A 75-year-old woman in hospice care had no fever, no pain, no burning, no change in her mental status. What she had was a catheter bag full of urine the color of deep indigo.
Her hospice physician examined her, found nothing wrong, and ordered no tests. Two months later, the color was still there. A nursing home practitioner ordered a urinalysis, started an oral antibiotic, and sent a culture. Those culture results triggered a course of intramuscular ertapenem, a broad-spectrum carbapenem. The purple faded. A month after that it returned, and she got another carbapenem.
