MRSA case study: ‘I was on fire. The pain was intolerable’

As with so many people who contract MRSA, Tony Kavanagh thought he would be in and out of hospital for a routine procedure.

In 2004 he attended St Vincent’s University Hospital in Dublin for an operation on a blood vessel in his back. Successfully completed, he went to stay with a nearby relative.

“That weekend I started to get this burning sensation in my toes,” he says of the day 12 years ago when the infection took hold.

“I could literally feel it moving right through my bloodstream into my chest, into my arms and right up to the top of my head. The best way I could describe it was if you were to hold your fingers over a naked flame.

“I was on fire. The pain was intolerable.”

Mr Kavanagh was just 54. The infection would cost him his health and his career. As the burning sensation intensified, he was rushed to hospital in the midst of near organ failure.

“I had a 32 or 33 per cent chance of surviving the operation,” he said.

“Once the MRSA entered the bloodstream it has gone beyond a serious situation, it’s a life and death situation. I had never been ill in my life so what saved my life is the fact that I went into hospital healthy.”

He believes he contracted the superbug either during his surgical procedure or when his dressing was applied. Hand hygiene was at fault, he says.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) is a form of the bacteria resistant to standard antibiotics. Its “superbug” label is due to its ability to resist treatment.

Doctors eventually got the infection under control although Mr Kavanagh spent the next few months in hospital recovering.

Later, he suffered a number of blood clots in his legs and was, on two occasions, rushed by ambulance from his native Co Galway to St Vincent’s hospital with a Garda escort. “It was beyond terrifying at that stage.”

On one occasion on New Year’s Eve in 2005, he says, “I was convinced I am going back in and this time I am not coming back out. I was so sick and tired and fed up and I had just had enough.”

Debilitating

In the long term the illness has been debilitating – Mr Kavanagh says simple things such as painting the house or even holding a pen are challenging.

“You have to deal with the psychological impact of it as well. You can no longer do things that you took for granted. It impacts on your whole family, it was a horrific time,” he said.

“You either sort of lie down under it or fight it. I chose to fight it.”

He became involved with the MRSA and Families Network and set about raising awareness not just about the condition but about the critical importance of hygiene, and particularly hand hygiene, in Irish hospitals. The process was a kind of therapy.

Today, while Mr Kavanagh believes the MRSA has left his system, his body is badly damaged. He goes for regular checkups but his mobility is impaired. He cannot go for anything resembling a long walk.

On a recent visit to Dublin it took him 1½ hours to cover the length of O’Connell Street – stopping frequently with pain in his legs.

“My immune system is shot,” he said. “If I went back into hospital and contracted MRSA again I don’t think I would survive it.”