A Mysterious Bacteria is Ravaging Your Body. What Do You Do?
What would you do if someone you love has an alarming health problem arise out of nowhere?
At first, Scott Wagner barely notices the bump under his left arm. It’s the size of a pimple and doesn’t hurt much. But when it grows to the size of a ping -pong ball in less than a week, he pays attention. Away from home at the time, he finds an urgent care clinic where they lance it and put him on an antibiotic. He thinks nothing more of it.
. . . Until a week later, when another bump appears, this one on his right knee and quite painful. Every day it gets worse. Home by this point, Scott goes to see his concierge physician who says it could be a staph infection, and Scott goes home with another antibiotic. Within ten days, the “pimple” has morphed into something out of a horror movie. Scott describes it like this: “My whole knee was purple, cracked and oozing. It looked like a turkey leg cooking.”
Scott, who grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania, says he comes from a world “ where you just suck it up and move on.” But his wife Tracy feels like this thing taking over his knee deserves attention.
Tracy knows exactly who she needs to call.
Healthnetwork has been there for her family in the past, and she knows she can call even though it’s a weekend. After one look at a photo of Scott’s knee, the Wagners’ Healthnetwork medical coordinator fires off a message to Dr. Paul Auwaerter, Clinical Director for Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Despite being on vacation with his wife, Dr. Auwaerter calls the Wagners that same day. After seeing the photos and asking a few questions, he tells them to get to Johns Hopkins immediately. His urgency and confidence convinces even Scott, and Tracy drives him to the hospital right away. Meanwhile, Dr. Auwaerter calls his colleagues and ensures Scott will be in good hands until he can arrive. Once Scott is settled, Tracy kisses him good night and heads for home. She expects to come visit the next day and find out what’s going on with her husband and make a plan for his treatment.
Instead, things go from concerning to catastrophic.
The next day when Tracy calls the hospital room she cannot understand Scott. He’s mumbling. She hears background noise and says, “Put the nurse on the phone.” The nurse gets on. Something’s not right. I just came in and I’m calling the doctor. The phone cuts out. Tracy calls the nurse’s station, fighting to keep her panic down. A doctor calls back. We don’t know what is happening. He may have had a stroke. We’re going to do a CT scan.
Tracy throws together an overnight bag and gets to the hospital as fast as humanly possible. Her finger is poised to push the elevator button to head up to Scott’s room when her phone rings. It’s the doctor calling to let her know Scott has been moved. Come to the ICU. We have him on a breathing tube.
After “the longest elevator ride of my life,” Tracy gets to ICU and sees her husband lying on a bed, in an induced coma, hooked up to a breathing machine. Her mind whirls. How is this happening? She calls Scott’s daughters and tells them they’d better come to the hospital.
Imagine: One day your world is normal. The next, your spouse is in a coma and the doctor is telling you to call the kids.
The next day, when Scott wakes up from the coma and sees his family gathered in the room, his first thought is: Good to see you all. His second thought: This must be serious.
It was serious: An out-of-control staph infection and sepsis. No one knows exactly what happened or why. Dr. Auwaerter’s theory is that the first bump Scott found under his arm was a sign of staph. For some reason, neither Scott’s immune system nor the antibiotics were able to shut it down, and the bacteria made its way into the bloodstream and led to an extreme and overwhelming immune response.
“If that had happened at home, Scott may not have made it,” says Tracy. “I still can’t believe Dr. Auwaerter took our call. He was on vacation in New York City! I could hear the traffic and horns beeping in the background. And he was kind enough to take the time to call us. If it weren’t for Healthnetwork connecting us to him, I really don’t know if Scott would be here with us today.”
Your health can turn on a dime. When it does, you want to be in the right place in the right hands.
After two days in ICU and what seemed like gallons of antibiotics, Scott was able to go home. He was back to work within a week. He says, “I just turned 71, and overall I consider myself pretty healthy. But you just don’t know how much runway you’ve got left. Something like this — it puts things in perspective. My wife and Healthnetwork saved my life.” He adds, joking but not really, “I have about five insurance companies here very happy I’m alive today.”