West Nile Virus Survivor Stories from the West Nile Virus Survivors Foundation

Lauren Ashley Miller-CA

2008-12-15T19:21:00.000-06:00

Teenage girl in Menifee dies after four-year battle with West Nile illness

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10:00 PM PST on Wednesday, December 10, 2008

By TAMMY J. McCOY
The Press-Enterprise

A 17-year-old Menifee girl stricken with West Nile Encephalitis died Wednesday, more than four years after she fell ill.

Lauren Ashley Miller contracted West Nile virus in 2004, at age 13, after mosquito bites showed up on her legs. She later developed encephalitis and her brain swelled, leaving her in a mostly vegetative state.

"She was great. Bubbly, lots of energy," recalled Pam Dennison, Lauren's elementary school teacher. "To think that she was a healthy, happy teenager and by the next weekend, she was bedridden ... It happened so quickly."

2007 / The Press-Enterprise
Lauren Ashley Miller, of Menifee, shown with her mother, Bonnie Miller, contracted West Nile virus at age 13 and later developed encephalitis, which led to her death Wednesday.

Dennison noted that of the people who get West Nile, only 1 in 100 develops encephalitis.

"They fought a very valiant fight," said Betti Cadmus, spokeswoman for the Menifee Union School District.

Dennison visited Lauren and her family, and helped organize fundraisers for the family to take her to China for treatments.

The Millers took Lauren to China when she was 15 for umbilical cord blood stem-cell injections. After the treatments, Lauren's mother, Bonnie Miller, wrote that Lauren's ability to swallow had improved, allowing her to eat pureed foods, according to her online journal.

"They are people with great faith," Dennison said of Lauren's parents. "Her parents have done everything."

In 2006 and 2007, the family took Lauren to Kansas City, Mo., for hyperbaric treatments.

Dennison said she saw Lauren in the hospital the day after Thanksgiving.

"They were at the turning point then," she said.

The family learned Lauren was having problems with her kidneys and decided to bring her home, Dennison said.

"There are people who questioned if Lauren knew what was going on around her," Dennison said. "She wasn't able to respond, but there were lots of signs that she knew what was going on."

Lauren flashed a unique smile to a cute doctor in China and locked eyes with her grandfather when he sat next to her, she said.

"I think she knew."

Dennison said she talked to Bonnie Miller on Wednesday and offered to help in any way she could.

Miller didn't ask for anything, Dennison said.

"They certainly need everyone's prayers."

Reach Tammy J. McCoy at 951-375-3729 or tmccoy@PE.com

Richard Gibson, CA survivor

2008-07-24T14:42:00.001-05:00

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West Nile virus victim feels the bite Published: July 01, 2008 1:00 PM

“I’m your one per cent,” says a man I’ve yet to formally meet.
Richard Gibson wheels his way through The Valley Echo and into the reporter’s office.
He’s speaking about a recent article we’ve published on the precautions a person should take to avoid the West Nile bite.

The Saskatchewan man has a firsthand account of the severity the disease can inflict.
On August 16, 2007 Gibson began to experience a barrage of sickness, which he was told was a sinus infection.
Suffering chronic headaches, extreme exhaustion, eye irritation and chills, he went to a local walk-in clinic, his diagnosis was echoed Monday morning by his family doctor.

But a few days later his illness had intensified so severely that the now delirious Gibson spent 11 days in intensive care. He had been admitted to Yorkton Hospital August 22.

After extensive blood work and a spinal tap, doctors were able to diagnose him with the West Nile virus. But with no means to cure the disease, time and an abundance of antibiotics were hoped to aid Gibson.

As cases are still relativity rare in Canada, medical personnel had little assurances to offer his family. They simply didn’t know what the outcome would be.
As a result of the virus Gibson had meningitis and paralysis, leaving Gibson without the use of his legs and arms.
After one month in hospital he was transferred to Regina’s Wascana Rehabilitation Centre where he spent five months regaining his ability to walk and make use of his arms.

When he managed to finally get home it was December. By then Gibson had lost his job as a minister. He and his wife had to move from the church’s manse.
Today Gibson is mobile with the aid of a walker. He’s regained most of his ability in his right arm; his left is still paralyzed from the elbow up. He continues to go to rehabilitation everyday.

“I’m far beyond what anyone thought possible, but I’m nowhere near where I was.”
Recently Gibson and his wife Kathleen organized a forum for other West Nile survivors.
At the Saskatchewan gathering the couple met many victims of the virus. All of them had endured different degrees of the illness.
Some in attendance had experienced moderate mild flu-like symptoms, others represented loved ones who had died from the virus.

Gibson says he has yet to encounter any two people who have had identical symptoms.
Trying to make sense of the disease, Kathleen is in the midst of writing a book on their personal ordeal. The Gibsons hope to bring to light just how detrimental West Nile can be and encouraged others to take precautionary measures against insect bites.

“Most people don’t recognize how serious it can be. Something that happened to me might happen to someone else.”
While West Nile virus has yet to be detected in B.C., scientists are waiting for the first case to be found. “There is no cure, only prevention."

Melissa Dimond, UT Survivor

2008-07-24T14:31:00.000-05:00

Victim struggles with West Nile effects
Bountiful woman still battles virus' aftereffects
By Heather May The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 07/24/2008 12:37:07 AM MDT

BOUNTIFUL - As she stood outside her new home with her new husband two years ago, Melissa Dimond was bit by a mosquito. She remembers thinking, "I hope I don't get West Nile [virus]." Two weeks later came the telltale signs. She developed a rash and severe headaches. She lost some vision in her left eye.

The type 1 diabetic grew spacey, twice throwing away the device that checks her blood-sugar levels. Eventually, after a couple of emergency room visits because she couldn't keep food or water down, close one of her eyes or remember how to put contact lenses in or use her insulin pump, tests confirmed she had the virus and one of its most serious repercussions. The virus had developed into meningoencephalitis - it had inflamed her brain and the membranes of the spinal cord. Most people infected with West Nile don't develop symptoms.

Dimond and her husband, Blake, spoke to reporters Wednesday about her ordeal as a cautionary tale about the importance of protection during mosquito season. To make the point of how easy the virus is to contract, Dimond noted she knew something about the disease as an epidemiologist at the state health department. "This type of illness is really rare. That needs to stay in perspective," she said from her living room couch. But, she added, "it's really not worth the risk, even if it is small."

Common in Africa, West Asia and the Middle East, the virus spread to the United States in 1999 and to Utah in 2003. It's typically spread through mosquitos, which become infected after feeding on infected birds. Last year, the state reported 70 human cases that resulted in two deaths. So far this year, the virus has infected two people, one in Uintah County and another reported in Salt Lake County this week. Both reported fevers. The virus has also been detected in either pools, mosquitos or birds in Box Elder, Davis, Kane, Millard, Utah and Washington counties.

The state health department says the virus has surely spread throughout the state. Dimond guesses she was outside at dusk for about 20 minutes when she got bit in September 2006. She thinks she was so severely affected because her immune system was compromised by diabetes and a sinus infection she had at the time. She spent about a month in the hospital. She couldn't swallow, smile or stick out her tongue. She couldn't walk or raise her arms and she had double vision. Doctors didn't know if she suffered brain damage. "It was devastating," Blake Dimond recalled. "To see your wife without any facial expression, sick, relying on machines to feed her. . . . I just wanted to know: Is it going to be my same Melissa that I married?"

It took six months of relearning skills as basic as coughing and spitting to get to where she is today. She still tires easily and has trouble walking because the toes of her left foot curl in. But she is back to work and can take care of herself again. Her vocal range has limits, but she has rejoined her church choir. Her goal is to be able to mountain bike again. The couple are more cautious than ever about warding off mosquitos. Citronella candles are on the porch. She steers clear of most evening barbecues. "I'm really proud to have her back," Blake Dimond said. "I had no idea she could get that sick."

contact: hmay@sltrib.com

Stacie King, MS

2008-07-03T23:20:00.000-05:00

Pontotoc mother wins battle with WEST NILE VIRUS

Stacie and Savannah

(Stacie King spraying her 5-year-old daughter Savannah.)

By SANDRA PRIEST
Special to the Progress

It�s hard to believe that a tiny insect could cause a grown woman so much trouble, but for Stacie King just one pesky little mosquito almost cost her her life.
It all began early on a September morning when Stacie woke up with the worst headache and backache she had ever experienced. �I wasn�t able to go to church that day,� she says as she remembers the unexpected turn of events last fall. Her symptoms soon included dizziness, nausea, and weakness. �Everyday I just got worse,� she recalls with a faraway look in her eyes.
When her unusual symptoms didn�t improve she finally decided it was time to see a doctor. Stacie�s husband Derrick says, �Now, if I start to get a sniffle I run to the doctor, but Stacie never goes.� He knew his wife was really sick�and worried.
She made an appointment with Dr. Joseph Montgomery. Because Stacie�s symptoms were uncommon, and the routine tests in the office didn�t give any real clues to help in making a diagnosis, Dr. Joseph consulted with his older brother Dr. Steve Montgomery. Dr. Steve was puzzled as well by the mysterious symptoms that by now included a high fever. Trying to get to the root cause of the strange illness they decided to order a CT scan, as well as blood tests for a long list of diseases�a lot of which were fatal. �It�s a scary feeling when the doctor puts you in the hospital and doesn�t know what is wrong with you,� Stacie vividly remembers.
After the CT scan came back normal a spinal tap was ordered to check for meningitis, an inflammation of the membrane around the brain and spinal cord. This test came back positive. One piece of the puzzling illness had fallen into place, but Dr. Steve, who was the one on call that weekend, didn�t think that was the whole puzzle. Stacie explains, �He was anxious to see what the blood work that had been sent off to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota showed.�

