Hi, my name is John Baumgardner. Five years ago, I found out that I had internal MRSA, which almost killed me the first time after being on intubation for 21 days. I spent the next three months in the hospital on vancomycin, which is a strong antibiotic that eventually allowed me to get better. They sent me home on another antibiotic, and as soon as the antibiotic ran out, one week later, I was back in the hospital with the same symptoms. This time, they found MRSA all around my hip joint and vertebrae, where all the tendons had been eaten up by the MRSA that connects my hip to my vertebrae. They sent me to UVA hospital, and they performed surgery that went very well, but because of all the hospitalization, I could not walk for the second time. I taught myself how to walk again, and they left me on the antibiotic for the rest of my life to keep the MRSA at bay.
I went on for a while and was having some problems and went to see my doctor. He said that we had some screws loose in my back that they needed to take care of. I went back to UVA, and they immediately admitted me and found out that I had COVID-19, so I had to go on a 10-day isolation. While in isolation, suddenly I lost all feeling in my legs and my right arm. I was paralyzed except for my left arm and my head. They did more tests and found that I had MRSA in my brain and inside my spinal cord, along with all the other places they had found previously. The doctor there told me that they had missed it in the past and that it had been there for a while.
So, while waiting for hopefully antibiotics to get me well, I was having problems going to the bathroom and went three weeks begging the doctor there to let me get an X-ray or something because they were just doing the remedies with no luck. I told the doctor I was worried about my intestines perforating. He laughed at me and said that I was worrying too much. That night, my intestines perforated, and I almost died had it not been for three surgeons that worked hard on me all night long. Now, I have a colostomy bag. Finally, after three months at UVA hospital, they sent me home still paralyzed, but eventually, I started getting movement in my right arm and my legs, but not 100%.
I’ve had many, many problems after this and hospitalizations for infections. At one time in Maryview hospital, the nurse pulled out my Foley catheter without fully deflating the balloon. This caused terrible interior damage, so now I have it permanently. I had a surgery last January where they had to take my intestines back out and remove the scar tissue. It was a six and a half hour surgery, and when they took me off the respirator, I would not breathe on my own, so they had to leave me on it for the next four months in ICU until finally, I was able to breathe on my own. During surgery, they nicked my pancreas, and because I was such a high-risk patient, no one would touch me. But my brother and a lot of his students prayed for me, and the Lord healed me of that problem.
So now, I am in a nursing home trying to learn how to walk again and need help so that I can get my own place with my wife of 26 years.
