How it all started, Part 1

In March of 2007, my then 7 year old daughter got a boil on her leg. It was large, about 4" in diameter. (BTW, it does kinda look like a spider bite). A white spot in the middle and a red circle around it. I looked it up on webMD and all the information I found said usually it clears up on its own without antibiotics after it is drained. We drained it and it went away. A week later she got another one. We did the same thing with this one. When she got her third, off we went to the doctors office. Up until this one, the boils didn't hurt her, but this one was very painful.

At the doctor's office she gave us antibiotics and said she was going to culture it to see if it was a certain kind resistant to antibiotics, in which case she would call us and we would just have to switch antibiotics. A couple days later she called and told us it was positive for the resistant kind and called in a different prescription.

From this point on, all the boils were very painful. Also, my 3 year old daughter started getting boils as well. We were in the doctors office a couple times a month getting antibiotics and asking questions. We really didn't get much information on what this was.

Then, in July, I got a sore spot just below my right knee. I thought it was just a little knick from shaving, which it probably was, but MRSA had gotten in. Within a day it had swollen so bad, it was about 7 inches around and I was in a lot of pain. I had been using the antibiotic ointment that the girls were given (Bactroban), but it wasn't gettng any better. It was unbelievably painful. I was so saddened to think this is the pain my girls were in.

I went to the doctor as was given the antibiotic Bactrim. The doctor told me if it did not get any better within a couple days, or got any worse over the weekend to go to the ER. It got worse and I ended up in the ER during the weekend. They admitted me and thought they were going to have to use surgery to remove it. It had turned into Cellulitis and was not draining. By this point my entire leg from the knee down was swollen. They had me on IV antibiotics, Vanq and something else, I can't remember the name of. Thankfully within a few days, it was getting better and did not require surgery.



I went to my follow-up appointment with my doctor and asked "How do we get rid of this?". Her response was "You don't get rid of it, now you try not to spread it to other people."

I was shocked! We had been battling this for 6 months and no one had ever told me we couldn't get rid of it. No one had told me to be careful not to spread it to others. YIKES! What did she mean?