BACTERIA : KILLER OF SPIRIT AT HOME

All of September and most of October we might as well celebrate as bacteria month. Usually the first sign of infection is a spike in temperature, and lassitude of body and mind. That was how the month of September started. We did the usual tests – a complete blood count and urine culture test. Yes, he had Urinary Tract Infection (UTI), yay, and the bacterium was E coli. We start him on a mild antibiotic and wait for the infection to disappear. It doesn’t. The urine culture report shows that bacterium has become resistant to more drugs, so we are advised to start on another antibiotic. That course finishes. Repeat the culture test. E Coli is out and enter Klebsiella Pneumoniae. This bacterium is resistant to even more drugs. So another dose of antibiotics. Course completed and repeat the culture test. Klebsella still swarming in alarming numbers with increased resistance to more drugs. In fact it was sensitive to only two drugs. Our doctor does not want to start him on a new and highly powerful antibiotic since our father doesn’t have fever. We are advised to check his urine pH . It was found normal, anything normal makes us celebratory. Anyway, was told changing the pH to alkaline might make the environment hostile for the bacterium to thrive. Finally he is now getting Citralka syrup three times a day.

Four days into Citralka and he is finally awake for longer stretches and yesterday after eons had few morsels of food orally. In couple of days we need to repeat the culture test. What might now be growing and how powerful we wonder.

It was similar UTI that led to his hospitalization in July. We took it pretty badly then. Getting admitted seemed like going back to a bad dream that we had just come out of. This time around I think we did well, merely obsessively watched movies during the first weeks of infection. Weird coping mechanism, maybe better than eating obsessively.

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