Sudden Paralysis

Community
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[FONT=“Georgia”]Hello.

In-between my regular clients, there’s a charity’s website I administer and we recently got an e-mail by a man asking us to build him a wheelchair ramp.

I responded, and as I started getting more details, his story unfolded itself as being very strange indeed. A visit to his home on Sunday made it all the more curious.

You know that Trinidad and Tobago is a twin-island state, right?

It seems that eight years ago, the man was a healthy, self-sufficient, engineer working on a contract in Tobago.

One day, he came down with what seemed to be a cold, accompanied with headaches in the back of his head. His cold persisted for over a week, prompting him to see a doctor in Tobago and, not getting any answers there, he was referred to a doctor in Trinidad.

He boarded a plane heading to Trinidad sometime later. Came in. Sat down. The stewardess asked him to move a couple seats down, and right then he discovered that he couldn’t!

Today he’s a quadriplegic.

The cause of his quadriplegia is a brainstem disorder, but it’s not certain (or at least he didn’t know when I asked him) what the cause of the brainstem disorder was. He did say something about mosquito bites and his body attacking his brainstem, which I’ve never heard about before. He wasn’t too clear on further details when I asked.

Just out of sheer curiousity, has anyone ever heard of something like that before?

The closest I’ve ever heard was on Discovery Channel, a man who started going blind because of protozoan parasites inside his eyeball. His immune system kicked in to destroy the protozoa, but in so doing was destroying his retina.

There’s a part of me, of course, horrified by his story!

Imagine being perfectly healthy and independent on one day, and almost completely not on the next.

There’s also the side of me that watches too much Dr. House and National Geographic that really wants to know the whys of his situation. Biology is a fascinating topic.

Anyways, just wanted to share and curious about everyone’s thoughts and comments.

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Yeah, that’s terrifying. The worst thing would be being wide awake and sentient, but unable to move any muscles, even your eyeballs. Unable to communicate, you’d be trapped. I think after a few weeks I’d spend most of the time hoping someone would pull the plug.

Not that this guy’s in that situation, but I’ve felt scared of this before when reading about similar stuff like this. Never heard of someone so suddenly becoming paralysed.

I remember being **** scared once when I was surfing, the wave had ended so I jumped off the board head first into a sandbank. I had no idea it was so shallow there and I felt (and I think heard) my neck crack. For a second or two I was the most scared I’ve ever been, and so many things raced through my head, like “if I’m paralysed, I’ll drown” until I realised I could still move and everything was fine. My neck was a bit painful but I went back in the water after a few minutes and carried on.

Speaking of this:

The closest I’ve ever heard was on Discovery Channel, a man who started going blind because of protozoan parasites inside his eyeball. His immune system kicked in to destroy the protozoa, but in so doing was destroying his retina.

I remember a House episode where something like that happened - the immune system started attacking the patient because of something else that was present. House realised this was going on after one of his far-fetched moments of sudden realisation 5 minutes before the end of the episode.

So, anyway, are you going to build the ramp?

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[FONT=“Georgia”]Vaguely related, my girlfriend just mailed me this;
Artificial organ regrowth. [VIDEO]

His house is in the bush up a small hill from the road, so building a ramp would be a challenge (something like 30’ long and 10’ up from the road).

BUT it also turned out that there was a driveway going up to his house, so the easy solution is to resurface his driveway.

A contractor went up to his place today as I heard, and we’ll see what can happen after that.

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That is some serious stuff and I guess everyone has fear of it.

When I was 12 or so I was diagnosed with meningitis. I knew it was a serious disease but I wasn’t really scared - at first I was feeling too bad to care, later I knew I will be ok. With luck and fast treatment I got away without any long term consequences. But the thought of other possible outcomes is now terrifying to say the least.

I remember there was a boy in the next room with a much worse case which progressed fast and the last thing I knew he was unconscious for long periods of time (maybe even in coma). I don’t know what has become of him as I’ve recovered fast and left the hospital :frowning:

That’s what I’m left with from that experience - it could’ve been me. But also what was easy as a kid and what not necessarily would be as easy as an adult - not to panic, accept the situation, stay optimistic and do your best to recover.

I don’t watch House but I happened to see an episode where there was a patient, an autistic kid and they were unable to diagnose the problem. The kid tried to communicate by drawing wiggly figures. Eventually House has figured out it was what the boy was seeing - the parasites that were infesting his eyeballs which apparently came from the sand the boy has eaten in his playground. There was also an allusion to House being autistic himself hence being able relate to the boy to figure it out.

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To be honest Shaun, he probably has something like Muscular Dystrophy, or least likely Polo. The brain stem controls your motor functions, so the bug was carrying something like meningitis, which can affect the stem.

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After reading your story, I feel lucky. I’m only going blind after all! :smiley:

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Sounds like maybe a bad case of viral or bacteria meningitis. Masquito bits can cause meningitis.

Molona, blind! For real? That’s hard.

I landed on my head skying when I was 13 and suffered a full fledge stroke completely paralyzing my entire right side. Face and all. Being so young, and after basically two years of rehab all day everyday I for the most part fully recovered. Minus a complete lack of long term memory though.

