ENCEPHALITIS CASES

Encephalitis Cases

Kaitlyn

My name is Lori and I live in Charleston, SC. My daughter Kaitlyn was 15 months old when she became ill in September of 2000. Her daycare called to say she was running a 103 temperature so I immediately took her to the doctor's office. They did some blood work and a chest x-ray which were all negative and chalked it up to a virus and sent us home with instructions for Tylenol and Motrin for the fever. She slept continuously, would not eat, and would only drink as long as you were able to keep her awake. She cried every time you touched her or tried to move her. After four days of continuos fever averaging 102-103 and two more office visits I was told to take her to the hospital for more blood work and x-rays. When I picked her up from her crib, she was shaking terribly. I bundled her up quickly assuming that she was shivering from the fever. What I didn't know at the time was that she was having a seizure, since it was mild. While having blood drawn at the hospital she went into a sever seizure and the lab called for a Code Blue to the ER. She continued to have 7 seizures in about an hour and half and had to be transported to our local children's hospital.

I was at least two hours before we were even allowed to see her, at which time we were told that she would probably be severely brain damaged and would possibly die if they couldn't stop the seizures. When we walked in she was surrounded by a team of eight doctors and nurses. She was covered from head to toe with tube and wires hooked to all kinds of machines. We were told that she had been placed in a medicine induced coma to try to stop the seizures and for four days we were not allowed to touch her or even talk to her because they wanted minimize brain activity to try to prevent any more seizures.

After those first four days in the pediatric ICU they began to wean her off of most of the meds and slowly bring her out of her coma. They did a second CT which showed no signs of damage and after a three more days in the hospital we were sent home.

Since she was only 15 months old at the time, her set backs seemed minor. She didn't say a lot of her usual phrases, she kept falling down when she tried to walk and she was quite and somewhat withdrawn. It wasn't until two weeks later she was diagnosed with California Encephalitis from a mosquito bite. She quickly recovered from these minor set backs, and then, as to make up for lost time, took off. She seemed to be much more verbal, much more outgoing and very, very smart. She excelled quickly in all areas of development.

She is now four and attends a school where she is in K4. She is very happy and outgoing, lively, very active, and very bright (parents are always a little biased) and sometimes totally obnoxious. Although we thought there were no lasting effects from her Encephalitis, we have now been told she has ADHD. It has become more obvious as she is always in trouble in school because she can't concentrate on her work and is always running around and out of control. We are truly blessed to have such a minimal problem since I've read other cases on this site and now realize how much worse it could be. I also now realize that in some way or another, they are never completely cured. My sadness, thoughts and prayers go out to all of you have shared similar experiences and I would love to hear from others who are going through the ADHD portion of the Encephalitis journey.

Kaitlyn has always been our little angle and God knew we needed her more than he did and we thank him every day for that. May he bless all of your little angles too!

Lori
Charleston, South Carolina, U.S.A.

Posted: November 23, 2003

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