staph infection post cardiac cath

[nursetonyah]

had cardiac cath on 9/7/11. Pain at cath site got worse not better. by 9/9/11 i havd fever of 101.3 and redness at site. by 9/11/11 i had spreading redness and wrmth to the right groin/thigh and hard lumps under the skin.  admitted to hospital and had to go to the or for a washout of the wound. the vascular surgeon said "it was a big old mess in there. it looked like something exploded in your leg". was told i had a pseudo aneurysm and that it was like chilseling rock to get it out of my leg and that it couldnt all be removed.  he told me 2 stitches were placed in the femoral artery and that my sartoris muscle was moved and flip over like a flap and stitched to cover my exposed fem artery.  the material cultured from my leg grew staph aureus and i have been on iv vancomycin via picc line for the past 4 weeks. the wound was left open to heal by secondary intent and i had a wound vac for several weeks and now the remaining open wound gets a wet to dry dressing once daily.  i had an angioseal placed at the time of the cath. is this something that occurs commonly post catheterization?  staph is usually a skin infection not an internal infection...... what i want to know is how this happenend to me? i am a pediatric er nurse and i have never heard of all this from a routine procedure....please advise

[mkh9]

Hi again,
It sounds like following a cardiac cath that the aneurysm can occur and after the angioseal can also have complications. I don't know the percentage though. I just noticed that you mentioned Staph aureus (sorry I didn't see that) so since you are on Vanco, it may have been MRSA.
take care,
mkh9

[mkh9]

Hi and so sorry for all that you have gone through. It is somewhat common to get a Staphylococcus epidermidis infection of catheters. The S. epi likes plastic and adheres to it. It could be S. aureus. What were the culture results? Anyway, a lot of times it is hard to treat and resistant to antibiotics. I will look up the picc line and the angioseal to see if this gets the same type of infection. Yes, you are certainly right Staphs are generally on the skin or normal skin flora but S. aureus can cause, boils, furuncles and wound infections as well as get into surgical sites etc. But S. epi is known for being normal skin flora but adhere onto plastic and cathers. The fact you are on Vancomycin my mean you have MRSA. If you have an indwelling catheter they sometimes remove them or flush them. Hope this helps.
mkh9