The story of Rose, AIDS survivor

I just had lunch the other day with ‘Rose’, one of my AIDS patients.  It was the greatest thing, to see her – just like a ‘normal’ person. 

Who would believe that just last year, Rose nearly died from a terrible opportunistic infection called ‘Cryptococcus’. 

When Rose came into the hospital, she was thin, wasted and very weak.  She had been having fevers for sometime.  AIDS had been ravaging her immune system and without those defenses, she was extremely susceptible to infection.  Certain types of infections tend to occur in advanced AIDS, and she was now fighting a battle with Cryptococcus neoformans, a nasty fungus.  By the time she came in, this fungus was ‘everywhere’ – it was growing out of her blood. 

We put her on the most powerful medicine we could – amphotericin, or ‘ampho-terrible’.  It was a difficult medicine to take, especially for someone so sick.  Her blood levels dropped to less than half of what they should have been, her electrolytes were profoundly deranged , she felt weak and feverish.  There weren’t any options though – we had no choice but to try and treat her, or face certain death. 

Miracles Happen - the story of Jeanna Giese

This story isn’t really a ‘small miracle’ at all, but a really big one!  You may have heard of it before, but it’s worth repeating here.

 

I was lucky because I got to see with my own eyes, hear with my own ears and touch with my own hands the teenager Jeanna Giese who was miraculously saved from rabies.  Whether by a true miracle of prayer or a miracle of science through a treatment developed by Dr. Rodney Willoughby and colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Jeanna survived rabies - a disease that should have killed her.

 

Jeanna was a teenage kid who loved animals.  One month before these events, she had picked up a bat in her church – the bat was sick and had fallen from the choir onto the floor.  Jeanna wanted to help the poor creature, so she asked her mom if she could pick it up and take it outside.  Jeanna did so, yet the bat latched onto her finger with its teeth and wouldn’t let go!  Although she didn’t realize it at the time, the bat had rabies.  (of course it’s never a good idea to pick up any wild animal – an animal’s natural instinct even without rabies is to bite). The bat fluttered off, and Jeanna and her family thought that was the end of that strange incident.

 

One month later though, she developed some bizarre symptoms which took doctors several days to recognize as rabies.  She had fevers, double vision and tingling of the arm.  She developed speech problems and gradually got worse over the next few days – slipping into a state near coma.  After rabies was confirmed from blood tests, Dr. Willoughby decided to try a new treatment by trying to protect the brain with sedation while the body ‘fought’ the virus.