C. diff affects us all.

In January of 2008, my Grandmother was placed in the hospital for kidney failure. Watching my Grandmother wither away to almost nothing was a huge strain on my heart, especially after learning about what she was struggling with. We were always visiting my Grandmother, at least twice a week, and never took any sanitary precautions when we came to see her… As far as we were concerned, we never had to. My Grandmother unfortunately died about 9…

As told by her daughters Eileen Magnavito and Mary Schultz In May of 2008, our mother Regina – Jean to her friends and family – was admitted to the hospital for open heart surgery. During the surgery, the doctors nicked an artery, so she had to go back in for a second surgery to repair the nick. She came out of both surgeries very well, and the doctors kept telling us how great she looked and that she was getting better. What we didn’t know…

I was asked over a year ago to write my “story” related to C. diff. I have avoided this task because it brings back many frightening and distressing memories. It is not so much my story as it is OUR story, for without my husband, Peter, and his acute ability to synthesize information and develop a plan, I would not be here to tell the story, and without our daughter, Lily, our story wouldn’t have happened. I am a chiropractor who has…

My sister and I lost our mother, Teresa Mustain, on March 7th, 2013. She was 57 and had been battling C. diff since October 2011. We were not surprised when she finally passed away, but shocked nonetheless. Her health continuously declined from that first bout. Mom was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia back in 1992. She was also diabetic. My mother was in and out of the hospital several times in the last 18 months. They’d rehydrate her, give her…

As told by their mother, Angela. My children, now ten and eight, were only five and two-and-a-half when my nightmare with C. diff started. My son was constantly sick as a baby with ear infections once a month. Since my pediatrician never believed in letting them heal themselves, and I didn’t press strongly against the idea, my son got prescriptions for each infection. In June 2008, my son had an ear infection, as did my daughter. To…

I was a healthy, 39 year old man who was loving life, traveling the world and working my dream job until a trip to China started a downhill spiral that continues today. In 2004, on a business trip in China when I developed abdominal cramping and diarrhea. Thinking it was a traveler’s illness, I took some Cipro and continued my work. I had been teaching a course for physicians in a Shanghai hospital, nowhere near any patient treatment areas. …

I developed Clostridium difficile in response to being given two antibiotics (known to often induce C. diff) in rapid succession. Having had C. diff before, I knew immediately what was happening, but not a single doctor I asked to test for this infection did–not even the Gastroenterologist who was following me for other unidentified problems. When I had a colonoscopy during this siege, the characteristic raised, yellow C. diff plaques were…

Shared by her daughter, Evelyn Adams, R.N. Arlene M. Stone, who we lovingly called “Arnie”, was a spunky, 87 year old great-grandmother. She was widowed at age 34 and was left to raise a four year old daughter alone. She returned to teaching elementary school for nearly thirty-five years and then enjoyed retirement helping to raise her 3 grandchildren. She loved to travel, was active in her church and taught Sunday school with her oldest…

In April of 2005, I entered the hospital as an extremely healthy woman in my late thirties, pregnant with my second son. I left the hospital 80 days later–minus my colon–after 21 days on life support, five surgeries, five weeks in the ICU, and one month in the Sub-ICU, all as a result of an antibiotic-related infection of Clostridium difficile. In that time, I actually had two events of C.diff. I entered the hospital while pregnant because I…