VA Watchdog Stuff
cups, hats, shirts
click here to
support the site





Be sure to get all five
VA Watchdog dot Org
RSS feeds --
Daily VA
News Flashes
House CVA
Veterans' News
Senate CVA
Veterans' News
VA Press
Releases
VSO Press
Releases

Download your
free copy of the
2007 VA benefits
handbook here...

Printer-Friendly Version

BATTLING PAIN, INFECTION AND HIS OWN IMMUNE SYSTEM --

Back at home, Iraq war veteran grapples with mystery illness.

Bill Krawczyk, an Iraqi veteran, suffers from a mysterious illness he may have contracted while in Iraq. He suffers from internal injuries and has chronic MRSA skin infections. (photo: ROB ENGELHARDT / Erie Times-News)

For more about MRSA, use the VA Watchdog search engine...click here... http://www.yourvabenefits.org/sessearch.php?q=mrsa&op=and

Story here... http://www.goerie.com/apps/
pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071210/NEWS02/712100362/-1/NEWS

Story below:

-------------------------

Battling pain

Back at home, war veteran grapples with mystery illness

By David Bruce
david.bruce@timesnews.com

Army Reserve 1st Sgt. Bill Krawczyk was a physical specimen.

Six-foot-one and a rock-solid 183 pounds, Krawczyk, 46, took pride in staying fit.

"He would outlast me on runs, just blow me out of the water," said Krawczyk's 20-year-old son, Billy. "I was 17 years old and I was in really good shape, but his endurance was better than mine, and he was stronger than I was."

That was three years ago. Now Krawczyk walks with a cane and gets so overwhelmed with fatigue that he must lie down to rest every day around noon.

He has seen doctors in Erie, at the Cleveland Clinic and at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., but none of them knows what's wrong with him.

"Bill is the ultimate enigma," said Jan Rothman, M.D., a Regional Cancer Center oncologist and hematologist who has treated Krawczyk. "He's been subjected to a whole battery of tests and biopsies, but we haven't found an answer."

This mystery illness has consumed Krawczyk physically, financially and emotionally.

"There have been days I would just sit and cry," said the 26-year veteran of the Army Reserve. "I would do it during the day, when the rest of my family was gone."

It started as a welt

Krawczyk was serving his second deployment in Iraq in May 2005 when he noticed the welt on his right index finger.

The welt turned into a painful blister, so Krawczyk went to the Balad Air Base's medical clinic. Doctors there opened the blister and drained it.

"I didn't think it was a big deal," Krawczyk said. "They put me on oral antibiotics, and I returned to duty."

A month later, another painful cyst developed on Krawczyk's left hand. Doctors again drained it and sent a sample for testing.

They discovered it was Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a drug-resistant skin infection commonly found on soldiers in Iraq. Krawczyk was given intravenous vancomycin -- one of the most powerful antibiotics.

Despite the vancomycin, Krawczyk developed another cyst on his stomach in December 2005. It was also lanced and drained.

"My tour ended in January 2006, so I came home," Krawczyk said. "I was home about a week when another cyst developed on my left index finger."

No definitive answer

Krawczyk fell into a painful pattern. Skin infections would pop up on various parts of his body, and Erie orthopedic surgeon Patrick Williams, D.O., would lance them and remove all the infection.

MRSA skin infections have become common, but not more than a dozen on the same person, Williams said.

"We'd send biopsies all over the place for people to study, but we never got a definitive answer," Williams said. "It's so frustrating on so many levels. As a surgeon and a physician, our role is to cure people. We haven't been able to do that."

Chronic skin infections weren't Krawczyk's only health problem. His body's own immune system began to betray him.

His body started producing extremely high numbers of T cells, white blood cells used to fight infection. His left arm and right leg swelled to about twice their normal size, making it impossible for Krawczyk to wear any of his pants or long-sleeved shirts.
"My body was fighting an infection, only it didn't know where to fight it," Krawczyk said.

By summer 2006, he felt tired most of the time. He was physically unable to resume his job as a production manager at Alltel.

He spent most days at his home in Erie, looking for answers on the Internet and wondering what was happening to him. Even though his wife, Paula, works, the family has dipped into their savings to pay bills.

"I feel like I have failed," Krawczyk said. "I was a perfectly healthy dad, husband and boss before I went to Iraq."

Perhaps a spider bite

A stack of medical reports 15 inches high sits neatly on a table in Krawczyk's basement.

In those reports, doctors have written that they know Krawczyk's immune system isn't working, but they don't know why.

"We know he got MRSA over in Iraq, but that is secondary to what is really bothering him," said Dennis Scully, M.D., Krawczyk's family physician. "Some doctors think his lymphatic system has been damaged from the infections, but we don't know for sure."

So the testing continues. Krawczyk will visit Walter Reed again in January for more tests and possibly a procedure, and the doctors at the Cleveland Clinic also want to see him again.

Krawczyk has his own theory. He said he believes a spider or some sort of parasite attacked him while he was serving in Iraq. The bite damaged his immune system and made him vulnerable to MRSA.

"Who would have thought that I wouldn't get killed by the enemy, but that I'd be fighting some unknown vector?" Krawczyk asked.

His doctors said a bite or parasite could be a possibility, but there is no evidence of such an incident.

"MRSA infections look like spider bites," Scully said. "Either way, his condition is way past that. His immunological response is not under control, and it could someday start damaging his organs."

He wants answers

The physical pain is tough, but the emotional toll of this mystery disease is worse, Krawczyk said.

Some people don't believe he really is sick, and others are reluctant to visit him because he has MRSA, Krawczyk said. A friend who underwent joint-replacement surgery was told by his doctor not to visit Krawczyk until the incision healed because of the infection risk.

"How do you think that makes me feel?" Krawczyk asked. "I don't want to give MRSA to my friends, my family."

The good news is that some of Krawczyk's most recent cysts weren't infected with MRSA, Scully said. It's probably due to the fact that Krawczyk has been taking vancomycin constantly since August.

"We check his blood levels regularly to make sure the vancomycin doesn't damage his liver or kidneys," Scully said. "We're also concerned that the MRSA eventually grows resistant to it. We don't have many antibiotics to fight off MRSA."

Krawczyk still suffers constant pain, and his arm and leg remain swollen. The solder who used to run five miles now has difficulty climbing stairs.

He doesn't want to hear more problems. He wants answers.

"This is my life, all this," Krawczyk said. "I try to get out for a least a little bit every day, but some days it's really difficult. What's next? I don't know."

DAVID BRUCE can be reached at 870-1736 or by e-mail.

-------------------------

Larry Scott  --

Don't forget to read all of today's VA News Flashes (click here)

Click here to make VA Watchdog dot Org your homepage

email Larry

(go back to VA Watchdog dot Org Home Page)

VA Watchdog Stuff
cups, hats, shirts
click here to
support the site