ENCEPHALITIS CASES

Encephalitis Cases

Nathan

It all began one afternoon when my 10 year old son Nathan kept asking me about going swimming in the apartment's swimming pool, which wasn't open yet for the summer. The pool hadn't been cleaned or inspected yet and so naturally my reply was no. All day he kept trying and finally when he told me that the office said they could go swimming, I decided to call for myself. Sure enough, the lady working in the office that day convinced me that it would be ok for them to just jump in and cool off for a minute. So my son went down to the pool and swam for about 10 minutes in a swimming pool that looked completely harmless, just a lot of leaves floating on top.

That night at around 11:30 he got out of bed to tell me his stomach hurt. I gave him something to drink and told him to lay back down and that maybe he would feel better in a minute. No. He started vomiting. He vomited throughout the night and the next morning I took him to his doctor who told me exactly what I expected to hear, just a stomach virus. He would be over it in a few hours. Well, he was right. In just a few more hours, Nathan was fine. Ready to eat and go play.

That night though, he was complaining of pain in his right arm pit. I looked and it seemed a little swollen and red. My first though was that it was natural. Just a swollen gland from being sick, but we will go back to the doctor and see anyway, why not...I have insurance.

The physician said that he didn't know why it was swollen. Said that it was strange just for one lymph node to swell, made him think that the "infection" was localized. He noticed a scratch on Nathan's right 4 hand where one of our kitties had scratched him a day or two before. So he decided to do some blood work to test for "Cat Scratch Fever". The tests came back inconclusive but he said that we still couldn't rule that out because the test wasn't completely accurate. So he gave us an antibiotic but told us that he didn't have to take it if I didn't want him to because usually with Cat Scratch Fever, it goes away by itself and is usually nothing to worry about and that antibiotics didn't really work well to fight it either. So what do you know, I decided not to treat him with that antibiotic. Well, about two days later we were back in the doctor's office with more pain and more swelling under his arm. This time, I asked for a second opinion. Well, the second opinion didn't really help, they didn't know what was causing it either and were leaning more towards what the previous doctor had said so they prescribed another antibiotic except this one was a general antibiotic, not just for cat scratch.

This was on a Wednesday. He took his antibiotic this day, Thursday and Friday. EVERYTHING WAS NORMAL. GOING GOOD. Until Friday morning. Nathan woke up sweating. Dizzy. Lethargic. He tripped into my bedroom to wake me up so that I could take him to school. He was very excited about going to school this day because it was Field Day. Nearing the end of the school year.

I hurried out of bed and helped him get his clothes together then I retreated to the bathroom to brush my teeth and get dressed myself. When I came out of the bath room, Nathan still wasn't dressed, he was just playing with the cat. This ENRAGED me considering that we were late and he doesn't normally behave this way. I yelled to him....NATHAN GET DRESSED NOW!!! And before I went back into the bathroom, I stood there for a minute to be sure he was doing as he was told. A few minutes later I came out of the bathroom again and the strangest thing happened. Nathan was standing in the middle of the living room with one pair of underwear on and steadily pulling up another! I said, "Nathan what are you doing? You already have a pair on." So this told me here something was wrong with him this morning but I blew it off and just figured he was just tired and overly excited about school that day.

I dropped him at school and headed for work. When I got to the office, there was a message on my phone already. It was the principle at Nathan's school telling me to call her immediately. I did and she said to come and get Nathan...something wasn't right. I KNEW IT. I rushed back to the school to find Nathan in a bad way. He was shaking and confused and was talking out of his head. I rushed him back to his doctor who look at him and probed him...made him walk around the room and pretty much said he was clueless.

He scheduled an appointment for us to see a neurologist that afternoon. We left the office and Nathan seemed to get better. We picked up some lunch and went home. Nathan ate a little and then fell asleep on the couch. About an hour later, I went to check on him and I COULDN'T WAKE HIM UP. He wouldn't even open his eyes for me. I screamed. I picked up the phone and dialed 911.

Nathan had a seizure. A bad one. He was unconscious. On the way to the hospital, he had more seizures...almost back to back. When we arrived at the hospital, they took him immediately and did a cat scan and some blood work. He was still unconscious but was combative. Waking only momentarily to cry and scream.

As soon as they came back from the cat scan, they gave him some anticonvulsive medication and almost immediately He stopped breathing. At this point they had to sedate him even more and incubate him. For two days a machine breathed for my baby. During his sleep they performed a spinal tap. Nothing. Finally when they had the seizure activity under control they took him off of the medication that was keeping him sedated and he woke up. They pulled the tube out of his chest and he began breathing on his own. More tests. MRI, EEG, Blood tests. Nothing. Completely normal. They had decided that Nathan had Encephalitis, a virus infecting the brain. They still do not know what caused it although I have a pretty good idea that it was the water in that swimming pool. It took a few days for Nathan to recover enough to go home. He hallucinated a lot and talked crazy for a few days and that was it. They sent us home from the hospital 7 days after he was admitted. They will keep him on seizure medication for the next year and monitor him closely. God was with us. That's all I can say. I had never heard of anything like this. I never thought anything like this could happen to us.

I am keeping my fingers crossed and praying that he will not have any lasting affects or more seizures but only time will tell. I expect to return to work in about a week. My only problem? Who can keep my child for me during summer season while I work? Who will take care of him like me? I have never been so terrified in my life.

Jada
Georgia, U.S.A.

Posted: July 19, 2001

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