Puzzle solved
After the results from the Mayo Clinic came in, the puzzle of the mysterious illness was finally solved. Derrick remembers how scared he and Stacie were when they first heard the diagnosis. �When he (Dr. Steve) walked into the room and said �Well, I know now what you�ve had�, we just held our breath. When he said it was West Nile Meningitis I thought that was a death sentence, but he said �But you�re going to be fine�.�
Dr. Steve explained that the disease is extremely rare and that it would take quite some time for Stacie to fully recover. In all his years of practicing medicine, this was his first patient with West Nile Virus. �He said he was just as shocked as we were,� Stacie recalls. Her case was the first and only instance of West Nile Virus reported in Pontotoc County in 2007.
As a mother of five, Stacie can�t imagine a child going through an ordeal like hers. �I think parents should be real cautious and should be real aware. You think it would never happen to you.�
The King family is thankful that Stacie is on the road to recovery. Although she still tires easily she is doing well. Stacie and Derrick are especially thankful for family and friends who helped them through those difficult weeks while she was in the hospital and recuperating afterwards. �If it had not been for family and friends we would have been in a tight�a real tight,� Derrick says gratefully. Stacie adds with a smile, �The good Lord works it all out. He always has for us.�

Appeared originally in the Pontotoc Progress, 7/1/2008, section C , page 1

Rev. Richard Gibson-CAN

2008-07-02T12:28:00.000-05:00

West Nile virus victim feels the bite

By Janine Toms - Invermere Valley Echo - July 01, 2008

| | | |

Rev. Richard Gibson and his wife Kathleen pay a visit to the valley this summer. Richard is a West Nile survivor who experienced a serious reaction to the virus last summer in Saskatchewan. Janine Toms/Echo photo

“I’m your one per cent,” says a man I’ve yet to formally meet.

Richard Gibson wheels his way through The Valley Echo and into the reporter’s office.

He’s speaking about a recent article we’ve published on the precautions a person should take to avoid the West Nile bite.

The Saskatchewan man has a firsthand account of the severity the disease can inflict.

On August 16, 2007 Gibson began to experience a barrage of sickness, which he was told was a sinus infection.

Suffering chronic headaches, extreme exhaustion, eye irritation and chills, he went to a local walk-in clinic, his diagnosis was echoed Monday morning by his family doctor.

But a few days later his illness had intensified so severely that the now delirious Gibson spent 11 days in intensive care. He had been admitted to Yorkton Hospital August 22.

After extensive blood work and a spinal tap, doctors were able to diagnose him with the West Nile virus. But with no means to cure the disease, time and an abundance of antibiotics were hoped to aid Gibson.

As cases are still relativity rare in Canada, medical personnel had little assurances to offer his family. They simply didn’t know what the outcome would be.

As a result of the virus Gibson had meningitis and paralysis, leaving Gibson without the use of his legs and arms.

After one month in hospital he was transferred to Regina’s Wascana Rehabilitation Centre where he spent five months regaining his ability to walk and make use of his arms.

When he managed to finally get home it was December. By then Gibson had lost his job as a minister. He and his wife had to move from the church’s manse.

Today Gibson is mobile with the aid of a walker. He’s regained most of his ability in his right arm; his left is still paralyzed from the elbow up. He continues to go to rehabilitation everyday.

“I’m far beyond what anyone thought possible, but I’m nowhere near where I was.”

Recently Gibson and his wife Kathleen organized a forum for other West Nile survivors.

At the Saskatchewan gathering the couple met many victims of the virus. All of them had endured different degrees of the illness.

Some in attendance had experienced moderate mild flu-like symptoms, others represented loved ones who had died from the virus.

Gibson says he has yet to encounter any two people who have had identical symptoms.

Trying to make sense of the disease, Kathleen is in the midst of writing a book on their personal ordeal. The Gibsons hope to bring to light just how detrimental West Nile can be and encouraged others to take precautionary measures against insect bites.

“Most people don’t recognize how serious it can be. Something that happened to me might happen to someone else.”

While West Nile virus has yet to be detected in B.C., scientists are waiting for the first case to be found. “There is no cure, only prevention."

Mel Lacy, ID

2008-05-06T21:45:00.001-05:00

Man paralyzed by West Nile shares harrowing tale
05/02/2008 11:39 AM MDT

Mel Lacy on his long road to recovery
BOISE - Summertime will soon be here and so will those blood-sucking mosquitoes. Since West Nile virus first appeared in Idaho – thousands of people have been infected.

One of those people – Mel Lacy, shared his struggle with the potentially debilitating virus.

Doctors diagnosed Lacy with West Nile on his wedding anniversary in August of 2006.
Later that month he was admitted to the hospital because he couldn't stop throwing up.

Two months later he woke up paralyzed from the neck down.
“It feels weird I feel like I am falling forward,” Lacy said.
Lacy fights everyday to overcome the affects of West Nile - working to gain muscle in his arms and legs.
“When he first came in he had the tracheotomy he was in a wheel chair pretty much totally dependant for all his mobility,” said physical therapist Jill Harris, St. Luke’s Idaho Elks Rehabilitation Services.

Lacy hasn't been able to walk on his own since 2006.
That summer this 51-year-old handyman, who loved to build cabinets, fell asleep one night and woke up with a mosquito bite and West Nile.
A couple months after his diagnosis, Lacy realized how serious the virus could be.
Idaho West Nile cases

2003: First human case
2004: Three cases
2005: 13 cases
2006: 1,000+ cases
2007: 132 cases
24 Idahoans have died from West Nile virus

“I couldn't move anything but my head,” he said.
It was a period of time that changed Lacy’s life and his family's forever.
“He was real ‘do it all and do it yourself’ and always did everything for us and to have to do everything for him is odd,” Lacy’s daughter Melissa Olson said.
Through therapy, Lacy has regained some of his independence and now has more mobility on the top half of his body.

He is breathing on his own and using his hands to accomplish everyday tasks.
“I have no lift to my arms this way so if I need to eat I have to pivot this arm to get my arm up or to shave,” Lacy said.

For Lacy, the fight after the bite is one of the toughest battles of his life.
“I had cancer at age 34 that they said I wouldn't live through (it), and I thought I had done my hard part in life and I passed those odds and then when I got this I thought well, there's really a challenge,” he said.

It is a struggle physically and emotionally.
“They do have antidepressants that help,” he said. “But I really believe its my faith that gets me by where I am.”

Lacy hopes by telling his story he can save others from getting the West Nile virus. His daughter says her dad’s experience has changed her habits.
“I make sure I douse with DEET and wear long sleeves,” Olson said. “It’s worth it because I don't want to end up in a chair like my dad.”

A chair Lacy is working to get out of.
“He gives 100 percent he does what he can to get better and I know someday he will meet his goals because he is determined,” Harris said.
“The dream is still there,” Lacy said. “Now I am just concentrating on trying to get better.”

Lacy says insurance companies estimate his health care costs have exceeded $750,000 and that does not include his prescriptions.

Because of West Nile, Lacy has been dropped by all insurance companies so now he has to cover the costs on his own.

He hopes to be eligible for Medicare later this year so he can afford to get back to physical therapy on a routine basis.

Ray Stevens-CAN

2008-01-11T11:53:00.000-06:00

West Nile ordeal kills city senior

Michelle Lang
Calgary Herald
Thursday, January 10, 2008

For almost five months, Ray Stevens fought for his life in the intensive care unit of Rockyview Hospital, paralyzed except for one arm.

The 76-year-old Calgarian, infected with a severe form of West Nile virus, slipped in and out of consciousness. He was on life support during much of his time in hospital.

Last week, Stevens lost his long battle with West Nile neurological syndrome, becoming the second person in Alberta to die from the mosquito-borne disease.

"Every day, you'd go up (to the hospital) and hope that something better would happen, but it didn't," said Arlene Stevens, his widow, on Wednesday.

"People have to realize how serious this is. They have to protect themselves," she added.

Stevens, a hockey enthusiast with a passion for his dogs, passed away Dec. 30 after becoming infected last summer, possibly during a visit to Saskatchewan.

His death comes four months after an elderly Calgary-area woman became the first person in Alberta to die from the virus in mid-September.

Like Stevens, health officials say the unidentified 74-year-old woman likely contracted West Nile in Saskatchewan.

Although both cases appear to have links to Saskatchewan, the deaths follow a record-setting year for West Nile in Alberta. The province recorded 321 cases of the virus in 2007, eclipsing the previous record in 2003 when there were about 275 cases.

"This unfortunate death underlies the importance of our message," said Howard May, spokesman for Alberta Health. "The single most effective way to reduce the risk is using DEET and personal protection."

Arlene was concerned about West Nile before her husband contracted it, and she even considered whether they should travel to Saskatchewan last summer. But the couple, who used DEET-based mosquito repellent, decided to go to Yorkton -- Stevens' hometown -- for their daughter's 50th birthday.

They left for Yorkton on July 31, returning to Calgary Aug. 9. Six days later, Stevens fell ill with flu-like symptoms. On Aug. 19, Stevens was rushed to hospital with "the worst headache possible," and within three days, he was admitted to intensive care, said his wife.

During his long hospital stay, his family had difficulty communicating with Stevens, who was hard of hearing. They often wrote him notes when they wanted to tell him something. Arlene said her husband had many visitors at the hospital, including his great grandkids and even his two dogs.

"The dogs seemed to know. They were perfect," she said.

Stevens didn't remember getting the mosquito bites that ultimately claimed his life. Arlene said it isn't clear if he was bitten in Saskatchewan or back in Calgary, but health officials suspect he contracted the virus during his trip.

In most cases, people who contract West Nile exhibit no symptoms and often learn they are carrying it after donating blood.

Those who do become ill may experience headaches, fever, chills and swollen lymph glands.

Serious cases can develop into the potentially-deadly West Nile Neurological Syndrome.

"Oftentimes, in West Nile Neurological Disorder, the risk increases with age and other health issues," said Bruce Conway, a spokesman at Calgary Health Region.

