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Stephanie Spoor has lived with lupus for three decades. But after suffering from heart failure and being infected with a recent epidemic of a deadly mushroom, she survived less than two months.
Spoor, of Crystal Lake, died in February at the age of 64 while waiting for a lung transplant. She was infected Candida auris, health officials and medical records were confirmed, so she did not get a transplant. The disease quickly appeared in the Chicago area and elsewhere in the country, striking patients in retirement homes and hospitals with invasive medical procedures.
The members of Spoor's family are still trying to overcome the shock of his death. They are convinced that she has received excellent medical care at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. But they worry that she can not be cured of the infection because she was resistant to traditional antifungal medications. And they would like the state to disclose which facilities have cases of illness so that patients can take protective measures against it.
"They absolutely could not do anything once everything was in place," said Stephanie Spoor's husband, Greg. "They tried a lot of things at different doses. This is not a problem that anyone has taken lightly. "
Officials are cautious about the appearance of a deadly fungus in the Chicago area. Here is what you need to know about Candida auris. "
At the last count in February, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 617 people were infected throughout the country. Of these, 158 were in Illinois, the vast majority in the Chicago area. The fungus is often resistant to drug treatment. More than one in three patients die within one month of infection, the CDC said.
Spoor was the mother of four sons and a grandmother who had retired from preschool education for about 30 years in the federal Head Start program. Before his sudden slowdown, Spoor was relatively healthy and ran several miles a day despite lupus, an autoimmune disorder in which the body's defenses attacked his own tissues.
Last fall, Spoor had a serious sinus infection that she could not shake. She was admitted to Barrington's Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital emergency room in November before being sent to the northwest in December, said one of her sons, Nicholas.
There, the doctors performed a lung biopsy, but because of complications, said Nicholas Spoor, she had three cardiac arrests and had to undergo life-saving treatment. She had a tracheostomy tube in the throat and was connected by tubes to an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation device, or ECMO, to pump and oxygenate her blood.
Doctors initially stated that the strain of the fungus present at the hospital was receptive to drugs, but that it was resistant to antifungal agents.
The medical records from the hospital that the family shared showed that Spoor had Candida auris. A notation called "diligent" precautions to prevent its spread and emphasized in bold that it was "a highly transmissible mushroom with a tendency to develop resistance".
Stephanie Spoor had hoped to live to see her son Zack getting married in June. When it became clear that she would not succeed, the family decided to have the chaplain celebrate the wedding ceremony at the bedside of her hospital. She was able to attend the ceremony, which Nicholas said was comforting her a few days before her death.
Because her condition was deteriorating with no hope of healing, the doctors and her family decided to withdraw support from her life so that her last hours were more comfortable, which she agreed, said Nicholas.
"She took it better than us," he said. "She said that she was tired. She was unhappy about missing our life, but she seemed to accept it.
On February 11, Stephanie Spoor was removed from her survival system and died shortly thereafter. With the permission of the family, officials from the Illinois Department of Public Health confirmed Candida auris.
login C. auris It is essential to know what steps to take to control it in a health care environment, reported the CDC. The fungus can colonize patients for several months, persist in the environment and withstand many disinfectants commonly used in health facilities.
Nicholas Spoor called the loss of his mother "devastating". But he hoped that lessons would be learned to cure and prevent the disease.
"Hopefully, over time, no one else will have to endure what my mother and family have gone through to find a cure," he said.
In particular, Nicholas Spoor said that he hoped that Illinois would lift its ban on disclosing the names of infected establishments. Officials from the Illinois Department of Public Health said they were hiding this information in order not to reveal the identity of infected people in these facilities – although such disclosure does not disclose would not identify individuals.
The death certificate of Stephanie Spoor indicates that her cause of death is a lung disease and respiratory failure, not to mention Candida auris. Officials say that it is sometimes difficult to determine if a patient has died from infection or an earlier condition. Northwest officials would not comment on the case.
"The secret is not a way to treat a disease," said Nicholas Spoor. "One would think that the way our country has managed the AIDS epidemic would have taught us."
Stephanie Spoor's husband, Greg, works for a company that makes plumbing for public bathrooms. Although he insists on the need to wash his hands after going to the bathroom, many people do not, he said.
He wondered how the virus had traveled from the other side of the world, from Asia in 2009 to Illinois in 2016. He hoped that further steps could be taken to identify the mushroom and keep it away from patients.
"I lost my wife, it hurts more than anything," he said. "It's not a question of fixing the blame. It's more about trying to be more preventive than reactive. "
Twitter @RobertMcCoppin
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