Posted: April 9 2008 2 a.m. EDT
Kassandra Conner, a 15-year-old teenager living in Bureau County, Ill., had what her mother thought was a spider bite on her arm. The wound didn’t heal, however, and turned into a boil, so Cathy Conner made an appointment with a physician. Doctors diagnosed Kassandra with MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a variation of the staph bacterium that is resistant to treatment with antibiotics.
“I was just horrified,” Cathy Conner told the WQAD Channel 8 News (Illinois). “I was scared to death because I heard it’s out there, but now it’s in my backyard.”
Once diagnosed, Kassandra was treated for the infection and is now recovering. Her daughter’s diagnosis, however, led Cathy Conner’s thoughts to the family cat, Chloe. The calico had suffered from a skin disorder for weeks, and veterinarians were stumped. Cathy decided to have the cat tested for MRSA, and the test returned positive.
Both the teenager and cat are expected to recover but are susceptible to recurrence of the infection.