A West Nile Virus story

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Early in September, I remember beginning to feel strangely tired and listless. At 70, I must have thought it's probably old age announcing its REAL arrival, but went on walking through it. Then I began noticing some minor ache-yness and shakiness in my hands, but I figured I was coming down with something and occasionally considered curling up under some blankets with a heating pad on High to 'sweat' it out, a remedy I had used in the past, with mixed results, but couldn't find the pad. In conversations with my wife, she occasionally mentioned that I had not answered what she had asked, but didn't think much about that, until the 18th. We're watching the CBS Sunday News Show, when my left nostril began bleeding like a garden hose and we could not get it stopped. The ER put a small plug in, inflated it, and that cut the flow off. Tests showed my platelet count horrifically low, so they ran some more tests and admitted me. At some point they must have taken me for a CT scan, which I found out later, but of which I have absolutely no memory of, not even the 'noise in the tunnel'. I got home on that Tuesday, still achey and somewhat shaky but very, very tired. Very early Thursday morning, however, it hit the fan.

I recall two scenes, that seem like snapshots, but that's all. My wife advises that I had been up and down all night, going to the bathroom more than usual, until she heard me fall. She jumped up to check on me, but I was incoherent, couldn't get up, couldn't respond, and was burning up. She called 911, tried to care for me as best she could. This is a small very rural town that we had moved to some 2 years before, so she knew very few people.

The 911 Operator put out the call to the Rescue Squad, which was picked up by the Town's Police Officer on Patrol, who recognized the address and headed our way. He was due for a shift change, and his sucessor was on his way in, so he called and said meet him at our house, which he did. The first responders, then, my wife saw coming through the door were two familiar faces that she knew well.

They rendered assistance, and prepared me, or rather us, for the squad now coming through the door. At that point I had a temperature of 103.7 degrees. It is my belief that the minutes these 2 Officers shaved off that time getting to the Hospital, very likely saved my life. It was certainly a comfort to my wife.

I have no knowledge personally of anything from before I fell on Thursday morning until some time perhaps on Tuesday. I am told that when the Dr. on duty when they brought me in, reviewed the details and symptoms and advised that he had treated someone 85 yrs. old, with similar conditions, who turned out to have pneumonia. Based on that initial diagnosis, they were treating me as if I may have had pneumonia for the first four days there. On Monday the Dr. on duty rotated off and a new came on board.

The male Nurse that had been helping me through this 4 day period spoke with my wife. He did NOT think it was pneumonia but could not say anything for fear of losing his job. He had had Meningitis when he was younger, and seemed to be seeing the same type of symptoms. My wife took it up with this new Doctor, who looked through the Charts and the scans and test results and said it is NOT pneumonia, period. He called in a Neurologist and also an Infectious Disease Specialist and they began running new tests. My memory picks up Tuesday with someone turning me over, telling me I will be on my stomach for a bit. Shortly after, I recall something very cold near the base of my spine. My memory goes in and out from there until Saturday morning.

I have been told that for most of the time, I had Anti-virals going in to one side of me, while Antibiotics were going in to the other. My wife tells me that they were putting plenty of fluids in to me, and that I had to pee a lot. They also had a refrigerated collar around my neck and cold packs under my armpits.

When they were developing a list of what to test for, last on the list was West Nile, almost an afterthought. Virginia is considered a 'low occurrence' state for West Nile by the CDC. Saturday morning, the Dr. said they were waiting for the last result. If it turned out to be West Nile, then I could be released. Considering I had been in and out of reality for most of the previous 9 days, I was more than ready to go. Later, he came by, and said that the test results were positive for West Nile, that there was not a lot more they could do, and that I could go home if I chose, which I did gladly, but gratefully. subsequently, I got a call from the Rockingham County Health Department that I was the first case of West Nile Encephalitis in the County ever, a distinction I would have preferred not to have.

I seem to recall a to-do some 10 - 12 years back about West Nile in Northern Virginia where they have thousands of horses, but in this part of the Shenandoah Valley, there are about 800 working horses, or so, in the Old Order Mennonite community. They have a pretty comprehensive vaccination program for West Nile, and were verymuch interested in my condition throughout and today.