This wasn't thought of in the ER, it was an idea that my wife brought up to her neurologist 7 days after she entered the hospital.
How often does one experience the symptoms of bacterial meningitis for 7 days and survive?
You don't.
Once you get bacterial meningitis, you are dead meat unless you get adequate treatment fast. Even then, the disease is still dangerous.
What must be kept in mind, however, is that Mother Nature is an evil Mother and things are not always as they seem.
A child may start out with a viral pneumonia that later sets him up for a bacterial pneumonia on top of that.
Likewise, a child may start out with a run-of-the-mill flu that later makes him more susceptible to get a bacterial meningitis.
I spend my working days trying to outguess that evil Mother.
Is that narrowed sigmoid colon on the CT really just diverticulitis or is there a colon carcinoma hiding in there?
Is that still a viral pneumonia in that kid or has he developed a superimposed bacterial pneumonia?
Is that 80 year old hiding a pneumonia under that congestive heart failure?
If the pneumonia in the 60 year old a simple pneumonia or a post obstructive pneumonia caused by a lung cancer now hidden by the pneumonia?