Re: Post cytokine storm / organ failure / cyanosis related stories here......
Re: Post cytokine storm / organ failure / cyanosis related stories here......
Swine flu fatal to local cancer nurse
Jul. 31, 2009
A cancer nurse at Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Carmichael has died of the H1N1 flu, becoming the first reported health care worker in California killed by the new variant of swine flu.
"We're very concerned that a nurse died," said Jill Furillo of the California Nurses Association, adding that the death underscores the need for strong infection controls to protect nurses and patients.
Mercy San Juan does not know whether the nurse caught the flu on the job or elsewhere, but it has notified all patients who came in contact with her when she might have been infectious, said hospital spokesman Bryan Gardner.
Karen Ann Hays died July 17 of a severe respiratory infection, pneumonia and H1N1, according to her death certificate. She also had methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a staph infection that is resistant to many antibiotics.
Hays, 51, was a triathlete, skydiver and marathon runner ? and a mom who could listen for hours to minute details of video games that any other adult would tune out, said her 19-year-old son Ian Hays.
"She'd listen to everything," he said. "She basically spent her whole life giving to other people."
Her partner, Dorel Borlovan, believes she probably caught the flu on the job, partly because she was there so much and partly because he was with her the rest of the time, but never became ill.
"Everybody thinks she got it from work," he said.
He described Hays as fit and athletic and said they went regularly to the Sierra to run, cycle and fish. She usually outran him, he said.
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"Influenza, when combined with pneumonia, is the fifth or sixth most common cause of death in the United States every year," said Dr. Stuart Cohen, an infectious disease expert at UC Davis School of Medicine. "You don't want to make this into a panic situation."
At the same time, he said, this flu has a disturbing twist. Even though most people with H1N1 don't get very sick,
the three deaths he has seen were troubling, progressing rapidly from minor symptoms to "total respiratory compromise" within a day.
"I have a healthy respect for this virus," Cohen said. "I graduated from medical school 30 years ago, I'm not a rookie, and these people looked a lot different from the standard flu patients we see who have died."
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http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/2071046.html
