I just read this heart-wrenching article in the NY Times about the death of Rory Staunton, a 12-year-old boy, after contracting a staph infection in a minor cut in his leg. The writer, Jim Dyer, knew the boy personally, so the piece is especially poignant.
I think it’s fair to mention that one time, I got a staph infection, after I returned home from Belize. I had gone swimming in a river in the middle of a jungle, and the backside of my body was covered in an itchy rash. About a week after returning, one of the problem areas developed into a gigantic boil. I suppose that I had been scratching it, and the staph infection was under one of my fingernails. I refused to go to the hospital until a week later, when the pain became so intense that I couldn’t even stand up.Â
Fortunately, my ass has such a thick fat layer that the infection wasn’t fatal. The lessons to be learned from both of these stories is never, ever go swimming in a river in the middle of the jungle in Belize, and never, ever listen to anything a trusted family doctor says.Â
