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| Mike |
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On the morning of March 7, 2003, my husband, Mike, asked to be taken to the ER because he said his "head felt funny" and his heart was beating too fast. He did not want to wait until I could call his doctor, he felt that bad. Up to that day, he seemed perfectly normal, doing the usual things he did. He read the paper every morning, we bowled three days before, had our income tax done two days before.
In the ER they determined he had low sodium, high potassium, and too many red blood cells and platelets (polycythemia vera). They admitted him to the hospital. After several days he started having seizures, starting in his cheek and running up and down his arm. The seizures increased each day to about 16 or 17 a day. The neurologist said he had a minor stroke and he needed carotid artery surgery. The hospital was not doing anything to help him, so after two weeks, he was transferred to the Cleveland Clinic.
His mental condition worsened each day, and after repeated MRI's, CAT scans, EEG's, Angiograms, etc., they could not find a diagnosis.
He tested negative for Herpes, but they put him on Acyclovar IV's anyway, but it did not help. They put him on Kepra and Dilantin for seizures. Eventually they gave him Decadron, (steriod) to try to shrink the inflamation in his brain.
He spent the next four weeks at the Clinic, and they decided to send him home and see him in four weeks for another MRI, and then they would decide whether or not to do a brain biopsy.
During the three weeks he was at home, he was in the emergency room three times, for low blood sugar, high blood sugar, and finally just because he was so sick. His mental condition worsened each day, having trouble recognizing who I was sometime. He had "sundown syndrome" and had a lot of trouble dealing with his illness.
He was admitted to the hospital again for five days after the last visit to the ER, for observation and testing, and then sent to a nursing home for rehab. but only lasted two days, and was sent back to the hospital because he had gotten extremely combative, and was unresponsive.
When he arrived at the ER this time, they told me he was not going to make it--all of his organs were starting to shut down, one by one, and it was just a matter of time. He lasted four more days, after I signed the DNR, and died on June 4, three months after he became ill.
I insisted on an autopsy, because I needed to know what he had died from. They did the autopsy at the Cleveland Clinic, and said they tested him for Herpes, and he tested negative, tested him for over 100 viruses, and all tested negative. The best they could tell me was he had Limbic Encephalitis, which really is just the area of his brain that was inflamed. I will never know what he died from. His death certificate says Herpes Encephalitis.
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Lori
Ohio, U.S.A.
Posted: July 18, 2003 |
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