Developing secondary pneumonia after COVID 19

[GiaFaith]

Well here I am again. After fighting off the ventilator for 17 days, recovering and coming home, my mom has wound up back in the hospital 2 weeks later with bacterial pneumonia in her right lung 😢 They are currently using a chest tube to drain fluid out of her lung but it is draining slowly indicating that the fluid is getting stuck in the alveoli. She is on antibiotics and the chest tube is in for at least a few days. Please tell me someone else has experienced this? I am losing hope again 😔

[Sepsur]

Unfortunately we are very susceptible to picking up opportunist infection after ICU. Thankfully it sounds like your Mom is getting the robust treatment. I have a type of leukaemia- so infections have become part of my life - some take me to hospital - more importantly I have survived all of them thanks to great medical intervention

[GiaFaith in reply to Sepsur]

Thank you Sepsur for the reassurance. I hope things start improving. It feels like the doctors are unsure of what to do next because they have not come across this situation before so I am praying they figure it out soon 🙏🏻

[FamilyHistorian]

Lung infections are many and variable and often require different treatments. Whilst in ICU I was constantly fighting them off drains and different antibiotics. When I went home I was lucky in that I only got a mild infection which was treated straight away with ordinary antibiotics. In fact I have since been given a script just in case!

[GiaFaith in reply to FamilyHistorian]

Thank you for the reply! What a nightmare! I am glad you overcame all of the infections. I can’t help but think she had this infection before leaving the hospital since she was complaining about the same symptoms but they refused to do a chest xray or ct scan to check out her lungs before leaving since her oxygen levels were fine...I guess they want to kick people out as soon as possible. Now 2 weeks later the fluid has accumulated to 75% of her right lung...the drain has only reduced it to 50%. Hopefully the antibiotics kick in and do their job. Not sure how long chest drains are usually kept in for before they look at other avenues of treatment. It is all a mystery to me.

[FamilyHistorian in reply to GiaFaith]

My drains had to be managed and further ones put in. But sounds as if things are working. They may have to do further tests on the contents and it can take a few days or more to get the results back.

[GiaFaith in reply to FamilyHistorian]

Good to know! I guess I need more patience, it has only been a day. Very anxious to see what happens over the weekend. They did do some testing on the fluid and I think they will be doing more to see if there is a different antibiotic that will work better. It just scared me when the doctor was talking about talking to a thoracic surgeon to see what else they can do. I am hoping she doesn’t need anything invasive given her current weak state. 🤞🏻 🙏🏻