By Alfonso A. Castillo
alfonso.castillo@newsday.com
When the tiny, irritated bump first arrived on her left leg on Aug. 10, Melissa Shannon wrote it off as an ingrown hair.
But just 24 hours later, the Melville teen knew that this was something else.
"I've had ingrown hairs before, but this was just too painful," said Shannon, 18, a freshman at Nassau Community College. "I couldn't walk."
Five weeks and four agonizingly painful leg boils later, Shannon said she was diagnosed with MRSA -- the so called "super bug" that has been contracted by students in at least nine school districts. A 12-year-old middle school student in Brooklyn and a 17-year-old Virginia high school senior died this month after contracting a MRSA infection.
Health officials have urged residents not to panic, saying there is no MRSA outbreak and that the infections are treatable.
Medical officials who treated Shannon either declined to comment, citing privacy laws, or did not return calls.
Although Shannon completely recovered from the infection before it began making national headlines earlier this month, she and her mother, Linda (at left with Melissa in photo), say they now realize how close they may have come to tragedy.
"We had no clue," said Linda Shannon, 47. "If I knew then what it was, I would have brought her in [to the hospital] right away. And that's what I'm hoping other people do."
Instead, Linda Shannon said she initially treated the first boil on her daughter's leg like parents might do most stubborn pimples -- she popped it about a week after it first appeared. Linda estimated draining about a quarter-cup of pus. A week after the first boil appeared, a second one followed, and then a third -- all on her daughter's left leg. Linda Shannon kept popping and draining.
When the fourth boil appeared, the Shannon women decided to leave it alone. Within a week it had swollen to the circumference of a "baseball," Melissa said. The redness surrounding the infected area nearly wrapped around her entire thigh. "It got really hard and really hot," said Melissa Shannon, adding that even the slightest contact made her cringe in pain.
Linda Shannon took her daughter to see her doctor at the Queens Long Island Medical Group in Hicksville who said it was likely an infected ingrown hair, the Shannons said. Melissa was prescribed some ointment and allergy medication as well as the antibiotic amoxicillin.
"It got worse," said the younger Shannon, who recalled having trouble sleeping because of the shooting pain in her leg, walking with a limp, and having to keep her leg elevated while seated.
"I was concerned that the infection would spread to her heart," her mom said. "So I thought, 'I've got to take her to the emergency room -- now."
Medical staffers at the urgent care department at Queens Long Island Medical Group immediately lanced the boil, causing Melissa the most excruciating pain she could recall. She was admitted the next day to the North Shore University Hospital. After treating her with two different antibiotics to no avail, doctors began intravenously administering the antibiotic clindamycin. The infection began healing, Melissa Shannon said.
Three days after she was admitted into the hospital, Melissa Shannon was positively diagnosed with MRSA. Melissa left the hospital a day later with a bottle cap-sized crater in her leg that she said some mistook for a gunshot wound. But the boils never returned.
Although Melissa Shannon said she's come down with infections before, both mom and daughter said they can't figure out how Melissa contracted MRSA. They advise young people and their parents to seek medical attention for any apparent "pimple" that is more irritated and swelling more rapidly than usual. And, by all means, avoid draining the boils and releasing the toxins without medical supervision.
"I read now about how it's so bad and people are panicking over it," Linda Shannon said. "I was swimming in the stuff for weeks."
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