A memorial service for Stevens is planned for Saturday.

mlang@theherald.canwest.com

© The Calgary Herald 2008

David Kelly, SC survivor

2007-11-11T11:40:00.000-06:00

Grad student survives brush with West Nile

david kelly with mother gayle

independentmail.com

Vince Jackson/Special to the Independent-Mail

Saturday, November 10, 2007, Anderson South Carolina

Gayle and David Kelly, mother and son

David Kelly was a healthy, 25-year-old graduate student at Clemson University when he realized something was not right.

“I felt weakness in my leg and pain in my lower back,” he said. “The pain did not stay in one place. It moved around to my neck and head.”

The weather in Clemson had been hot and dry in late August — not the kind of weather to produce swarms of mosquitoes.

“I always thought that West Nile virus was something other people got. Certainly not my son,” said David’s mother, Gayle Kelly.

Mr. Kelly had attended orientation at the university’s Outdoor Lab, but doesn’t remember being bitten by an insect.

“I have no idea how I got this disease,” he said.

Gayle Kelly said she realized something was terribly wrong with her son when he could not walk properly and began to shake uncontrollably. At the emergency room, Mr. Kelly was diagnosed with pneumonia and told to go home to recover. At home, he was too weak to get out of the car, so his mother took him back to the emergency room and demanded he be treated.

“Doctors have since told me that I saved David’s life by being so insistent,” she said.

Once the seriousness of Mr. Kelly’s illness became apparent to doctors, they drew blood and ordered a spinal tap and CAT scan. They were focusing on two possibilities: the neurological disorder Guillain-Barre or West Nile virus.

The next day Mr. Kelly’s temperature climbed to 104 degrees and he suffered spasmodic jerking of his body. He was conscious, but could not perform neurological tests such as touching the end of his nose with his index finger. More tests were ordered, including an MRI and nerve conduction test.

Ms. Kelly recalled that she was beginning to face the possibility that her only son would not survive. Mr. Kelly was transferred to Greenville Memorial Hospital, where doctors found that anti-convulsive drugs administered to him were having an adverse effect on brain function.

“I had to decide whether or not to give him the seizure drugs because of the side effects,” Ms. Kelly said. “No one knew if it would kill him or not, to stop those drugs.”

Mr. Kelly’s temperature dropped as low as 95 degrees and he developed a heart arrhythmia due to interactions among the different drugs he was being given. Finally, after a week in the hospital, doctors told Mr. Kelly they had an idea what his illness was: West Nile virus.

“The hospital could not tell us that David had WNV, only that he had WNV antibodies in his blood,” said Ms. Kelly. Either DHEC or CDC must confirm WNV, and that took another 2ƒ weeks.

Eventually Mr. Kelly was transferred to Roger C. Peace Rehabilitation Center, where he spent nearly two weeks and gradually began walking again, with the aid of a walker and cane.

Two months later, Mr. Kelly has recovered enough to return to school, where he works part-time as a graduate assistant. He can now walk short distances, but needs to wear a leg brace to support his foot.

“I am not in pain and I don’t remember much about what happened to me, but I am determined to get completely back to good health,” he said. “The most important thing is to finish my Ph.D. I want to teach business at a university.”

Gayle and David Kelly, mother and son

As a distant cousin of John C. Calhoun, Mr. Kelly feels a strong connection to Clemson and is grateful for the prayers, encouragement and hope the university community provided during his illness and recovery.

“I love Clemson and all the people associated with it,” he said. “I want everyone to know how much it means to have their support.”

Megan Cherkas, CAN survivor

2007-11-08T19:16:00.000-06:00

Megan Cherkas. credit: Don Healy, The Leader-Post

Cherkas sees good things

Murray McCormick, The Leader-Post

Published: Thursday, November 01, 2007

Megan Cherkas, who has battled through knee injuries in three previous seasons with the University of Regina Cougars, pronounced herself healthy for the 2007-08 women's basketball season.

Not so fast. Cherkas was feeling great about the upcoming season before being infected with the West Nile virus in August. While her knees are strong, she was weakened by the virus that is transferred to humans by mosquitoes.

"I didn't get the one with the flu symptoms,'' said Cherkas, a fourth-year guard with the Cougars. "I just felt drained all of the time. I couldn't breathe when I ran and I thought that I developed allergies over the summer.''

View Larger Image

University of Regina Cougars guard Megan Cherkas. credit: Don Healy, The Leader-Post

Cherkas saw a doctor, who diagnosed that she had West Nile. Cherkas was able to bounce back after plenty of rest. Cherkas added that Meryl Jordan, another guard with the Cougars, was infected with the West Nile virus during the summer.

"I was lucky because mine was really minor,'' Cherkas said.

Cherkas and the Cougars begin the 2007-08 Canada West season on the weekend with two games at the Centre for Kinesiology, Health and Sport. The Cougars, ranked seventh in the CIS pre-season poll, play the Trinity Western Spartans on Friday and the Simon Fraser Clan on Saturday. The Clan are the CIS's top-ranked team and the defending national champions. Both games tip off at 6 p.m. The men's team also opens play Friday against the same schools at 8 p.m. on both nights.

The Cougars women's team rolls into the season with high expectations. After two years of pleading patience with the development of a young team, the Cougars are poised to reap the rewards of the learning process.

"People used to tell us that it was OK to be inexperienced,'' said Cherkas. "It wasn't OK but that was one of the reasons. Now we have players in our third and fourth years and it's time.''

Dave Taylor, who returns for his second full season as the Cougars head coach, anticipates this season being the "pay-off" year for the squad. There are six fourth-year players and four players in their third season with the Cougars.

"We knew that we were building for this year,'' Taylor said. "If we can stay healthy, we can be very good.''

Being good enough means winning their division and being one of the final four teams at the Canada West championship. The Canadian championship is March 13-16 in Saskatoon.

"Once there, you win one game and you're at nationals,'' Taylor said. "Our goal is to be playing well at the Final Four weekend.''

That comes back to the maturing of the Cougars. The younger players learned about the university game while logging significant minutes in their first and second years. They also gave away a great deal of experience to older teams.

The future looks bright because there aren't any fifth-year players on the roster. That means the Cougars should remain intact for another season when they play host to the 2009 CIS women's basketball championship.

"That's the year when we should be at our best,'' Taylor said.

Cherkas felt that one of the advantages of playing as youngsters with the Cougars was they have all become friends. They hung out over the summer and are close heading into the new season. Those bonds will be needed to carry through with the team's goals for this season and next.

"We've all matured together,'' Cherkas said. "We've matured into responsible adults. We aren't children anymore and we know what we have to get done. Being women now, we are naturally much stronger.''

Among the Cougars' fourth-year players are Chelsea Cassano, Jacquie Kenyon, Maja Kralovcova, Jessica Lynch and Jordan. Gabby Gheyssen returns after being named to the CIS all-rookie team in 2007.

Among the notable newcomers are post Brittany Read and Lynch. Read moves into the CIS level after playing with the Balfour Redmen.

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Donald "Don” Lee Wood, OK

2007-11-07T11:44:00.000-06:00

By Ron Jackson
Staff Writer MIAMI, OK —

Donald "Don” Lee Wood lost the love of his life in June when his wife of 64 years died of heart failure. To no one's surprise, the 85-year-old Wood died less than two months later.

Wood, family members believed, died of a broken heart.

But an autopsy showed it was the West Nile virus.

"We were at the house before the funeral when we got the call,” said Richard Wood, 60, of Miami and the older of Don's two sons. "They told us he had the West Nile virus. We were stunned. Who would have thought West Nile virus?”

Richard paused and then mused, "I told my brother, ‘Mom must have sent that mosquito down here to get him.' ”

On Aug. 6, Don Wood became one of seven Oklahomans to die from the West Nile virus this year. As with most known cases, Wood's outdoor activity and advanced age likely proved to be a lethal combination.

He enjoyed sitting on his deck with his wife, Mary, and despite his battle with macular degeneration, always insisted on doing his own yard work.

"I'd come over to mow his lawn, and he would never let me do the whole thing,” Richard Wood said. "He always insisted on doing at least a portion.

"I'd bet that mosquito got him while he was fiddling around out back there.”

It can harm anyone

Miami also proved to be the wrong place for the elder Wood prior to his death.

The Ottawa County seat was swarming with mosquitoes in the weeks following its historic July 4 flooding. The problem was so bad, city crews were spraying neighborhoods.

Health, otherwise, didn't appear to be an issue with Wood. He remained slender throughout his life, lifted dumbbells every day and took vitamins because of his eye problems.

He worked 30 years with the Douglas Aircraft Co. in Tulsa, and stressed the importance of a strong work ethic. He also stressed an active lifestyle, coaching his sons' youth baseball teams and supporting them in their studies and extracurricular athletic endeavors, the sons said.

Wood lived that philosophy until West Nile ended his life.

"He worked out every day,” said Scott Wood, 50, of Tulsa and Don's youngest son. "Heck, he was probably in better shape than me.”

Scott Wood now understands that's the point with West Nile virus. It can harm anyone of any age at any time. He hopes others take heed.

"I remember we used to cut wood, and we'd be out all day long in the woods,” Scott Wood recalled. "We'd come home, and pick 10, 15 ticks off us and not think a thing about it. Mosquito bites? Didn't matter.

"Who thought about mosquito repellent? We do now.”

Debbie Fiddler, OK Survivor

2007-11-07T11:24:00.000-06:00

Sun November 4, 2007

By Ron Jackson
Staff Writer

EDMOND — Debbie Fiddler is an active real estate agent, golfer and gardener.

She's also a West Nile virus survivor.

"I'm told I was the 14th case in Oklahoma County,” said Fiddler, 48. "There are a lot of people in Oklahoma County. What are the odds?”

Fortunately for Fiddler, she had odds of a different kind in her favor — her age.

Of the seven Oklahomans who have died this year from the West Nile virus, none have been younger than 60. Five of the victims were between the ages of 80 and 87.

In retrospect, Fiddler said she is grateful she outlasted the potentially deadly virus as well as she did.

Fiddler experienced flu-like symptoms with muscle aches, cold chills, a low-grade fever and chronic fatigue for more than two weeks. She spent most of her time in bed, stressing over her bed-ridden state and the sunshine peering in through her bedroom window.