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I’ll tell you when it happens, I still have a few years and although I already notice that my sight is not as good as two years ago, it is better than people that wear glasses.

And, who knows? maybe in 5-10 years there will be a solution (I doubt it but I can only dream)

The funny thing is that it was caused by a bacteria. You think you have a cold, but no, it isn’t. I took too long to go to the doctor, and ages to cure… and it seems that bacteria are intelligent indeed… they hide in my eyes and messed them up.

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[FONT=“Georgia”]I asked if anyone else in his family suffered from anything similar and they don’t to his knowledge.

His mother did have brain tumors though, but he was X-rayed and MRIed and nothing was found.

Jeez, Molona!

I’m a little paranoid about two things. One is going blind, the other is losing my hands or fingers.

I’m a photographer. I think I’d go nuts if I could never see again.

Sorry, I’m sure I’m not helping.

What exactly is the cause though?

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Pneumonia.

Edit: I don’t remember what caused the pneumonia. In my memory it was toxoplasmosis, but the truth is that I am not very sure now.

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[FONT=“Georgia”]Toxoplasmosis, I think that was the same thing from the documentary I saw.

Even the name sounds scary.

In the documentary, the man had to get injections into his eyeball to put his immune system on pause until the protoza migrated somewhere else.

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[FONT=“Georgia”]This is the one.

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I didn’t need any injections. I recovered from the pneumonia but a month later I woke up and I couldn’t see a thing. I could see colors but no shapes. My mother call the doctor and I had the first analysis done.

That’s when the doctor said that whatever caused the pneumonia would have very likely traveled to hide in my eyes and fill my macula with scars.

Two days later, I could see shapes and do a “normal” life. During one month I couldn’t read though. Each day I could see a bit better but I am not able to see straight lines if they’re too thin… or if I see them, I don’t see them as straight lines but more like full of curves. I don’t have much problems with thick lines.

It is a pain to read but you get used to it.

There’s nothing to do When my eyes start to tire (because of the age) then I will loose the ability to see anything, bit by bit… or the ability of recognizing the objects because that’s what the macula is for: to recognize objects and shapes, and people. There is a chance that I will see some light through the sides of the eye but the center of the picture will be black as with any other macular degeneration.

It does make you think where you want your career to head to and where are you going to end up working :slight_smile:

I hope that I had won the lottery by then :lol:

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My childhood friend’s mom got bitten by a mosquito (we assume) who had West Nile Virus. She got meningitis and started acting strange and forgetful as her brain swelled. Luckily her kids noticed and my friend especially insisted she go to the hospital. Now, there wasn’t a whole lot they could do (I guess they only drill into your head if it’s pressure from physical trauma or hydrocephalus) but she could have died. Happens.

My cousin, when she was 23 or so, travelled from the US to Europe, where she thought she got a cold. She got better. Later, she went to the hospital for migraines (of all things). During the routine check, they noticed a crapload of protein in her urine. Turns out she had zero kidney function (and had none of the symptoms, was peeing normally etc). The infection had apparently gone to her kidneys, where her immune system continually attacked until there was more scar tissue than nephrons. She got a kidney from her dad, my uncle, but she lives in the United States, where healthcare sucks. She had health insurance through her employer, and they couldn’t dump her, but 2 years later they spun off her workplace into a standalone clinic, which then closed. Luckily before that she was able to transfer to her husband’s insurance despite her pre-existing condition. If he loses his job (the economy there stinks), then I don’t know what will happen: her anti-rejection drugs cost over $2000 per month.

And now, to make everyone leave with real willies, I present: Vandellia, the fish that can swim up your pee stream and lodge itself in your urethra by extending sharp little spikes. Since they stay until they get their blood fill, you generally have to have someone remove it with a special catheter.

I usually don’t go a day without wondering how I’d live if I were blind. It makes me want to learn programming so I could support myself financially. I’ve had several mornings where I dreamed I woke up and couldn’t see and never would again. Which, for me, would make things horribly difficult, even though what I need is music. So while I’d choose deafness over blindness (and either one over paralysis) for practicality reasons, I’d probably die from depression without music.

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We all have the same thoughts, at one point or another, about our health.

I’m also a black metal fan. And sometimes, in my youth (oh boy :lol:, you’re still under 40, get a hold of your self!), I used to exaggerate with the volume. One time, I woke up in the morning and I could not hear. Luckily it only lasted a few minutes. I’d never forget that moment, as I also live with music. And computers.

There is a saying: “God doesn’t give you more then you can suffer”. And it’s true. We all say: what am I going to do if…? The answer is: you make do. One gets used with anything.

The paralysis can be psychologically induced. Lacking any physical or brain damages. A mental illness. Human mind it’s a very fragile thing.

Like the willies. That will teach you to pee in the water upstream from people washing their clothes! There is even an interesting reenactment on the “1000 Ways to Die” with this fish. A true story (they all are true stories on this show) where a man dies trying to remove the fish w/o proper medical tools.