Sort of OT but not completely...

There are two things going around the town I live in and I'm afraid of both of them, especially after just having surgery:

Staph infections - I didn't even know these could spread as easily as they do.  Some boy on the football team got a staph infection and during practice has spread it to about 5 other boys.  The coaches are just having the boys put 4x4s on the wounds and practicing like normal.  Obviously this isn't working since another boy went to the ER last night with a staph infection.  Both of my boys are on this football team and both have open cuts, abrasions, etc from football.  Any ideas on how to keep all of us safe besides pulling them from football?

Mono - There are some cases of mono in the high school, which I'm not too worried about since my oldest had mono last summer and my youngest best be keeping his lips to himself...LOL.  My daughter has been sick for about 3 weeks with swollen lymphnodes all over her body and they are waiting for any one of them to get a certain size so they can biopsy it.  She has tested negative for mono twice but I still worry.  Any ideas on what this could be.  You can feel her lymphnodes in her neck, arm pits, arms, stomach, groin, knees, ankles, and now along her spine.  It's crazy and the docs really have no clue but they don't want to biopsy them until they are big enough to get to without digging too much.

Thanks for any info,

Wow, that has to scare you. I hope all your kids are ok.

Staph is everywhere. Chances are part of the problem is inadequate disinfecting of equipment compounded with delayed and/or inadequate wound cleaning and protection.

For YOUR protection you need to keep yourself scrupulously clean, never EVER touch your wound area without freshly washed and preferably gloved hands, and just generally follow all the rules for preventing germ spreading.

Mono is mostly spread by direct contact with body fluids but not always. Just about any kind of inflammation can cause nodes to swell. Mono can also take a while to show up on testing. What do her tests for general inflammation, such as WBC and sed rate, show?

Your boys should be using wound wash saline with gloves -- you can get it at walmart, walgreen etc.   and washing hands-- not sharing towels etc.  They should clean their helmets, pads as much as possible. 

Just being super clean helps, washing clothing, bedding -  reminding your boys to wash their hands before eating and cleaning their wounds.  Staff is everywhere but they can take simple precautions.
Good luck - what a mess they have there in the locker room!

Hijack!

JJ, I've been thinking about you, but just haven't been feeling well enough to sit very long at the 'puter.
How are you doing and how has your recovery gone?  I pray you've done well, let me know how you're doing.

I have to ask if they have tested your daughter using the Epstein bar test. I had mono back about 8 years ago and I picked it up from working as a cashier in a grocery store, there was no lip smooching going on in my case to busy trying to make a living and being a single mama at the time. The quick tests for mono always turned up negative for me. They finally did the Epstein bar after I had been sick for over a month fighting strep throat and sinus infections which come along with mono. The test took 2 weeks to get back but it confirmed that I did indeed have mono. By that point I was finally feeling better. So ask if they did the Epstein bar test yet its a simple blood draw.

I'm pretty sure they are using the quick test on her because we're in a very rural area and we still had the results within 2 hours.

I'll see if I can get them to do the other test.  Her WBC was a little high so they put her on antibiotics and now they are normal.  Everything else seems normal as well.

My youngest came home with a note from school stating that he had what appears to be a staph infection so he'll be seeing the doc tomorrow.  Until then I had him disinfect it and double up a 4 x 4 over it with medical tape.  One of my incisions was looking a little red today so they put me on Cipro so I imagine I'm pretty covered but I'll definitely be sure to be careful.