"I love to garden and golf all the time, and here I was unable to move, completely exhausted, and it's beautiful outside,” she said. "Of course, the toughest part was not knowing what was wrong.”

Blood test results took 11 days.

"When I found out I had contracted West Nile, I was shocked,” Fiddler said. "But, in another sense, I wasn't. I work out all the time on my back porch. I love being outside, and I will forever be convinced that's where I was bitten by the mosquito.

"I used to think spraying around me was enough. I've never liked bug spray.”

Not anymore.

"Now I spray my skin all the time,” Fiddler added. "And so do my friends.”

James William Cook Sr. , OK-Victim

2007-11-06T12:33:00.000-06:00

Faces of West Nile: Even the 'strongest man in the world' wasn't safe from virus
James William Cook Sr.

By Ron Jackson, Staff Writer--CUSHING

James William Cook Sr. was the undisputed "strongest man in the world” to his children. A man who once fought his way out of a coma following a major car wreck.

So when Cook died from a mosquito bite Sept. 28 — becoming one of seven Oklahomans to die from the West Nile virus this year — his loved ones were shocked.

"A mosquito,” said Jim Cook Jr., 49, of Agra in disbelief. "It's still hard to believe that's what killed my dad. To me, he was the strongest man in the world.

"If he could die like that, any of us could.”

Cook Sr., 81, of Cushing and his family discovered the randomness of the deadly West Nile virus, which experts say is most harmful when it preys on youngest and oldest among us. For the Cook family, the West Nile virus is no longer just a disease heard on the news.

It's personal. "My father's doctor told us he used to go home each evening and sit out on his porch,” said Betty Cook, 50, of Coyle and the eldest of six Cook children. "After watching what this disease did to my father, he said he wouldn't do that anymore.”

The end was slow and agonizing for the elder Cook.

Dizziness suddenly plagued him. He felt like he was in a fog. He became nauseous and weak.

"We first took him to the hospital here in Cushing, but they failed to diagnose what was wrong,” said daughter Terrie Ostmeyer, 45, of Cushing. "For a while, we thought maybe he needed new glasses. I took him to the eye doctor twice.”

But the dizziness continued.

Putting family first

Only a year earlier James Cook was doing what he loved to do — work.

Over the years he was a truck driver, a traveling evangelist and a butcher. He was never idle. Even in his final years, he sought employment, working at Wal-Mart for a time and even a local car wash.

Before his death, he even boldly applied for work at the Cimarron Correctional Facility — a prison in Cushing. He wanted to be a correctional officer.

"They told him he was too old,” Betty Cook said with a laugh. "He was upset. He said, ‘Can they do that?' ”

James Cook prided himself on being a strong man.

Grandchildren often hung on his outstretched arms for fun. Years earlier, Jim Cook witnessed his father balance two 75-pound boxes of beef in the palms of his outstretched hands to the amusement and wonderment of his younger co-workers.

Family meant everything to him. He treated his wife, children and grandchildren to wiener roasts, picnics, camping trips, and vacations to places such as Colorado and California.

And he sacrificed for them.

"I remember one time when I was in fifth-grade,” Betty Cook recalled. "I walked through the front door, and I saw Dad sitting in his chair with his legs extended. The soles of his shoes had been worn through, and he must have cut some cardboard from a meat box to use as a cushion on the cement floor.

"I thought, ‘Gee, Dad needs new shoes.”

Betty choked back the tears.

"Then I looked down at my shoes,” she continued. "I was wearing new black and white oxfords.”

‘Tell everyone we know'

Four years ago at the age of 77, Cook suffered severe head trauma in a car accident. He spent 49 days in the hospital, 10 of which were spent in a coma.

He made a full recovery, and took advantage of his second chance.

Morning coffee was almost always followed by a trip to the front porch, where he'd ease into the worn pads of his metal swing and listen to the wind chimes.

Summer nights also beckoned him to his front porch swing — the spot where his family thinks he was ultimately infected by a mosquito bite.

"He loved to sit outside,” said Wilma Cook, his wife of 50 years. "A lot of times I'd find him on the swing asleep.”

Then one August day Cook became overwhelmed by a dizziness he called, "the blind staggers.” The ailment made no sense to those most intimate with his life.

Finally, on Sept. 8, his family admitted him into the VA Medical Center in Oklahoma City. Doctors diagnosed him with the West Nile virus eight days later. Within two weeks, Cook was dead.

"The doctor told us to tell everyone we know about the West Nile virus,” Terrie Ostmeyer said. "Tell our family, our friends, people at our church ... everyone.”

No one needs to tell her 9-year-old daughter, though.

Alexa Ostmeyer visited her grandfather's bedside before his death. As usual, he mustered enough strength to playfully stick his tongue out at his granddaughter.

She smiled despite the sorrow.

"He struggled really hard, but he said, ‘I love you,' ” Alexa recalled. "Then he squeezed my hand real tight.”

Robert Moore, ND survivor

2007-10-13T22:44:00.000-05:00

It took the West Nile Virus to slow this Devils Lake teaching legend down

By Mike Bellmore - Features Editor

Long-time Devils Lake teacher Bob Moore relaxes in his room at Heartland Care as he recovers from a tough bout with West Nile Disease this fall.

In early August, long-time Devils Lake High School art instructor Robert Moore was all signed, sealed and primed for his 52nd year of teaching.

A pesky little mosquito put those plans in shambles.

A week after he was bitten by the mosquito, Moore was diagnosed with West Nile Disease. The disease has been fatal to some in North Dakota and elsewhere, and affected his central nervous system.

Since that time, he’s been in five different hospitals, rehab centers and care facilities. Now, at Heartland Care here in Devils Lake he says he’s getting better and the care he has received has been fabulous.

“These people have been so nice,’’ he marvels. “I’ve got wonderful therapists and couldn’t ask for more caring people. It has been a marvelous experience.’’

Moore, who was honored by the Park Board a few months ago for his 50 years of work with that organization, couldn’t speak, chew food or handle any type of solid food for weeks. He’s been, basically, on a liquid diet.

As he became the 111th of 328 West Nile victims in North Dakota this year, he was vomitting and sick to his stomach with a 103 degree temperature over four days. He was constantly tired and had a stroke as well.

He’s been hospitalized in Devils Lake, Hallock, Grand Forks, and spent time at the Grand Forks Rehab Center before landing here at Heartland Care in Devils Lake.

Moore was being visited by family members Betty Youngren and Bill Moore of Hallock, who wanted to extend heartfelt thanks to the community for the care Bob has received.

What perhaps made him even sicker this fall was knowing he was missing out on a big part of his life - the kids and the people he works with at the school.

“It’s my life and I really miss it,’’ the 73-year-old smiled. “This is the first time I’ve ever missed so much school - the longest I’ve ever been away from school.’’

Moore says he’s feeling well enough to maybe visit the school next week, but he’s unsure about a return. He says he’s getting stronger and feeling better by the day.

(For a copy of this News story see the Thursday, October 11, 2007 Journal) 10/11/07

Matthew Arambula, Bakersfield, CA

2007-08-26T13:06:00.000-05:00

MSNBC.com

West Nile Virus survivor recommends prevention

KGET-TV

A second survivor of the West Nile Virus came forward Thursday, talking about the dangers of the deadly virus. This comes after the health department issued another warning to Kern County residents. The health department said all residents need to take the threat of the deadly virus more seriously.A second survivor of the West Nile Virus came forward Thursday, talking about the dangers of the deadly virus.

This comes after the health department issued another warning to Kern County residents.

The health department said all residents need to take the threat of the deadly virus more seriously.

In the past, they've stressed West Nile affects children and the elderly more than others, but like one West Nile Virus survivor said, he didn't know it's the middle-aged people, from 30-60 years old, that may be most at risk.

"I don't know where I contracted it," said West Nile Virus survivor Matthew Arambula, 38. "It couldn't have been at work. At 6 a.m., mosquitoes are out then, or at the ball field with my kids, I don't even know where I got bit."

Arambula never thought he could catch West Nile Virus, but a call from a local blood bank broke the news to him.

"Houchin [Blood Bank] called, 'Matthew, we have something to tell you ... don't get scared,'" Arambula explained. "I said, 'What's wrong?' . They said I had West Nile . and asked how I'd been feeling ... I said, 'Well, my back's sore, I can't get out of bed, I'm going to call in sick.' They said, 'Go see a doctor right away.'"

People like Arambula were the focus of a health department news conference Thursday.

Director of Disease Control Dr. Boyce Dulan said mosquitoes don't care how old you are when they bite, so the focus for all residents in Kern County, the epicenter of West Nile, is prevention.

"Don't get bitten and we can put a lid on this disease," Dulan said.

Statewide there are 137 cases of West Nile Virus with 78 cases in Kern County. Fresno only has nine cases of West Nile Virus.

Two weeks ago, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency for Kern County after seeing the alarming number of West Nile cases.

The emergency funds freed up nearly $200,000 to help Kern County fight the bite.

Rob Quiring with Kern Mosquito and Vector Control said last week's aerial spraying killed 90 percent of mosquitoes in their test pods, but said they've still got a long way to go in treating mosquito breeding grounds.

Meantime, Arambula said beware.

"Protect yourself, protect your kids," he said. "Don't think it can't happen to you because it can . We used to joke about it at work . a little mosquito can't bring down a big guy ... well, it did."

The state has provided thousands of boxes of insect repellant to the local health department. They will be giving out a Cutter insect repellant at public events in the future.

Visit WestNile.ca.gov, CDPH.ca.gov, CDC.gov/westnile, or co.kern.ca.us/health.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20416488/

MSN Privacy . Legal

Former police chief DuPey gets West Nile-IL

2007-08-25T23:01:00.000-05:00

Former police chief DuPey gets West Nile

August 25, 2007

By John Byrne Post-Tribune staff writer

HAMMOND -- Former Hammond Police Chief Frank DuPey Sr. is hospitalized with West Nile virus, according to his wife, Lake County Commissioner Frances "Fran" DuPey.

