A couple of months ago, I took care of a patient who was admitted to the hospital after elective surgery. He went to the SICU after his surgery (because of the surgery that he underwent, not because he wasn't doing well), was quickly extubated and did great for the first four days.
On post-op day 5, the patient developed a high fever (105 degrees F) and cough. He quickly developed progressive respiratory failure and had to be intubated. Testing confirmed that he had H1N1 influenza.
His chest x-ray looked like the one above. The patient further developed a secondary pneumonia that eventually grew several bacteria, fungi and even another virus.
Eventually, the patient had to be placed on ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) in an attempt to maintain his oxygenation because his lungs were just too sick to provide adequate gas exchange. This patient, unfortunately, did not survive.
In an related story, one of my colleagues took care of a young pregnant lady in the ED who came in with progressive respiratory failure, had to be intubated and went into premature labor. She delivered a still-born fetus and was admitted to the MICU. Imagine seeing an OB, MICU, Pulmonary, Cardiology, Vascular Surgery and ED attending with their respective entourages trying to figure out what to do with this patient.
Above is a graph published by the CDC. The full report can be found here. This report details the number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths attributed to H1N1 between April and mid-November 2009. By far, people younger than 65 are much more affected by this particular virus.
It looks like, at least at this point, we have surpassed the second peak of the virus. Some experts, however, expect another peak to occur as we approach what is typically the worst of flu season.
The moral of the story is this: if you have young children, get them vaccinated. If you are <65, you should get yourself vaccinated. That's my PSA for the day.
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