Encephalitis Cases
Lynn
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My name is Lynn M., age 57. I had LaCrosse encephalitis when I was 10 years old in 1964. I lived in West Virginia, USA.
I woke up for school one morning, and had the symptoms of a very bad cold or virus. I had a sore throat, a headache, and a fever. I went to bed and I remember feeling really awful. When my mom tried to wake me up the next morning, I wouldn’t wake up. I had lapsed into a coma overnight. I was rushed by ambulance to the hospital, where they eventually diagnosed viral encephalitis. (Later that was narrowed down to LaCrosse.) Interestingly, as I was received into the emergency room, a pediatric neurologist was there for another consultation. He immediately recognized the symptoms of encephalitis, and instructed the doctors to focus on treating the symptoms. They put me in an oxygen tent (remember this is 1964!), and kept me hydrated. I was in the coma for three days.
When I came out of the coma, there was great concern about brain damage, and the nurse began asking me questions. Her first question was ‘Do you know where you are?’ I looked around the room and announced, “I think I’m in a hospital.” My parents were overjoyed! I stayed in the hospital for another week, and stayed home from school for another three weeks after that.
For the next year I suffered numerous after-effects from the encephalitis: for the next 6 months I had no muscle reflexes – you know, when they tap your knee and you’re supposed to kick, my leg didn’t budge
my immune system was very weak. I think I picked up every cold and virus that went through the school that year, especially the stomach bugs. I was very sensitive to all sensorimotor input. For example, my brother would tiptoe through the living room with me yelling at him to stop being so loud, and didn’t like to be touched or wear tight clothing..
I had major personality changes. I had been outgoing, popular, and fun-loving. I became quiet, shy, and fearful. Where I had been a straight-A student, I would often refuse to do the work, and had lots of difficulty staying focused on any task.
The fine-motor control in the peripheral muscles of my hands was weakened. I couldn’t play the instrument I wanted for the band but instead played the trumpet – 3 fingers, instead of the flute using 10 fingers
The muscles in my eyes were also affected, and would cause my vision to go blurry when I was tired. The ophthalmologists and other specialists couldn’t figure it out, but a regular optometrist kept testing and retesting until I was tired enough for the blurriness to start. God bless him!
For several months I had difficulty with my short-term to long-term memory transfer. Things would just disappear from my memory, events, entire days, pieces of conversation, things that I put somewhere and forgot where they were.
For the most part, these symptoms all waned during that first year. I did get my reflexes back. My mother was so elated when the doctor tapped my knee and I finally kicked that she bought me a special toy. I graduated at the top of my high school and college classes, and I am so thankful that my cognitive skills did not seem to be diminished. What remains to this day is an odd collection of minor symptoms. I still have memory and focus issues similar to a mild case of ADD. My peripheral hand muscles are still a bit weak, but my eyes were strengthened by the special glasses the optometrist gave me. My personality was permanently changed, although I have occasional outbursts of the happy, outgoing girl I was as a child.
I do believe that my nervous system was compromised by the encephalitis. I have had symptoms of neuropathy since I was about 20 years old. Now that I am older and diabetic, these symptoms have become severe but treatable. I’ve never seen reports of this being a problem for encephalitis survivors, but there seems to be a connection for me.
All in all, I count myself among the very blessed. The prognosis was not good when I was admitted to the hospital, but the final outcome exceeded even the doctors’ hopes.
Lynn West Virginia, USA  Posted: June 10, 2011 |
