ENCEPHALITIS CASES

Encephalitis Cases

Ryan

My son Ryan contracted encephalitis on August 9, 1998 when he was 5.5 years old. The day before he had flu-like symptoms but nothing major. During the middle of the night, he woke up a few times and vomited but there did not appear to be anything to be alarmed about. The next morning he was up and playing very early. When I called him, he came into our room and was very excited to tell me that his fever was gone. He turned down breakfast and chose to lay down in our bed for a bit. Once he laid down, he started acting strangely - saying things that did not make sense, staring and not responding directly to us. It appeared that he would fall asleep in-between these episodes. Because of his night, we thought maybe he was just tired and was fighting sleep. When we got up he was sleeping soundly. A couple of hours later, I decided that it was time to wake him up otherwise he would not want to go to bed that night. He would not respond to me and was having difficulty breathing. We called 911 and he was admitted into the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.

During his stay in intensive care, he had numerous tests - eeg's, mri's, spinal taps - but nothing was conclusive of why he was seizing uncontrollably. He remained asleep for 3 days - partly drug induced to control the seizures. Then finally when he woke up he was transferred to a private room. We were very excited but yet had no idea what we were in for. The next day he would be wide awake and talking (repeating himself over and over) with us and then just "zone" out. Another eeg and mri were done which showed that his brain was still in a sleep pattern and bruising from the swelling.

After 1 week in the hospital they sent us home - we felt very fortunate to have our son come home with us that soon afterwards. We were told to watch for any seizures - that if he were going to have any more it would be within the next 12 months. We had chosen not to medicate him for seizures at this point since they could not tell us for sure he would need it.

Then about 11 months after his "incident" he started dropping to the ground. If you didn't see him go down you would think he was just very clumsy. After mentioning this to his occupational therapist, we took him back to the neurologist. Another eeg and mri were completed. He was diagnosed with epilepsy 13 months after his encephalitis.

We count our blessings every day that we still have him with us. Watching him go from being a very active 5 year old to re-learning everything all over was very difficult. He still has challenges and difficulties that we have to deal with but we take it day by day.

Sincerely,

Nancy
North Carolina, U.S.A.

Posted: April 30, 2001

[ADULTS]	[CHILDREN]	[HELP]	[SUBMIT STORY]	[EMAIL]	[HOME]