A 69-Year-Old Woman Presenting to the Hospital With 48 Hours of Abdominal Pain and Diarrhea

A 69-year-old woman presents to the emergency department with diarrhea and abdominal pain. She notes that she was well until yesterday when she began to note vague stomach discomfort and loose watery stools every hour. She initially attributed this to “something she ate”; however, symptoms worsened overnight. Several hours before coming to the emergency department, she was only able to drink small amounts of fluids, which she quickly vomited up. During the next few hours her diarrhea and abdominal pain worsened, and she noted a small amount of blood in her stool.

Abbreviations used in this paper: ICU, intensive care unit, IVIG, intravenous immunoglobulin, SHEA, Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America