Judy - Kentucky
I am a retired Registered Nurse. Through past years I have experienced recurring pneumonia and in the summer of 2006 a particularly nasty bout required a pleural effusion and a thoracentesis, a procedure to remove fluid and air from the pleural space for comfort and diagnostic purposes. In the fall of the same year, when I had been coughing colored mucous, my doctor sent me to a pulmonologist, a specialist in the area of lungs and the respiratory tract. I did not feel ill and had no fever; I was doing fine except for the coughing but knew something was not right.
The pulmonologist did a bronchoscopy and lavage, and the results diagnosed pseudomonas bacteria as the problem. Several courses/types of antibiotics later the problem had not been cleared up and in early December I was admitted to hospital and a PICC line was inserted. I was sent home with the PICC line in place and a visiting nurse showed me how to use the small canisters of gentamicin and ceftazidime. The nurse did a trough test once a week. However, after four weeks I became so unbalanced I could not walk alone. The nurse thought maybe it was just the infection and documented the symptom.
Three days after Christmas I called my doctor but she was on vacation. I called the Internist and he sent over an anti-vertigo drug. By then I was very concerned. With all the clinicians on holiday I was researching gentamicin myself and became more concerned as every article referred to the ototoxic side-effects of the drug. I finally got hold of my pulmonologist and she said I should maintain the treatment. By then it was New Year's day and on January 2nd I saw an urgent care physician. She confirmed gentamicin poisoning and said my urine output was very low and I was dehydrated. I was to see an ENT specialist, push fluids, eat a banana and stop the gentamicin.
When the visiting nurse next came she said I had to take the gentamicin for two more weeks. I told her that I would not be doing so, that I had irrigated my PICC line with saline and told her to remove it. I saw the ENT who started me on rehabilitation and ordered an MRI. A large aneurysm was then found in my brain. Three weeks later in an eight hour surgery platinum coils were placed in my brain.
I then went to my Florida home, saw an ENT and had further testing and rehabilitation. By that time, with concentration, I was able to walk because I had practiced so much. My therapist told me to keep up the exercises and start driving again. I shop and drive but of course bump into things and have fallen twice. Fortunately the falls were not hard and I only need to use a cane at times. I spend five months in Florida each year and use a walker to get around the bay. At home in Kentucky I walk everyday on the treadmill.
personal Stories
The personal stories included here follow the example of Lynn Brown who led the way in raising the awareness of the dangers of gentamicin.
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