Sorry about your friend. Amputation has always been a horrible fear for me. I try to live an active life - I go to gym regularly, I drive bicycle, bike. I snowboard. Damn even driving a car with manual... Everything would be cut short if amputation would have to be done.. It's scary
how bad luck can escalate quickly and painfully.
as far as this goes - it's actually crazy how accurate this is. Such small little things can lead to huge disasters if you don't attend to them. There is also a bacteria that people started talking about in my city. Several people have died from it already - forgot the name, but it is in the water. Again - absolutely harmless just sitting there. BUT if the water isn't either cold enough or hot enough it tends to multiply, stick to the plumbing and if you either drink it or inhale it through steam you could easily die. With cold weather coming people where reminded to use tap often and if going away for a longer periods to open tap on hot water for some time so all of the pipes can heat up to get rid of bacteria.
But if you come home from a weeklong trip and jump instantly in the shower, there is a chance to inhale the bacteria which can cause enormous problems. As I understood it's even treatable, but you don't know you have it even.
Or even bacteria in the sea ... Just have a little cut on your foot and if you happen to get flesh eating bacteria you might end up with amputated feet. It's scary.
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Legionella as MSKOTOR commented
We had warnings about it in Riga, Latvia.
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Also, one more comment about the amputation - the thing is, with modern prosthetics, it's not that scary - you can still live that active live.
The catch here is money - good quality prostheses that do allow you to go back to live are crazy expensive
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Yup. While there are great choices out there they cost so crazy it's unattainable for many. I don't even know where I'd start to get that kind of money - living in eastern Europe our average salary (yearly) is around 15k before tax. Google says that top tier leg prosthetic can go as high as 70k .... Maybe it's more civilized in Europe with healthcare not being a business and insurance being better. But I haven't had any experience with it though. Thankfully.
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I've been trying to research it a bit (the costs, not the Legionella) and while public healthcare can be of some help it's usually along the way of public will get you some prosthesis but nothing advanced (at least in Poland my homecountry), and with weak currency the price of high quality - like actual mobile prosthetics, not something more describable as a peg-leg is prohibitive.
Each country and it's healthcare system has it's own problems I guess...
(I do miss polish public HC though)
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Legionella
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/legionellosis
The bacteria live and grow in water systems at temperatures of 20 to 50 degrees Celsius (optimal 35 degrees Celsius). Legionella can survive and grow as parasites within free-living protozoa and within biofilms which develop in water systems. They can cause infections by infecting human cells using a similar mechanism to that used to infect protozoa.
.
The most common form of transmission of Legionella is inhalation of contaminated aerosols from contaminated water. Sources of aerosols that have been linked with transmission of Legionella include air conditioning cooling towers, hot and cold water systems, humidifiers and whirlpool spas. Infection can also occur by aspiration of contaminated water or ice, particularly in susceptible hospital patients, and by exposure of babies during water births. To date, there has been no reported direct human-to-human transmission.
That's why hot water pipes should have at least 60 degrees. Places like public shower rooms are regularly tested if this bacteria is present there.
https://www.cdc.gov/legionella/about/history.html
Legionella was discovered after an outbreak in 1976 among people who went to a Philadelphia convention of the American Legion. Those who were affected suffered from a type of pneumonia that eventually became known as Legionnaires’ disease.
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Ah yes, thanks. This is the one I was talking about :)
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sometimes we forget how much fragile we really are , one day your doing fine and next day your either blind or got no arms and legs ;/
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Dang, didn't read the thread till today. This needs more attention, thanks for letting us know, I hope your friend can recover without many issues. I remember someone in my city a couple of years ago dying from a bacteria in ham, cannot talk properly about the context but it was shocking.
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Hi SGers,
I wanted to share an unfortunately sad story about how bad luck can escalate quickly and painfully.
my wife's friend from work (they were both drivers for a rental car company) had to visit a hospital for some routine procedure.
I can ever remember what it was, but it's of little consequence.
What is of consequence is that he came back with a slight Staphylococcus infection in his foot.
Staph is a very common bacteria, 20% to 30% of people have it somewhere, and it's fine.
As long as you're heathy, have access to real food, you're probably won't even notice it's there.
But you can have bad luck - you can get an antibiotic-resistant strain, you can get it not diagnosed early enough
For my friend Shawn, this small but infected wound festered up and he ended with had his left leg amputated six months ago
Which got him stuck in a wheelchair and dependent on his friends to get him groceries and drive him to the wound clinic.
Because, the other leg has similar infection still.
If not treated properly will, it may lead to another amputation.
And it all happens in US, where, while medical care is supposed to be professional, if often is subpar, especially compared to its cost
(medical bills can, and often are, throwing people into literal bankruptcy)
I've made a small train with this month HB Choice games to help spread the message.
If you'd be so kind to spread the message, you can find more details on my steam profile
Update 1/4/2023:
I woke up to a notification that our fundraiser got a first donation from a kind stranger.
I have no way of knowing if it was inspired by this thread, but if it did, thank you so much!
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