A Difficile Illness

There are so many scary things that can happen, even in our mostly safe society. Today I was reading about C. difficile, a bacterial infection that used to affect mostly the elderly, but is now showing up in otherwise healthy people. Suddenly it's causing illnesses that are really severe, even fatal, and that can't be cured with antibiotics. Last year a healthy 31-year-old woman who was pregnant with twins contracted a C. difficile infection, and died. Her only "mistake" was taking a generic antibiotic for a urinary tract infection a few months earlier (taking antibiotics increases the risk of developing this infection). What a terrible thing to have happen, and how awful it must have been for her family. In another case, a 10-year-old girl was hospitalized and almost died. She hadn't even taken antibiotics. Another 35-year-old woman has been incapacitated for months with an infection that isn't responding to treatment.

A bacterial illness is a spectacularly scary and unusual way to die; I should probably be worrying more about car accidents, cancer, and heart disease, the big killers in this country. They're just as seemingly inexplicable, striking without warning. I wish there were things you could do to stay safe.

Maybe I am just worrying because spending all that time with loved ones over the holidays made me feel so close and so fiercely protective of my family. I've heard it said of enormous grief that you get through it, because you have to, there is no alternative. But if anything happened to my parents, my brother, or my fiance, I don't know how I would manage.