Medical Mystery
A long-time friend writes me:
" A woman loses her sight. Gradually over a period of days, goes totally blind. Is taken to hospital, having jerking movements in her limbs. She was given the diagnosis of fast onset MS.
All bloodwork comes back normal, spinal fluid is normal and clear, finally a brain MRI is ordered and shows a cloudy area (not a mass and not a tumor) on the back of the brain where sight is controlled. No swelling of the brain other than these white spots. Brain cells are being eaten as they do the MRI. Finally decide after 2 weeks, patient is comatose basically, jerking and cannot speak or see. They decide she does not have MS, give her anti seizure meds and the jerking has calmed down. She has a feeding tube and given 4 weeks to live.
After 2 weeks in the hospital, they put her in quarantine in ICU for 2 days (no explanation is given to anyone in the family)
take her out of quarantine.............
They have no diagnosis and do not know what is wrong. Virus? Bacterial? etc. All they can say is that if she comes out of this, she will be blind most probably barring a miracle."
It's never easy when someone we love suffers something terrible. It's worse when we feel helpless to do anything for them.
Can you help this woman find an answer for her sister? Do you have any ideas? The patient is in Georgia...
" A woman loses her sight. Gradually over a period of days, goes totally blind. Is taken to hospital, having jerking movements in her limbs. She was given the diagnosis of fast onset MS.
All bloodwork comes back normal, spinal fluid is normal and clear, finally a brain MRI is ordered and shows a cloudy area (not a mass and not a tumor) on the back of the brain where sight is controlled. No swelling of the brain other than these white spots. Brain cells are being eaten as they do the MRI. Finally decide after 2 weeks, patient is comatose basically, jerking and cannot speak or see. They decide she does not have MS, give her anti seizure meds and the jerking has calmed down. She has a feeding tube and given 4 weeks to live.
After 2 weeks in the hospital, they put her in quarantine in ICU for 2 days (no explanation is given to anyone in the family)
take her out of quarantine.............
They have no diagnosis and do not know what is wrong. Virus? Bacterial? etc. All they can say is that if she comes out of this, she will be blind most probably barring a miracle."
It's never easy when someone we love suffers something terrible. It's worse when we feel helpless to do anything for them.
Can you help this woman find an answer for her sister? Do you have any ideas? The patient is in Georgia...
Tags: brain, georgia, medical mystery, ms, neurologic, quarantine
Add a Comment
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Comment by Janeen on July 8, 2009 at 2:16pm -
Ellen,
I'm so sorry to read this. My thoughts and prayers are with your friend and her family.
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Comment by Ellen S on July 8, 2009 at 2:01pm -
I wish I had more time to blog about this, but since I've had a couple people contact me to ask the mystery's answer, I'll blog later and answer today...
The answer is that she is literally one in a million... she has the human form of Mad Cow aka Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease. More information may be found at the Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease Foundation.
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Comment by Ellen S on June 23, 2009 at 1:12pm
- The mystery has been solved, with shocking results. I'll blog about it soon, but for now I'm letting it sink in. Very sadly, the patient will not survive.
© 2009 Created by Marie
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