Newport teen-ager recovering after close brush with death

[Guest guest]

Dear Friends,

Received this story from Priscilla's aunt today. Priscilla continues to make

remarkable progress after coming here to North Texas from Arkansas for

treatment. Love ya,

Rose

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http://www.jonesborosun.com/story.asp?ID=447

Newport teen-ager recovering after close brush with death

By STEPHEN HANKINS

NEWPORT -- Flu symptoms last October sidelined Priscilla Guinn, 17, from

participating in three of her favorite activities -- gymnastics, cheerleading

and school.

By Thanksgiving 2001, the Newport High School junior, who had traveled to Heber

Springs, Tennessee, Florida and a number of other destinations that summer,

developed a red rash in her hairline and found herself at Children's Hospital in

Little Rock suffering from what doctors thought was a viral infection.

However, her high fever and chills soon gave way to what Guinn's grandmother,

Olivia Winemiller, called seizures.

" Her speech was slurred, " Winemiller said Friday, " and her face was drawn to one

side. "

A week later Guinn was admitted to Baptist Medical Center at Little Rock, where

she underwent a battery of tests, Winemiller said. Two days after the Newport

teen was released from Baptist, she and her grandmother once again knocked on

the hospital's doors, Guinn noted.

" I was paralyzed from the waist down, " she said. " I was scared. "

Because tests revealed nothing out of the ordinary, some physicians thought the

girl's illness was psychosomatic, Winemiller said. Despite that diagnosis, her

granddaughter's health slipped further away. The 5-foot, 105-pound Guinn was a

shadow of her former self, weighing in at just 83 pounds, Winemiller said.

By January Guinn's medical bills were skyrocketing toward the $100,000 mark, and

her short stay at Baptist had stretched into weeks. Doctors seemed stumped,

Winemiller said.

That's when a hospital nurse, whose brother-in-law was treated by a Springfield,

Mo., physician for a tick-borne disease, risked losing her job and offered the

Newport pair a diagnosis of her own.

" She said, 'your granddaughter has Lyme disease,' " Winemiller noted.

However, a neurologist told the pair he knew what was wrong with Guinn, that he

would treat her and have her up and around in three days, Winemiller said.

" He treated her with massive doses of steroids, " she added. " After three days,

she couldn't walk. She quit moving and she was getting weaker.

" We later found out that Lyme disease plus steroids equals for all intents and

purposes, death. "

Now a quadriplegic, Guinn's time seemed to be running out. But the nurse's words

stuck in the back of her grandmother's mind, Guinn explained.

" If we hadn't listened to the nurse, she (Guinn), I think, would be dead today, "

the grandmother said.

Reports from the Centers for Disease Control indicated Lyme disease was named in

1977 when arthritis was observed in a number of children in and around Lyme,

Conn. Investigations revealed the disease was caused by the Borrelia burgdorferi

bacterium and transmitted to humans by the bite of infected deer ticks, the

report stated. Symptoms include a " bull's-eye " rash, flu-like aches and pains,

fever, fatigue and headaches, the document indicated.

After consulting with the physician in Springfield, Guinn and Winemiller

traveled to North Richland Hills, Texas, where the teen was tested and treated

for Lyme disease at North Hills Columbia Hospital by a physician some have

called " The Angel Doctor, " Dr. Hamid Moayad, Winemiller noted.

" This young girl was driven here in a car, a quadriplegic unable to speak, "

Moayad said Saturday. " She was aphonic -- she could move her lips, but she could

not form words.

" I must emphasize that she was a total quadriplegic. She had no head or neck

control. "

Moayad said he took one look at Guinn and admitted her into the hospital's

intensive care unit. By then, she could barely breathe, he said.

" We thought for a time we would have to intubate her because her respiratory

functions were minimal, " Moayad said. " We put her on intravenous rocephin, and

in the next day or two her respiration improved. Slowly, we gave her

doxycycline, an oral antibiotic, in addition to the rocephin. "

In her third week under Moayad's care, Guinn started moving her right index

finger and thumb, the physician noted.

" Week four she was wiggling her fingers and toes, " he said. " Week five she

walked out of this hospital, boarded a plane and returned home to Arkansas. "

Moayad explained that Guinn's recovery was unusual because most quadriplegic

Lyme's patients require long-term intravenous and oral antibiotic treatments

specific to the disease to facilitate recovery.

" Months and months, " he said. " Lyme disease is a very difficult and elusive

illness. "

Perhaps as difficult as finding treatment, he said. Moayad added that many times

the disease is not considered during the diagnostic process because it is a

relative newcomer and its presence could be economically crippling to tourism in

states where the illness has been confirmed.

" In a proper historical context, all diseases that emerge out of obscurity meet

with a great deal of opposition, " he said. " Also, when Lyme's is associated with

a particular state, we see a major decrease in tourism money. "

In addition, he said " not many physicians know about the disease, " which has led

to confirmed deaths.

" Steroids are an absolutely contraindicated treatment for Lyme disease, " he

said. " I testified at the Texas Senate hearings on Lyme disease. We lost five

patients to physicians in the area who told patients there was no Lyme disease

here. All five were given steroids. All five died. "

Guinn and her grandmother returned to Newport to a homecoming parade of sorts

and realized that a fund called " Hearts for Priscilla " was established to help

offset the medical bills, Guinn noted.

" It was overwhelming, " she said. " People in town bought paper hearts for $1.

They raised over $12,000 to help me. "

Her disease is in remission, Guinn said. She is back up to 100 pounds and

attends physical therapy sessions regularly to aid in her rehabilitation. The

A-and-B student is in summer school catching up on missed studies and hopes to

enter Newport High School in August as a senior.

" I thought these days would never come, " Guinn said. " It's good to be back. "

Copyright © 2002, boro Sun

TOIL for Lyme

T = Teach tolerance

0 = Overcome ignorance

I = Initiate insurance reform

L = Labor for Lyme literacy

http://www.angelfire.com/tx3/RoseWriter lymeinfo

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