I lost the ability to speak, read, and write. I would eventually go to the ER after my doctor discovered a right sided facial droop, fearing that I was having a stroke, I was admitted to the first of 2 hospitals.ĭuring my lengthy stay on the stroke recovery unit (the youngest person by several decades), the doctors would be puzzled by my progressing symptoms and my eventual catatonic state. I began experiencing extreme anxiety, panic attacks, and other neurological symptoms. I had trouble spelling words, remembering passwords and even had trouble speaking with patients I saw as a genetic counselor. And those numbers lead me here, to you, to the Autoimmune Encephalitis community.ĭuring February 2019, I began to experience subtle signs and had an overwhelming feeling that something was “off” with myself. All those numbers were packed into a 31-day hospital stay split between 2 hospitals in the largest medical center in the world. It is how we put our experiences into boxes so that they don’t spill over into every aspect of our lives.įor me it was 1,000 mg of steroids, 7 Plasmapheresis infusions, 6 EEG’s, 5 MRIs, 4 CT scans, 1 PET scan, 1 botched lumbar puncture, 1 traumatizing bedside central line insertion, and countless fascinated residents, fellows, and physicians who had no idea what was happening to me right in front of them. It’s how we organize and make sense of what’s happened to us. Numbers, numbers, numbers – we all have them.
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