Frank DuPey has spent more than a week in St. Margaret Mercy Medical Center, his wife said Friday.

"He's past the really critical time as far as surviving, which is the most important thing, because 43 percent of people his age who get this don't make it," DuPey said.

She said her husband ran a fever over 103 degrees for several days, and needed to be wrapped in cooling blankets at the hospital to keep his temperature down.

"He has been sick more than two weeks. At first, doctors thought he had a regular bacteria, and treated him with antibiotics," Fran DuPey said. "But he just kept getting worse."

State health officials this week reported two probable human cases of

Wayne Hinrichs, NE

2007-06-24T15:34:00.000-05:00

Early West Nile Cases Cause Worry

Friday 6.22.07, 10:50 p.m.

The North Platte man infected with the West Nile virus says he's feeling much better now. Once you get West Nile, you'll always have the antibody in your system, but only in the most severe cases do symptoms reappear.

One man from Hildreth got the disease two years ago, and while he feels fine now, he remembers all too well how painful it was to have the virus.

Wayne, "I had such a terrible stomach ache. I thought surely farming finally got to me and I got an ulcer out of this deal, but then I started getting terrible headaches."

The symptoms only got worse, until they were more than enough to send Wayne Hinrichs seeking help.

"Then I went to the doctor in town." Wayne said. "Hildreth has a clinic, and they took a blood sample because I started feeling a tingling sensation in my legs and that scared me."

Wayne had a mild to severe case of the West Nile virus almost worse than the case recently found in North Platte. Officials there are taking preventative measures, by putting tablets in areas of still water.

West Nile Surveillance Coordinator Nora Camberos said, "If a mosquito comes in and tries to breed in that spot, it will not let the full cycle be completed so they can't actually emerge and hatch."

Although cases of West Nile are emerging earlier this year, it could go either way when it comes to how many people are infected.

"If we continue to have a cooler summer, it may not be as bad a problem in most areas, but if it ends up being hot
and dry, it will be the perfect environment for mosquitoes to breed," said Camberos.

After experiencing the symptoms so close to home, the Hinrichs are certain the warnings aren't something to brush off.

"I consider myself lucky," said Wayne. "I got a friend in Minden who was paralyzed for a while. He couldn't even walk."

His wife Peggy Hinrichs added, "I just always wear bug spray now. If a mosquito bites me, I go in and get the bug spray, or else I go in and stay in, so it's changed a lot of what we do."

Reporter's Notes by Crystal Calloway:

It seems early to have two cases in Nebraska already, but as of June 12 South Dakota and Iowa each had one case. Mississippi had four.

Story Created: Jun 22, 2007 at 10:47 PM CDT

Story Updated: Jun 23, 2007 at 3:40 PM CDT

Jerry Barton, Survivor WI

2007-06-24T11:16:00.000-05:00

West Nile virus survivor thankfulJerry Barton recalls struggle with disease five years later
By MELISSA RIGNEY BAXTER - GM Today Staff
June 24, 2007

Jerry Barton stands next to a Marines bumper sticker on the back of his truck and holds a can of bug spray while at his home in the town of Waukesha. After participating in a Marines bug repellent program while he was in the service, Barton was infected with the West Nile virus a few years ago.
WAUKESHA - Sixty years ago, Jerry Barton helped the U.S. Marines on a special mission to test mosquito repellent while on duty at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, N.C.
"Every night I racked up the most bites in our group," Barton, now 78, said of the three-night experience as a young Marine.
Nearly five years ago, Barton says the mosquitoes got their revenge.
Another mosquito bite gave Barton, who lives in the town of Waukesha, major trouble. He contracted the West Nile virus, one of just a few cases in Waukesha County in 2002.
"It was a nightmare," said Barton’s daughter, Lori Barton. "We’re just lucky he pulled through."
Barton knew the mosquitoes were bad that summer, and he was careful about wearing repellent - most of the time. However, he didn’t always use it for his quick trips to the newspaper box. He figures that’s when he got bitten.
The morning of Oct. 1, 2002, he collapsed on the floor of his Genesee Road home and couldn’t get up. He was there three hours before his son found him and called for help.
"I could see the hard-wired telephone, but I couldn’t get to it," he said.
For full story, go to the electronic version of The Freeman. Click here to access the electronic version.

Elizabeth Zopff, CO

2007-03-06T01:59:00.000-06:00

Technology Can Help Those Paralyzed By West Nile Virus
Device Called Ness L300

By Jane Slater, 7NEWS Reporter
POSTED: 4:27 pm MST March 1, 2007
UPDATED: 7:02 pm MST March 1, 2007

FT.COLLINS, Colo. -- Elizabeth Zopff, 34, said she's had it with her brace and the cane that helps her walk upright.
"It digs into your skin. It's painful. It's hot,"said Zopff.
Zopff hasn't always had numbness in her leg. She contracted West Nile virus two years ago on her family farm. It left her right leg numb and devoid of motion.
"When the fever broke, just nothing, nothing was the same," said Zopff.

It's a reality Zopff has struggled with and fought to overcome. But a recent technological advancement has helped her move along.
"I walked with my cane the other day for the first time in years, two years," she said.
The wireless device, dubbed the Ness L300, is giving her back the mobility that the disease took away.
"The electrical stimulation allows the muscles to do the work that they were designed to do. The sensor under the foot communicates wirelessly with the brace," said physical therapist Amanda Barnhart.

The device forces her leg to do the work, instead of relying on the leg brace.
"It literally is completely life-changing," said Zopff.
Zopff said she already has big plans for the device but realizes it will take baby steps to get there.
"I'd like to chase my kid around the playground a little bit. That would be amazing. I'd like to walk in the grocery store and not be totally exhausted. It's difficult you realize how much you take for granted,"said Zopff.

Ken Speake: In his own words- MN (2)

2007-02-19T13:29:00.001-06:00

Ken Speake: In his own words
Watch the story about Daisy, featured in February 12th's 5 p.m. newscast.
Dear Folks, It's time. I'm retiring.The work continues to be the absolute finest career I can imagine. It's physical. It's generally outdoors. It's fascinating. I get to meet new people, go new places, and learn new things. I get to work with amazingly creative, talented and intelligent people! I can't think of any career that gives a person more chances for greater variety of knowledge! And absolutely nothing provides the ego gratification of being a TV news reporter. I just so enjoy the work! And I think I'm fine at gathering news in the field.getting out...working with the photographer to get the details and images and sounds of the story to which we're assigned. (All week we'll feature Ken's favorite stories in the 5 p.m. newscast. Click here to see those stories and read more about Ken's amazing career.)But, I just get so tired! I've struggled with fatigue since West Nile Virus knocked me off my feet for two months in the Fall of 2003. I'm just so tired. There are times I want to cry. It's the mental work at the word processor that is energy expensive for me now.In January of 2006, I began working four days a week. Wednesdays, I sleep. It helps. But the fatigue piles up...kinda snowballs, if you will.I'm confused and angered that I don't have the vigor I want to have. I remember being vigorous. It was fun. So, I'm going to retire. When I told my boss Tom Lindner, News Director and VP, he suggested that I'm not retiring, so much as changing careers. I am hoping to put my voice to work and do narration as my second career. I've volunteered to read to a couple of school classes. Volunteer opportunities abound! Over the years, folks have told me my stuff was different, interesting, refreshing, and they like hearing how and why people do what they do to get through life. As my work here ends, I'm beginning to accept the fact that they weren't blowing me a lot of smoke. My life at KARE 11 has been, well, a darn good one. And, while it scares me to think of not being "Ken Speake, KARE 11 News," my new life is filled with possibilities, thanks to the support of my family, my colleagues and oh so many friends. My thanks to all of you for sharing life's journey with me.Best Regards,Ken SpeakeKARE 11 NewsKen Speake, KARE 11 News.

Ken Speake-MN

2007-02-19T13:29:00.000-06:00

KARE reporter Speake, suffering from West Nile, retiring
By The Associated Press
.MINNEAPOLIS — Longtime KARE-TV reporter Ken Speake has announced his retirement because of the long-term affects of West Nile virus.Speake, 61, contracted the virus in 2003 and a neurologist said it has left him with brain damage in his left temporal lobe, which controls language function. That has made condensing, synthesizing and creating a story nearly impossible.Speake is known for his delivery of long-form pieces in a deep, folksy, smooth voice. But he hasn’t done a long-form story for two years because the three- to six-minute pieces became too much to handle.After taking some short-term disability leave, Speake cut back to a four-day workweek and focused on shorter news stories. But the weariness and fatigue became too much.“I don’t like the idea of retiring at all,” Speake said. “I love the work, but I’m tired of being tired. I have to come home and take a nap as soon as work’s over. If I don’t, then I’m pretty much wasted for the night.Speake’s thoughtful storytelling backed up with sharp reporting earned numerous awards over the years.“Emotions — that’s what makes the story special,” Speake explained.“I like to show people something that they might not otherwise be able to see,” he said. “I live for what I call ’Thank You, God moments’ — things that don’t have to happen when I’m there, but they do.”“Work has caused me to appreciate life and people,” he said. “It’s given me an insight to the human condition. I’ve learned what’s inconsequential to you is life-changing to someone else.”Speake’s last day at KARE-TV will be Friday.After that, Speake plans to spend more time with his wife, Donna, who is a counselor at Maple Grove High School, and his three sons, ages 17, 29 and 33. Next month, he’s traveling to Australia, and in the summer, he’s planning to go to Ireland and spend some time in the Boundary Waters.

Donnie Manry, TX

2007-02-07T15:03:00.000-06:00

A 24-year veteran of the Bryan police department went home from the hospital Friday, after a five and a half month battle with the West Nile Virus.
NBC 6 News first introduced you to Sergeant Donnie Manry in August. Sergeant Manry contracted the virus from a mosquito bite.

