A case or two

I can't stress enough how strange and interesting are the cases I see here every day. Probably kind of boring for most folks, but I wanted a record of what I had seen. Here's a brief run-through of a few patients on our ward right now.

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Typical TB patient being treated for about 3 weeks turns yellow, gets nauseous and shows up at the hospital. Lab tests confirmed our suspicion of a drug reaction, so all TB meds were stopped and we're waiting for his symptoms to improve before restarting.
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26 year old with fever & chills off and on for about a month. Enlarged liver & spleen. Initially responded to treatment for malaria despite a negative blood smear, but fevers returned every couple days. CT of the abdomen was bland. We still don't really know what's going on with him, but are suspicious for malaria resistant to chloroquines.
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Snake-bite patient came in, but other than a little pain, he's done well. No massive necrosis or infection.
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A 16 year old kid supposedly kicked a soccer ball a week or two ago and developed an ulcer and subsequently and necrotizing skin infection. My friend working in the lab cultured out Pseudomonas, a bacteria that is really rare in healthy patients. This kid's foot looks pretty bad now, but it should be getting better over the next couple days.
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We have a couple patients with HIV & some type of secondary infection. One is a 22 year old with Kaposi sarcoma and meningitis. Another, a middle-aged guy with cryptococcal encephalitis that isn't doing so hot. The third is actually comatose and found down by the police. We're presuming he has meningoencephalitis tuberculosis. Tragic patients to work with really.
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Also had a fascinating/terrible case of leptospirosis with scleral hemorrhage, liver failure, kidney failure, hypocalcemic contractures and ridiculous amounts of jaundice. With this severity, it's called Weil's syndrome. He's actually doing better now too.

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Occasionally we get consults from other departments, this time it was peds. The patient was a 24 day old baby born in a village to a mom with malaria. She became deathly ill and was taken to the hospital while the baby stayed at home with grandma. Mom got better, but at 21 days, the baby caught fever, his blood pressure dropped and he was taken to the hospital. The typical test for malaria here is a blood smear, which is rated on a scale of 1 to 4 pluses. This kid had a 4 plus blood smear, a ridiculous amount. With the timing and the level of parasite load, it is almost a guaranteed case of congenital malaria, an incredibly rare occurrence. My attending had never seen such high levels and will be submitting a paper to describe the case, as it is rare even with low levels. They have designed a treatment regimen here that seems to be working and the baby was much better today.