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| Dan |
Hi, my name is Dan and I was diagnosed with HHV-6 viral encephalitis in May 2004. First a little background about myself. I had just turned 40 in the fall of 2002. As with any good 40 year old I went in to my local physician for a complete physical because that is what you’re supposed to do when you reach one of these milestone ages. Everything checked out fine except for some slightly elevated white counts. He didn’t think too much of it because I was in very good health otherwise and he figured I may have been warding off a cold or something which resulted in the elevated counts. Within the next few months people kept commenting about some bumps they notice on my neck. I went back to the physician to get checked out again about 3 months after my previous complete physical and he immediately sent me to an oncologist. Within a very short time I was diagnosed with a stage IV cancer called CLL/SLL which stands for Chronic Lymphocitic Leukemia, Small Lymphocitic Lymphoma. It was throughout my body in my lymph system and life had indeed changed from that day forward.
The next year was a whirlwind of oncologist appointments, chemo and radiation treatments which eventually prepared me for a bone marrow transplant in early 2004. The first 25 days or so following transplant where rather boring and I was said to be the "model patient". Then something starting going terribly wrong. On my first night away from the transplant hospital I began having seizures. At first they thought it may be due to low potassium levels. After a battery of tests and a spinal tap they discovered that it was the Human Herpes Virus 6 or "HHV-6" and this virus had manifested into viral encephalitis. They administered foscarnet and it seems to have done the trick but not before some damage was done to the hippocampus portion of my brain. This is the region that effects and controls short term memory, emotions and some other functions. The memory portion is the most difficult to deal with but I am coping with it fairly well most of the time.
This HHV6 was an opportunistic viral infection that took advantage of my lowered immune system tolerance as a result of the bone marrow transplant. So in
addition to many complications of the transplant itself the viral encephalitis dealt me a double whammy which I still deal with the consequences
today.
If interested you can track my history via 2 CaringBridge web sites. The first link covered my time during transplant and the onset of encephalitis while the newer link is more up to date and is used to track my current condition.
Original CaringBridge
Current CaringBridge
Bottom line is that I am still here and dealing fairly well 4 years post transplant and post encephalitis.
Best of luck to all of you fellow travelers.
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Dan
New York, U.S.A.
Posted: March 12, 2008 |
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