He was initially paralyzed from the waist down. With short, determined steps, Manry walked out the doors of Saint Joseph Hospital in Bryan Friday afternoon.
His wife Stephanie said, "I don't know if we know of any other way to be. I mean you just have to make the best of it and that's what we were determined to do so, and that's what's gotten us where we are."

Last August Manry's neck and shoulders became stiff and his temperature shot up to 103 degrees.

At first doctors thought he had the flu, but eleven days after his first symptoms appeared, Manry was diagnosed with West Nile Virus.
Doctors said his future was uncertain, but Manry never gave up.
During the last five and a half months, Manry has undergone extensive physical therapy to relearn things that used to be second nature.

Lead Therapist Julie Cerna said, "He had to relearn how to do all of his activities of daily living, which included how to get in and out of bed, to walk and even being able to bathe and dress again."

Slowly but surely, Manry has gone from being paralyzed from the waist down to now walking with assistance as far as 600 feet.
"Just as recently as last week, there was some new progress and I had my ankle, I was able to move my ankle just a little bit.

I was on the phone with everybody because the progress is still coming,” Manry said.
Manry's children said they're glad he's finally coming home.
Daughter Chelsea said, "I am looking forward to just cuddling up on the couch, watching movies or eating dinner all together. [I’m looking forward to him just] being there like normal.”

The Manry family said while this has been a horrible experience for them, they have learned one big lesson from it; they will never take each other for granted.

WATCH VIDEO-Click Here NBC 6

Kadi Renowden, WI

2007-02-07T14:32:00.000-06:00

Kadi Renowden, age 63, Madison, WI -September 2006

Kadi still works full time in an active hospital job, but manifested WNV over Labor Day, 2006 with the usual symptoms (headache, severe fatigue, muscle and neck pain, nausea). Her temperature was low grade, only about 100, but a white blood count at the urgent care was extremely low. Kadi, a nurse, told the MD at urgent care she thought she had WNV, as mosquitoes swarmed around her back porch, undeterred by DEETand she'd had many bites 8 days earlier. She was told she didn't have WNV. She has little recollection of the following 3 days, except for developing a rash, again being told she didn't have WNV when a call was placed to urgent care. Symptoms persisted for nearly 2 weeks, including another acute bout with nausea.

She returned to her internist to check her blood count before returning to work, suggesting she'd had WNV. "You don't have WNV," she was told. Kadi is also a post polio survivor with post polio symptoms. WNV attacks the anterior horn cells of the spinal cord, in the same manner that WNV does, with many correlations. After multiple increased falls, including twice down stairs in 3 weeks, she knew her legs were significantly weaker . She requested another EMG of her legs (a diagnostic test for neuromuscular disorders). Believing she had had WNV, she asked the Dr. to order a test. She had also learned that a neighbor 2 blocks away had been hospitalized for the same time she'd been ill. She was found to be positive for WNV, the 21st confirmed case in WI in 2006. Her own Dr. still refutes that she knew when she had it.

Testing at the time she came down with it might not have tested positive. Therefore, anyone who believes they have the virus need to be tested around a week later, if negative initially.

Kadi's post polio symptoms have been aggravated by the WNV, not unexpectedly, with continued symptoms of sleepiness , fatigue and increased muscle pain. She feels her symptoms may have resolved better had she been tested and encouraged to recuperate more than the 3 days she lost from work; if doctors had listened and paid attention to the symptoms, instead of discounting them. This is possibly the first reported case of a post polio syndrome patient contracting WNV. Since the effect WNV non post polio symptoms is yet unknown, PPS patients need to be especially judicious to avoid exposure, given the specific mechanisms of both diseases, with a worsening of PPS symptoms.

Chris Cottrell WI

2007-01-24T11:26:00.000-06:00

Appleton Post-Crescent: Your Fox Cities News Source - Oshkosh man recovers after bout with West Nile

Posted January 23, 2007Oshkosh man recovers after bout with West Nile
By Krista B. Ledbetter of The Northwestern
Wear bug spray.

That's all Chris Cottrell can offer as advice. Cottrell, of Oshkosh, spent the past four months on short-term disability, suffering headaches, fatigue, tremors and numbness. Cottrell contracted West Nile virus last summer, and while he couldn't do much to rid his body of the virus, he's now well aware of what can be done to prevent it.

He believes an infected mosquito bit him while in the woods near Tomahawk in August, he said, but it wasn't until a couple weeks later that debilitating symptoms landed him in the hospital for blood tests. And blood tests confirmed West Nile virus.

Chris Cottrell, photographed with his children Shauna, 11, and Al, 15, was out of work for four months after contracted West Nile in August. Cottrell said he still feels fatigue and numbness on his left side. Oshkosh Northwestern Photo by Shu-Ling Zhou

According for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, West Nile virus is a potentially serious illness, spread to a human by a bite from an infected mosquito. In worst-case scenarios, people develop severe symptoms, such as paralysis, vision loss, or even death, but 80 percent of people who are infected never show symptoms at all.

"Your luck has got to be pretty lousy to get this," Cottrell said.

Only one case of West Nile virus was confirmed in Oshkosh last year, said city health director Paul Spiegel.

"Offhand, I don't think we've had any prior human cases here," Spiegel said. "But statewide, a couple years ago, we had a number of widespread cases. The virus spread right across the continental United States."

Spiegel said West Nile virus is likely here to stay. The virus appears to be widespread, and will flare up year after year.

As for Cottrell, he believes he's immune to the virus now, which is a blessing. While out of work for four months and on short-term disability, Cottrell had to seek help from the state to assist him with feeding his two teenage children, and he nearly lost his home. His first day back at work was Jan. 8.

For Christmas, Cottrell's employer, Multi-Conveyor LLC in Winneconne, gathered $1,300 in employee donations, and matched that in order to provide Cottrell and his family a large sum of money to get through the holidays, as well as gifts and food.

"Christmas would've been really slim without it. It was a big-time struggle," he said. "I work with some fantastic guys."

Cottrell found the inability to treat the virus the most frustrating, he said. While he sat at home, battling intense headaches and losing weight – 30 pounds in all – doctors were unable to help, except to treat his symptoms. At one point, he said, he was taking pain relievers, including the occasional Vicodin, every two hours to relieve the aches.

"I can't believe (the government) can't come up with a way to fix this virus," he said.

Although most of Cottrell's symptoms have subsided, he still has the occasional tremor, and a slight numbness on the left side of his face and in his left leg.

"I'm nervous about whether I'm going to fully recover," he said.

Spiegel said a small percentage of the infected population develop severe symptoms, but the health department still stresses that there is potential for severity.

"People should be using good, protective measures when out during mosquito season," Spiegel said. "It's going to be difficult to completely avoid the possibility of contracting it, but the best thing you can do is try to protect yourself from being bitten as best you can."

Krista B. Ledbetter: (920) 426-6656 or kledbetter@thenorthwestern.com

Megan Suzanne Most, Nevada

2007-01-21T20:18:00.000-06:00

Nevada Appeal - News: "Douglas West Nile victim still fighting

January 21, 2007--by Susie Vasquez

Progress has been slow, but the fight continues for Megan Suzanne Most, the Douglas County resident who acquired a case of West Nile virus that led to meningitis and ultimately, a crippling paralysis.

Stricken by the disease in July, this single mother of three girls is now talking and breathing on her own. She has movement in one arm and leg, and can move her neck.

In late November, she was on a ventilator most of the time and could not move her head. Most is 34.

'We just keep pushing her,' said Tina Alaniz, one of Most's friends. 'That's all we can do and hope it gets better.'

After the onset of the infection, Most was treated at Carson-Tahoe Hospital, then transferred to South Meadows in Reno for long-term rehabilitative care.

Now that she is off the ventilator she is ready for the next step, a move to Sharp HealthCare in San Diego, Calif., where she will enter a program for patients with spinal chord injuries. The program will equip her with a wheelchair and teach her how to use it,"

"They (Sharp officials) say she's a very good candidate for this program," she said. "Now, it's a matter of when she will go and what she will do afterward."

----- In addition to the physical challenges, Most is facing financial problems with respect to insurance and health care costs. People can send their donations to Greater Nevada Credit Union, account 862957. Checks should be written to Tina Alaniz, for Megan Most. ------

The latest challenge is finding assisted care for her after the Sharp program, which lasts just six weeks, is completed, Alaniz said.

"We're having a big problem with that. Sharp won't take her unless they know what the family is going to do with her after she completes the program, but there are no spots in assisted care in California or Nevada. It's sad," Alaniz said. "We're sitting in limbo."

Right now, Most is scared and upset, and doesn't want to leave northern Nevada because her three daughters are here, Alaniz said.

The girls live with their father in the Reno area.

"It's going to be a long time, but she wants to come home," she said.

Spring is just around the corner and with that, the threat of West Nile as Douglas County's mosquitoes start to swarm.

Alaniz urged people to take precautions, to minimize their chances of acquiring this severe form of the disease.

"People need to be aware of what West Nile can do to someone," she said. "It can hit you hard. Not enough people knew about it last year and everyone I talk to can't believe Megan got this way from West Nile."

A record 123 human cases of West Nile virus were confirmed in Nevada in 2006.

Idaho had more confirmed cases than any other state with a total of 984 and Colorado came in second, with 322. Texas had 327 cases and California, 272, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Susie Vasquez can be reached at svasquez@recordcourier.com or 782-5121, ext. 211.

Thomas Alan Shade, Victim-OH

2007-01-20T17:23:00.000-06:00

Man, 31, succumbs to West Nile virus
William Smead says his son, Alan Shade, struggled with the disease since contracting it in 2002.

By Steve Bennish and Ryan Fox

Staff Writers

Thursday, January 18, 2007

WEST CARROLLTON — A man who contracted West Nile Virus in 2002 while at his job at a Middletown warehouse has died of complications from the disease spread by mosquitoes.

Thomas Alan Shade was only 31 when he died in his West Carrollton apartment on Monday after struggling with the disease for years, his father, William Smead of Centerville, said Wednesday night.

