Neuro Note #5

 For my last neuro note, I decided to watch a youtube video titled "Andrew's Story: Guillain Barré syndrome". I chose this because we are currently learning about this syndrome in class and I wanted to refresh my brain on what we had just learned. A lot of these diseases sometimes run together in my head as they can be very similar in symptoms, so I wanted to make sure I continued to learn more about Guillain Barré. In the beginning of this video, it shows Andrew doing a lot of fun, adventurous activities outdoors like kayaking, running, and working out. The video continued on to show that one day he woke up with a rash, so he went to the doctor to only get the diagnosis of strep. After the rash went away, he still seemed to be feeling off. After having a spinal tap done by the doctor, they came to the conclusion of GBS. He underwent plasmapheresis and was in the ICU. He began to have facial paralysis and some blurred vision. After two weeks in the hospital and five plasma changes, Andrew seemed to be doing better. He was able to go home although he was paralyzed from the waist down. His symptoms continued to get worse and he immediately had to go back to the hospital. It got so bad, that he couldn't breath, swallow, or sit up on his own. He went into cardiac arrest, and had a close call. His mom was doing all the research she could to see how she could help. Andrew was doing everything he could just to be able to breathe by using a suction tube to help him. At this point, he had been fully paralyzed from the neck down for about 40 days. He was needing to be repositioned and cared for often by his nurses and therapists. In September 2016, he was finally about to get off the ventilator! He had proved his doctor wrong, who had recently given him a horrible diagnosis. As the video goes on, it continues to show Andrew's recovery while he undergoes therapy an hour a day. He continued to eat a lot of food to regain his strength back and was eating almost 3,000 calories a day. He eventually went to the Shepherd Center where he went through intense physical therapy, and he continued to get better and stronger. This video was empowering to watch this young man never give up and keep fighting towards recovery regardless of what his doctor told him. It really seemed like he might not make it, considering how bad his conditions began to get. I learned that every part of therapy that he went through has a huge and purposeful impact to his road to recovery. He was so grateful for each and every nurse, therapist, and specialist he met along the way who never gave up on him! It is inspiring as a future OT practitioner to know that hopefully I will be able to impact people like this one day, just like Andrew was impacted. 

References

Franek, A. J. (2017, August). Andrew's Story: Guillain-Barré Syndrome. Retrieved August 27, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWvrHhs2jps