Anyone dealt with bacterial meningitis (human)?

[Rock Crawler]

My wife is in treatment currently for a 1-1-2020 attack/diagnosis of bacterial meningitis. It's a scary deal so far but we seem to be on the good side of the battle. She is on Vancomycin and Ceftriaxone (antibiotics) while we push the spinal fluid numbers down and fight the organism in her brain.

She was completely unresponsive the second half of 1-1-20 to mid day 1-3-2020 and came out of the sedative induced sleep with no vision. The vision has returned and he spinal fluid infection counts that were at 8400 (yours is 0) is down under 3000 now. I googled a bunch on the bacterial version of this and it sounds like things could have went much worse, some folks do not survive this type of bacterial infection and some that do survive it have forms of brain damage to deal with.

I spent about 3 days beside her (of 4 days) in the critical care unit, man... I cried more in 3 days then I have in 40 years!

I wanted to hear if any of you folks have stories about this related to humans and what the residual damage and recovery may have been like. For what we can tell right now, there seems to be some short term memory issues, but we hope that as the pressures in the head decrease that the issue resolves itself. There is also some balance and breathing issues, but we are hopeful that these will also fade with treatment.

Happy New Years! I've been living in a hospital chair for the last 9 days beside my beloved wife. Now lets all pray that the year takes a turn and we can get back to dogs, camping, tractors and all of the things that we love!

 

[MossRoad]

No stories to add. Good to hear she is over the hump. :thumbsup:

 

[Tonyinohio]

Larry, prays for your wife. I've read a lot about the condition but have no personal experience.

 

[dodge man]

No experience either but wishing you two the best. Sounds scary.

 

[tractorshopper]

Had this same situation with my wife about 7 years ago. Meninginal Encephalitis (SP?). Meningitis broke through the blood/brain barrier from the spinal cord. I have doctor friend whos son got this when he was young and it left lesions on his brain and damaged him for life and he needs constant care. Yes, people die from it. It's no joke. Very scary indeed.

My wife had been sick and I was taking care of the kids during the weekend while she was in bed. Monday, she was supposed to go to the doctor/PA (her dad has his own clinic) and stay home from work to hopefully get a shot and feel better. I got the kids home Monday night after work and she was acting completely unintelligible and doing very irrational things, but I thought she had probably got a shot of phenergin and was probably just out of it since she was getting in and out of bed. I was trying to feed and keep the kids away from her so she could rest, but after about the 3rd time of her coming out to the kitchen naked and turning the water on in the sink and then leaving it on and going back to bed, I followed her in there and asked her what she was doing and if she was feeling any better. I got a gibberish response from her something about she was going to the bathroom, which immediately made me think she lost her mind.

I started asking her questions and her responses were completely incorrect and nonsensical in every category I could think of so I immediately called my FIL and let him know what was going on. She did not go see him as she said she was. She did not know who her kids were or me, how old she was or much of anything else. Some of her answers were toddler like gibberish with no actual words of any language put together. I was terrified. I thought she had a stroke or something. FIL said get her to the hospital immediately and he'd meet me there. I told the kids to get in the truck and tried to tell my wife we needed to go to hospital and she needed to get some clothes on. While trying to get kids ready, I checked back on wife and she was trying to put a t-shirt on as underwear. I literally had to dress her like a child.

Local hospital rans tests and began a bunch of different treatments while waiting for results and FIL was pushing them also helping out. FIL who makes rounds there wasn't a bit happy and told me to tell them we needed to transfer to our closest large city so we did that and it was good idea since our small hospital was not equipped to handle it. They sent us by ambulance to Greenville where they continued a broad range approach of treatments while still testing various items and narrowing down the diagnosis and refining the treatment.

Too many details and stuff to share, but to shorten this up, she spent the next 4-5 days rapidly deteriorating to the point that I knew for sure that 5th evening that it was going to be her last or best case of all she would be a vegetable due to she had become completely unresponsive to me and they said lesions can be forming and scarring the brain for good. I can't even type how far out of it she was or how emotional I was trying to hold it together and as Rock Crawler says crying like a baby when alone thinking I was losing her.