Smead said his son, formerly of Franklin, and two co-workers took a break from their jobs at a warehouse. While resting under a tree, they were bitten by mosquitoes and developed flu-like symptoms.

Shade's symptoms worsened and he never recovered, Smead said. He lapsed into a coma for four weeks and remained in the Bellbrook Rehab and Healthcare Center for four years, for a time needing the assistance of a ventilator. When he recently left the center to take up residence in an apartment, he needed the assistance of home care nurses because of partial paralysis, Smead said.

Smead said the Montgomery County Coroner's Office is to perform an autopsy.

Wednesday evening, Bill Wharton of the Montgomery County Combined Health District said he was unaware of any West Nile cases in the county and said the department is not currently monitoring any potential cases. He said the department urges people to protect themselves with repellent during summer months when mosquitoes are active.

The virus is spread by certain species of mosquitoes, which become infected when they bite infected birds, according to the medical Web site WebMD. People then become infected when the mosquitoes bite them.

The majority of infections either cause no symptoms, or they cause symptoms so mild that people don't realize they have been infected, according to WebMD. In rare cases, the virus can lead to inflammation of the brain or the tissues surrounding the brain and spinal cord.

Fewer than 1 percent of victims will become severely ill, according to the Web site.

Shade also is survived by two daughters, three brothers, and two sisters. Visitation is 6 p.m. Friday, with the funeral at 8 at Gebhart-Schmidt-Parramore Funeral Home, on East Linden Avenue in Miamisburg.

Find this article at:
http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2007/01/18/ddn011807westnile.html

Kenneth "Pete" Clay

2006-12-29T12:16:00.000-06:00

West Nile left man down, but not out
More than 3 years after contracting virus, Clay continues to gain strength

By MARY PICKETT
Of The Gazette Staff
Life didn't turn out as Kenneth "Pete" Clay expected the past few years, but it's better than it could have been.

After contracting West Nile virus in August 2003, he nearly died.

Even after surviving the mosquito-borne illness, the former cowboy and ranch hand faced a long road.

Clay, now 73, developed the most severe form of the disease, which caused an inflammation of his brain and spinal cord and left his right leg paralyzed and his left leg severely weakened. During the 48 days that he was in St. Vincent Healthcare, he lost 30 pounds because he had difficulty eating most foods.
After Clay came home, the virus had sapped him of so much strength that he was too weak to turn over in bed. His wife, Marilyn, had to turn him over several times during the night to make certain he didn't get bed sores.

Eventually, Clay gained enough strength to start physical therapy in Billings, do regular exercises at home and get around in a wheelchair. He also regained most of the weight that he lost.

Now, he's able to walk with a full leg brace on his weaker right leg and a short brace on his left ankle.

He almost can walk with just one cane, but still needs the second one for balance.

Balance has been the hardest part of his recovery, he said.

His right leg is slowly getting stronger and has a wide range of motion.

"It's coming around," he said.

Most days, he exercises by working on a pedal exerciser and cardio glider.

Asked if he's still making progress, he said, "I believe I am."

"At my age, a lot of people are losing (physical strength)," he said. "If I'm holding my own, I'm doing well."

This summer, he pulled weeds in the large yard around his Hysham home, tended tomato and pepper plants and split kindling wood. He also helps Marilyn wash the dishes.

He has a special pedal on his automatic-drive pickup that allows him to drive short distances around town.

"I get out and do what I can do," he said.

Neighbors have been a big help by bringing heavier pieces of wood to his porch and hauling away some of his garbage.

Getting West Nile is aggravating, he said, but "your life doesn't end."

Early on, he decided to forgo dismal thoughts about his situation.

"I was lying in the hospital recovering and going over things in my mind," he said.

He could feel sorry for himself, he thought, then realized that he had to accept what had happened and go on with his life.

In addition to Marilyn, a major factor in his recovery was the help he received from physical therapist Rose Heeg.

"She's tops in my book," he said.

Attitude is 90 percent of recovery, she told him early on. A positive attitude helped Clay exceed even what Heeg had hoped for.

When Clay asked Heeg how far she had expected him to progress, she told him that they had wanted him to become strong enough to get around in a wheelchair.

"I didn't have long-term plans to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair," he said.

Contact Mary Pickett at mpickett@billingsgazette.com or 657-1262.

Editor's note: "What Ever Happened to ... ?" is a new feature updating Gazette readers on people, places or things that were in the news in recent months. If you have a topic you would like to see revisited, let us know at 657-1251 or citynews@billingsgazette.com.

Published on Thursday, December 28, 2006.
Last modified on 12/28/2006 at 12:31 am

Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.

David Cole - Boise Idaho Survivor

2006-12-27T15:04:00.000-06:00

"Miraculous" West Nile Survivor Talks Publicly For First Time To CBS 2 News

Story Created: Dec 25, 2006
By Art Swift

Watch this video

David Cole is enjoying lunch with his friends at Melba High...

And this simple meal in late December is actually a big deal. You see, the 16-year-old almost didn't survive to be here for this Christmas season.

"Everyone either gets really sick and dies or barely gets sick, so," David Cole told CBS 2 News in this first interview. "It's just weird to think that I was like in the middle for some reason."

David's fight for his life began five months ago when he was struck with the West Nile Virus. He's still 25 pounds lighter now. And he doesn't remember those crucial early moments when the disease attacked his body, causing him encephalitis and meningitis.

"I don't really remember from Friday night to a week or two later," David said. "I was, like, surprised. I was like, what? Why am I here?"

Well, he is here now. He pulled through after some painful therapy and learned to walk and talk all over again. This Melba football player returned to school in late September as Homecoming Junior Prince.

"Are your feelings about school or life in general different now?" CBS 2 asked.

"I'm probably a little bit like, it's not like, as long as I thought it was," David said. "I could just do whatever whenever I wanted. School it's harder now, so It's not as fun."

"Obviously Dave has something to accomplish while he's here and I just hope he'll do it," Beth Cole said.

David's mother says she never allowed herself to think her son was going to die. But, she certainly worried throughout his recovery.

"Many people had become paralyzed from it," Beth said. "And I thought, this is a sixteen-year-old boy who is very active and loves to do those things. As a Mom I worried about how he would adjust."

"The first couple of weeks David was really struggling and I know he said he couldn't run well but we forced him to run," Cory Dickard, David's football coach, told CBS 2 News. "And he's to the point where he's beating other kids now."

Dickard tacked David's football jersey up on his hospital wall and showed him football tapes to motivate him. He's working with David in the weight room to get his strength back.

"Couldn't even bench press the dumb bells, five pound dumb bells," Dickard said. "So we had to start working with David kind of on a separate basis."

Some say it's a miracle David is here. Others believe David simply had a fighting spirit that kept him alive. Maybe it was a bit of both.

"I went to church all the time," David said. "I was kind of religious but not a ton. But after this everyone in my church prayed for me all the time and stuff. That helped a lot and made me more religious I guess."

"Do you think God was with you?" CBS 2 asked.

"Yeah, for most of it."

.westnilesurvivor.com

2006-12-17T19:15:00.000-06:00

www.westnilesurvivor.com

Megan Most-NV

2006-11-28T12:35:00.000-06:00

Fundraiser set for West Nile virus victim

by Susie Vasquez
November 26, 2006

No one knows what the future holds for Megan Most, the 34-year-old Douglas County woman who has developed serious complications after contracting West Nile virus in July, but her friends are there to help cover expenses with a fundraiser spaghetti feed Dec. 3.

Most's insurance from her previous employer, Carson-Tahoe Regional Medical Center, expires at the end of December. Employees at Carson-Tahoe Regional Medical Center donated their paid time off to keep her on the payroll and insured until that time, Tina Alaniz said.

"Everything is running out now and unfortunately, a lot of facilities won't take Medicaid or Medi-Cal as primary insurance," Alaniz said.

Most will have to convert to COBRA insurance at that time and friends are having the spaghetti feed to cover those premium costs, which are expected to be more than $570 per month, Alaniz said.

This single mother of three developed encephalitis, meningitis and pneumonia complications as a result of the West Nile infection and has been partially paralyzed by the ordeal.

Most is being treated at Tahoe Pacific and the fight continues, according to friend Tina Alaniz.

"She's strong and she has a lot of spirit," Alaniz said. "She has a lot of people and friends behind her and that's what keeps her going. We keep pushing her."

She is on a ventilator most of the time and is improving very slowly, but her movement is limited. She can't lift her head. She can speak when she's not on the ventilator, usually 4-6 hours a day, but she's usually exhausted at that point, Alaniz said.

"Megan wanted to come to the event and there was some hope that she could, but there is just no way. She can't sit up to get in the car," Alaniz said. "Like I told her, I don't know what the future holds, but for some reason God wanted you to get through this."

Most's three young daughters are currently living with their father, Garrick Most, in north Reno.

The owners of the Backyard Bar & Grill have donated their restaurant from 1-4 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 3, and the wide screen TV will be on so the guys don't have to miss their ball games.

The menu includes spaghetti, salad, bread, dessert for $10 per person. The food has been donated and Megan's friends will be doing the cooking, Alaniz said.

"Megan has lots of friends. We're all chipping in," she said.

In addition to the meal, those who attend will have a chance to bid during a silent auction on several prizes donated by local businesses. Among them, Wally's Hot Springs, Merry Maids, Oak Outlet, Full Circle Compost, Genoa Tree Farms and Grand Central Pizza and Pasta, Alaniz said.

"The response has been amazing," she said.

"Every little bit helps, from a dollar on up," Alaniz said. "We're going to keep going as long as we can to help her out."

Tickets can be purchased at Backroads and will be available at the door. For more information, call Alaniz at 232-1812.

Susie Vasquez can be reached at svasquez@recordcourier.com or 782-5121, ext. 211.

