (Well, not YOURS. I have no idea how your typical day goes. YOUR typical day could include briefing the President on foreign affairs, but then, why would you be reading my blog?) Until I started to undress Sprite for bed. I took off her shirt and it jumped out at me. (Well, not literally, but...wait. Why am I explaining all this? Just read on.)

It looked like a pimple with a big whitehead, and it was sitting on her right shoulder. I would not have missed it. It just looked so out of place, it could have been purple in color and I would have had the same reaction.

"Uh, John? Can you come over here?"

John came into the room and looked at where I was pointing. Sprite was unconcerned with our activities and just wanted to be out of my grasp as I tried to hold her still to let John get a better look.

"What IS that?"

"I don't know," I responded. I immediately thought of the staph infection though. It looked like a bug bite gone wrong, but with the possibility of staph and the possibility of staph going untreated turning ugly, I was not taking chances.

I left the postule untouched ( I was NOT about to pop that thing. I mean, the doctor would probably want to take a culture and then secondly, ew!) and went on with Sprite's bedtime routine.

I got her to the doctor on Thursday morning. The doctor could not tell me whether we had a possible staph infection on our hands or not. He just popped the postule, took his culture, started us on an ointment in case it was the M-word, and told me to keep her home that day. He did tell me that as long as I kept the area covered, and they weren't certain it was a staph infection, she would be okay to go to school the next day. He wouldn't have the results from the culture until Monday.

I had a choice. I could go with not telling the day care what was happening and running the risk of it being something like MRSA and getting my kid kicked out of school, or I could be upfront with the day care and let them in on the developing story as it unfolded and run the risk of being told I would have to keep Sprite out of school until the results came in.

I took Door #2. I called the director of Sprite's day care and laid it all on the line. I told her what the doctor had said, crossing my fingers that she would go along with Sprite coming back to school the next day. (I DID have an internal struggle with myself for possible infection spreading and the possibility of other kids getting it based on my irresponsibility of sending my daughter in with something contagious, but dude, I had to work. I don't have a lot of time off just waiting to be taken. Neither does John. We were kinda stuck.) (And let's not even open that can of "Well, why did you have kids if you were going to work full time and you should be prepared for something like this? Blah Blah Blah...")

Surprisingly, the director agreed and said if the postule was looking better the next day or was not worse, then as long as I covered the area, she had no problem with letting Sprite into school.

(I don't blame her, but she did warn the teachers and they had to do spot checks on all the kids to be on the lookout for possible suspicious marks. And I'm sure that they had my number right by their phone to have me pick her up in case she so much as sneezed the wrong way.)

The possibility of this being a staph infection completely railroaded our weekend as well. My sister and nephew were supposed to come for a weekend visit, and we had a lot of activities planned for their stay, but in case of contagions, we needed to cancel everything since the guilt trip over my nephew possibly catching it was something I couldn't deal with, although I was more than okay to expose twenty-something unrelated children to it. (Is there something wrong with my reasoning here?)

Come Monday, I was calling the doctor's office every other hour and finally got the response I was looking for. They had confirmed no growth in the area, therefore no bacteria, therefore no MRSA. My daughter was clean. And it only cost me $25 co-pay, $15.00 co-pay on the ointment, 8 hours time off, 2 hours on the Internet looking at information sites, an entire weekend with family, and a partridge in a pear tree.

So, Sprite is fine. It turns out she was having a reaction to a bug bite. Damn bugs. (I usually like being right, but come on..)

Her day care is of course relieved to have dodged another MRSA bullet and I am relieved my daughter is not at risk (right now) for something potentially serious.

(Editor's Note: Please do not use this post as a reference in any research you do on staph infections or MRSA. I am not a doctor, I am not a scientist. I am a mommy blogger, just writing about the contagion my daughter could have possibly picked up. Nothing on this site should be replacing actual information found in a medical journal. Please, do your own research.) (Ya think?)

Comments

[Undomestic Diva]

We had a family member who got MRSA from a hospital of all places and he almost lost his finger (where the infection started) and, at one point, had a blood infection from it.

While people should not panic, it is super important to do what you did and have it checked out and treated as such until you know otherwise. Especially in kids or older folks who cannot fight off infection as easily.

So glad she's OK!!

[Sprite's Keeper]

Can I get an Amen, Diva of Domesticity? :-)-People, you need to check out her blog by the way if you're not. Good snark over there!

[Lisa]

So glad that she did not have MRSA! I knew someone who did and had a horrible time having it treated.

Too bad it took that long to figure it out though.