January 31, 2016: “One day I was practicing the oboe, building models in quarter-scale of Civil War railroads, going to the gym four times a week where I kicked ass with the soccer mom in cardio kickboxing, and going to Nancy’s photographic stuff. The next thing you know, I was laying in a hospital bed in the emergency room at Los Robles hospital in unbelievable pain and my fingers and toes tingling like crazy.”
4 years ago, on January 12th 2016, my husband was admitted to the hospital with no more specific of a diagnosis than “profound weakness”. The final diagnosis came 10 days later: Guillain-Barré Syndrome – an autoimmune condition that attacks the myelin nerve sheaths and leaves them incapable of transmitting nerve impulses to the muscles. The first symptoms are tingling in the hands and feet leading ultimately to various degrees of paralysis. Recovery begins only after the autoimmune response is stopped. It then typically takes 1-2 years for the nerves to repair themselves down through the hands and feet, and the strength lost by muscle atrophy to be rebuilt. Chick became paralyzed from the neck down. On Friday evening, January 22nd, he was finally diagnosed and transported to UCLA Medical Center to begin 5-rounds of plasmapheresis, a treatment to stop the autoimmune response, and set him up for his long recovery. This is when we started blogging daily: https://chicksgbsadventure.wordpress.com/
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