Last year my dad got really sick and of course it was the result of a freak convergence of things that led to a crazy diagnosis and he's probably now in medical journals, too. Like father, like daughter.
Out of respect for his privacy I won't go into full details, but the basics are this: he caught West Nile Virus from a mosquito bite, which spread to his spinal column and caused inflammation that went to his brain causing encephalitis. The swelling in his brain caused a rare form of Guillain-Barré Syndrome called Miller Fisher Syndrome that paralyzed him. He was very sick and in the hospital and then a rehab facility, followed by months of out patient care and PT. He still suffers from some residual issues related to the nerve damage his illness caused, but he has resumed driving and working. I can't tell you how happy I was the day he could finally move the muscles in his face to smile again!
It was nerve wracking watching him suffer and watching my mom suffer as she watched him suffer. It put us all through the wringer, but I'm so glad that Kate and I were close by and could come up and help him and my mom.
I've always said I'm a lot like my dad, and while I never thought we would both end up getting rare illnesses, of course we did.
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