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EVELETH—Dave Chida
went to the emergency room on a Sunday afternoon in April with a mysterious
4-inch-round swelling on his back near his left armpit.
By Sunday night it
was the size of a hot dog bun. By Monday afternoon the swelling had spread
to his neck, chest, back and hip. That night doctors removed a
20-by-14-inch section of decaying skin and tissue.
And Chida is alive
to tell about it.
The 46-year-old Fayal Township man was diagnosed with a “flesh-eating
disease’’ with the strange-sounding name of "necrotizing fasciitis,"
pronounced neck-row-tize-ing fash-e-i-tis. It is a decaying infection of
the body’s soft tissue caused by the same bacteria that causes strep
throat.
To help defray
expenses not covered by health insurance, a benefit is being held today
from 3 to 7 p.m. at the Range
Recreation Civic
Center in Eveleth.
The benefit includes a rigatoni dinner, a silent auction and entertainment.
The cost is $6. Contributions can also be sent to the Dave Chida Benefit
Fund at Miners National Bank in Eveleth.
Chida even jokes
about it now, but for 37 days he hung between life and death, amazing even
the staff at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Duluth.
“The moral of the story is don’t get necrotizing fasciitis. If you get a
choice between a trip to Europe and the
disease, take the trip,’’ he said with a smile.
That’s almost what
happened. Chida and his sisters were planning a trip to Ireland, but
his plans changed and he’s glad they did. The disease came on “out of the
blue.’’
Doctors think it
might be related to Chida cutting his thumb opening a can of water
chestnuts. It was a deep cut, but he didn’t get stitches and the bacteria
may have entered his system through the open wound. A short while later he
tore the rotator cuff muscles on his left shoulder, and that “provided a
location inside for the host bacteria’’ to do their work.
His teenage son
saw the swollen area and asked his father about it. Soon Chida and wife
Katie were at the Virginia
Regional Medical
Center emergency
room. His blood pressure had plummeted and his heart was racing. Doctors
planned an MRI for Monday morning, but the condition worsened and Dr.
Robert Rutka recommended a transfer to St. Mary’s, where he was diagnosed
that same day. “Dr. Rutka was superb, at St. Mary’s they were top-notch.
They’re the reason I pulled through.’’
Chida would spend
the next four weeks in intensive care in an induced coma, with at least 20 intravenous
bags, including medications to produce anesthesia to help him through the
pain. “They were surprised I even made it to Duluth, my blood pressure was so low,’’
Chida said. But he remembers everything about the trip down Highway 53, which
he had driven every day to his civil engineering job in Superior, Wis.
He remembers the ambulance crew chief telling the dispatcher his blood
pressure was 70/30 and the dispatcher expressing disbelief.
“They were
surprised he made it through surgery,’’ said his wife.
“The nurse said
five times he thought I was going to check out,’’ said Chida. “All in all,
it was not really a great spring for me.’’
He had three
surgeries in all. The first was to remove the dying flesh and bandage the
incision in such a way to allow healing from the inside out. “They didn’t
know if they were going to take more off, it grows so fast,’’ Chida said.
The second surgery
was to remove damaged muscle from his back. The third was skin grafting.
Doctors peeled a thin layer of skin from his left thigh, slit it to allow
it to stretch and placed it over the open wound under his left arm,
attaching it with more than 100 staples.
“I was one of the luckier
ones,’’ Chida said, because he survived with limbs intact—and with his
life. “A lot will have arms and legs cut off.’’ Another man with the same
disease died while Chida was in the hospital. Chida praised his family for
staying by his side through the ordeal. He thanked doctors and nurses,
family and friends. “All I did was lay in bed and not die.’’
The pain is
lessening each day as the wound heals and as wife Katie, a physical
therapist, cares for him. “She found a couple staples they missed,’’ he
joked.
There are
after-effects, including lymphedema (swelling) in his left arm, much as one
might experience after a mastectomy. He sleeps much of the day and can’t
drive because of the pain medication. He says he’s making a fashion
statement with the loose-fitting hospital pajama pants and sandals he swore
he’d never wear. Doctors told him he would experience the stages one goes
through after a death in the family because he has lost his health. And now
instead of being in the hospital, “I’m cooped up at home with three crazy
kids,’’ he said with a laugh.
“There’s nothing
you can do’’ about necrotizing fasciitis, Chida said. “It (Strep A
bacteria) is all over. The stars are lined up against you.’’ The disease is
not contagious. It is fast-moving and it is often misdiagnosed as the flu
and then it’s too late.
Chida was one of
the lucky ones. “I tell people every day is better than the last.’’
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