Lots of prayers were said by me and many others along the way. I finally fell asleep in her room about 3-4 am Sat morning, what I thought was going to be our last anniversary together.

about 4 hours later or so when I was kind of woken up, she started coming around and talking and wanted food. Within an hour, she could speak with some intelligence. Within 3 she knew who she was, who our kids were, and who I was (although she still thought she was 16 years old). By mid-day, she was 80% and by evening I believe she was nearly 100% brain recovery.

She was still run down from such a fight. Drains the body so much. Got to take her home Monday, but she was off work for about a month finishing recovery. That Monday, I ran by her school to pick something up (she's a teacher) and as I came over a hill about a mile away where I can just start seeing her school in the distance, there was a double-rainbow from where I was looked like it was directly over her school (and it wasn't raining). She's a miracle and I thank God for her every day.

She had some minor short-term memory loss and some ongoing very mild issues like occasionally being able to add or multiply semi-simple items in her head quickly, but that all passed too. I'd say she's pretty much 100% and I'm very thankful.

RC, it sounds like you're mostly out of the woods already and I truly wish the same full speedy recovery we were blessed with. I know it's a massive ordeal and I'm very happy for y'all where you're at in it right now.

 

[tractorshopper]

Let me add that the minor cognitive issues or delays is how I describe them lasted maybe up to a year, but it was minor items. Afterward there were times that she thought we had talked about something and she would make a decision or do something without me knowing or having talked in advance (nothing major, but maybe like we were going to be buy a new TV, but instead she spent some money on another small appliance having thought we discussed it; just minor confusion and just periodic). Last thing I remember after was she would forget to pay a bill or something once in a while. She had always paid the bills and for several months, she'd miss one or two and I would have to call in a payment or something and check behind her for the next year or so to make sure everything was good. No dings on credit. No long-term problems. Just minor issues for such a huge ordeal and they all subsided within a year or so after the event.

 

[rgr33]

I suffered from meningococcal encephalitis in 1995. I was painting my house, and suddenly could no longer climb a 4 ft step ladder, or concentrate on the job at hand. As I tried to complain to my wife about my exhaustion, I was struck with a headache that was absolutely unbearable. I didn’t realize how sick I was, and just crawled in bed at 2 o’clock in the afternoon.
The next morning was no better, and I went to the family doctor, and was admitted to the hospital.

It took about a month of treatment, each day getting a little better, and I returned to work after 4 weeks,I could only work 3 to 4 hours a day, due to headaches and extreme fatigue.

The good news is, it’s curable, and I didn’t suffer any long term effects, and life returned to normal after a few weeks. I just remember it today, as the worst headache I ever had. That kind of sounds like what your wife might about to experience.
Best of luck to you and your family, hoping for a speedy recovery.

 

[KWentling]

Lost my sister to viral meningitis. Was very quick, like 24 hours. Very important that it's diagnosed quickly and correctly.

 

[Rock Crawler]

We are back in the hospital, she was discharged after 9 days, went home to continue PICC line infusions 5 times a day, but started to have a skin reaction to the heavy doses. Apparently, while in the hospital she was getting Pepsid (H2 blocker) and an anti anxiety drug that is an H1 blocker, these likely prevented the reaction. At home for about 24 hours, her flesh started lighting up. So we went back to the ER last night and she's readmitted for the remaining treatment period. So she will live in the hospital until at least Jan 16TH under the care of infectious disease Dr Bruce Chamovitz.

She's crushed! She does not want to be here.

So the fight continues. They are saying that we can not leave antibiotics, so they will manage the reactions as they juggle blood concentrations. She still has the constant mild headache, neck ache and spine ache. But now she gets to add burning and itching flesh to the mix.

This sucks. I swear I have PTSD like issues from this. Things trigger me and I can't help but break down and cry.... Yet I know that we are winning. It's irrational, but I can't get control of it. I think that I may not be okay at the moment.

Almost loosing your wife is a traumatic thing for sure. She's 44 years old, I'm 49. I'm not prepared to deal with these kind of intense emotions at this stage of life. I think I broke something inside that might need some time to get healed. I don't like that because I know that I'm fine and I know that I don't deserve any pitty or soothing at a time like this.

Dang, I'm a lot weaker of a man than I suspected. I suck.

 

[Citydude]

Hang in there buddy. I almost lost my daughter when she was 5 to blood infection. The words from the doctor "be prepared for the worse Mike", is burnt into my brain. Its immeasurably painful. My prayers to your wife.