What: Fundraiser for Megan Most, the Douglas County resident struck by West Nile virus last summer

When: 1-4 p.m. Dec. 3

Where: Backroads Bar & Grill, 2244 Meridian Blvd., just off Airport Road in Minden

Francesca Jarvis

2006-11-26T21:49:00.001-06:00

West Nile devastates actress
Now recovering, she seeks to start a support group

By Carla McClain ARIZONA DAILY STAR Published: 11.26.2006

You have likely seen her many times over the years, in major motion pictures and popular TV shows. She played everything from a prostitute in "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean" to a spunky nun in the classic "Lilies of the Field," filmed here during the heyday of Tucson movie-making.
But today, the tall, charismatic actress, Francesca Jarvis, now 73, is battling the brain-affecting ravages of West Nile virus, the mosquito-borne scourge that struck her and 46 other Tucsonans in this record year of assault from the dangerous new infection.
It's been a harrowing three months since Jarvis slapped a mosquito on her arm, recoiling from the blood the bug took from her in that life-changing instant.
Within days, Jarvis was stricken by fever, paralysis in her arms, intense headaches and a stiff neck while she raved in and out of coherence — the classic symptoms of severe West Nile virus. That sent her on a miserable journey through emergency rooms, misdiagnoses and a long hospitalization.
Though she survived, the illness took a heavy toll, leaving her with memory loss, chronic weakness and fatigue, tremors, and even a struggle for words that sometimes fail her once-lively mind.
"Losing my short-term memory is the worst for me — it's awful," said Jarvis, whose memory was vital to her acting career. That career spanned nearly 40 years and included roles in movies such as "Junior Bonner," "Rage" and "White Line Fever," hit TV series such as "Gunsmoke," "Little House on the Prairie" and "Young Riders," as well as several Disney and Public Broadcasting productions.
"If I am reading a book, I have to go back and reread a lot of it when I pick it up again," Jarvis said. "I can't remember things I was told only two hours ago. And I lose words, even the simplest words, when I'm talking — it gets to be a guessing game."
And there is depression now, bouts of it that leave Jarvis wanting only seclusion, uncharacteristically shunning social activities she always enjoyed.
"All of this is so different from the way I was before. And I don't know if I will ever fully recover, but I am bound and determined to try," she said.
Facing an uncertain future in the wake of this devastating infection, Jarvis wants to connect with anyone else in Tucson or Arizona who has suffered the bad effects of West Nile, to find out how they're coping with this still-mysterious and unpredictable virus.
"Is there something people are doing to recover from this that would help us all? Are treatments for it being tested? What are the results? I think we could really help each other," she said.
Likely due to heavy monsoon rains, Pima County this year battled its worst West Nile outbreak — with 47 confirmed cases and three deaths — since the virus entered the state in 2003.
Nearly half of Arizona's total 143 victims suffered the most severe, neuroinvasive form of the disease, which damages the brain with encephalitis — inflammation of the brain — or meningitis — inflammation of the membrane around the brain.
Typically, less than 1 percent of known West Nile victims develop neuroinvasive disease. Most people suffer no symptoms at all and never know they have West Nile, while about 20 percent get the flulike form known as West Nile fever.
West Nile gave Jarvis a double-whammy on her brain, inflicting both encephalitis and meningitis, her doctors say.
"What's interesting with her is that when she left here, she was still having problems with speech, numbers and walking. But she has totally regained her ability to do math, anything with numbers," said Dr. Eskild Petersen, infectious disease specialist at University Medical Center, who was called in on Jarvis' case once West Nile was finally suspected.
"It's fascinating, because she comes from a musical family, and musical ability seems to correlate with the recovery of math abilities. But her ongoing difficulty finding words may indicate what part of the brain this virus affected. That can differ with each individual."
Scientists still don't know what percent of West Nile victims will end up with permanent disabilities. But it does appear that in severe, neuroinvasive cases, up to 40 percent recover fully after about a year, Petersen said.
"With Francesca, we still don't know. She has regained a lot already, but whether she will get back to base line, to where she was before the virus, I don't know," he said. "Her healing process is not finished."
Like so many fellow West Nile sufferers, Jarvis endured weeks of tests and treatment while doctors were fishing in the dark about what was wrong with her.
Twice she was sent home from emergency rooms, even though potentially lethal meningitis and encephalitis were worsening, forcing her to return after she vomited blood, fell several times and grew increasingly disoriented. During one of her visits, she waited six hours, virtually untended, as symptoms intensified.
After Jarvis was hospitalized, at UMC, she was pumped full of antibiotics and antivirals that had no effect on the West Nile virus. Doctors along the way had suspected migraines, stroke, spinal problems and brain inflammation from other causes, but never West Nile.
In late August, when Jarvis first became ill, the season's first West Nile case had not been reported yet in Pima County. No one knew it would hit so hard during the next two months.
"Even so, if someone has meningitis or encephalitis these days, really, West Nile should come to the front of your thinking," Petersen said.
In fact, Jarvis might never have been tested for the virus if her daughter hadn't suggested it to one of the emergency doctors.
"No one brought up West Nile, until I did — on her third trip to the emergency room," Christina Jarvis said. "There were a lot of mosquitoes around at that time, even in her house. I had been freaked out about it all summer. I just had a feeling this was West Nile."
Doctors at UMC responded to her suggestion, but it took two weeks to get the positive test results back. During that time, Jarvis remained hospitalized at UMC, then was transferred to a convalescent home before she finally was allowed to return home in late September.
Even though doctors didn't have a confirmed diagnosis of West Nile during most of Jarvis' emergency and medical treatment, it probably didn't hurt her chances of recovery. There simply is no effective treatment, much less a cure for West Nile.
"What it does (mean), to know it's West Nile, is to stop giving the patient unnecessary drugs for other types of meningitis, or for other suspected infections," Petersen said, "which is always better for the patient."
As Jarvis struggles on her own now to battle back from the ravages of this thing, she isn't alone in yearning for contact with others in the same plight. All are pioneers of West Nile, a virus still new to this country, and still baffling, even to experts.
After Maricopa County endured its hellacious West Nile epidemic of 355 cases in the summer of 2004, survivors demanded — and got — a support group organized by the county health department and Banner Health in Phoenix.
"These were people with pretty drastic effects — in wheelchairs, having a lot of trouble with balance and memory," said Caryn Staib, emergency preparedness and disaster recovery manager for Banner Health.
"There was a lot of grieving, in that you lose part of your vital, daily function. These survivors were looking for others who had the same problems, and they were so happy to find they weren't in this alone. They instantly bonded.
"It was tremendously beneficial. It helped the healing process."
As Francesca Jarvis put it, "Just to share our angst would be comforting, if nothing else."
West Nile Support Group: ● Anyone who has recovered from West Nile virus illness but continues to suffer disabling aftereffects can join the first Tucson-based West Nile support group by calling Francesca Jarvis at 624-6746.Film career of Tucson actress Francesca Jarvis:
●Jarvis broke into acting in the 1950s in New York City, performing in off-Broadway shows and summer stock in that area. After she married Clinton Jarvis, her husband of more than 50 years, the couple moved to Tucson in 1958.
During the next four decades, she built a thriving career as a character actress in many films, TV movies and series that were filmed here during that period.
Her first major full-length feature film, the classic "Lilies of the Field," was shot in Tucson's Tanque Verde area in 1962. Starring Sidney Poitier — who won the best actor Oscar for his role — the movie featured five German nuns trying to eke out a living in our harsh desert. Jarvis played one of those nuns, Sister Albertine.
Among Jarvis' most recent movies was "Skinwalkers," from the Tony Hillerman novel, filmed in Arizona for the PBS-TV "Mystery" series.
Her roles included:
1. "Skinwalkers" (2002) (TV) — Gloria
2. "My Son Is Innocent" (1996) (TV) — Mrs. Anderson
3. "Terminal" (1996) (TV) — Claire
4. "A Mother's Revenge" (1993) (TV) — Dr. Alston
5. "Living a Lie" (1991) (TV) — Miss Aimes
6. "Young Riders" (TV) — Mrs. Leeds, Helga (two episodes, 1990, 1992)
7 "Two Marriages" (1983) (TV) — ticket agent
8. "Father Murphy" (1982) (TV) — Mrs. Simmons (three episodes)
9. "High Noon, Part II: The Return of Will Kane" (1980) (TV) — Mrs. Garver
10. "To Find My Son" (1980) (TV) — Mrs. Benjamin
11. "Little House on the Prairie" (TV) — Hilda (one episode, 1979)
● Contact reporter Carla McClain at 806-7754 or at cmcclain@azstarnet.com.
All content copyright © 1999-2006 AzStarNet, Arizona Daily Star

Dr. Bill Shelton TX victim

2006-11-02T12:38:00.000-06:00

He is being remembered as a well-known doctor and a caring man. Family and friends gathered in Lufkin to remember Dr. Bill Shelton.

Shelton died Sunday at the age of 72. He suffered from several health problems, most recently from West Nile virus.

Shelton was instrumental in creating the Arthur Temple Senior Regional Cancer Center. Back in 1994, he also started the "Totally Awesome Fishing Adventure" benefit to help cancer patients.

Chad Pyeatt, KS

2006-02-27T10:40:00.000-06:00

Eudora teen and his family struggle with West Nile virus

Small bite, big worries

By Joel Mathis (Contact)

Monday, February 27, 2006

Eudora — After an autumn filled with headaches, nausea and mind-bending medications, 16-year-old Chad Pyeatt could be forgiven for thinking that his West Nile virus couldn’t get any worse.

But it did. A couple of weeks ago — for one night — he went blind.

“My vision started blanking out,” said Pyeatt, a junior at Eudora High School. “Little spots would disappear out of my vision. It ended up progressing — one morning I woke up and my right eye was completely blind. That night, after that morning, the other eye went completely blind.”

Pyeatt knew, from Internet research, that West Nile could cause temporary blindness lasting up to a month. His parents took him to a hospital in Olathe for observation; the next morning, though, his eyesight had returned.

Still, Pyeatt said, “it was pretty scary.”

The vast majority of people who contract the West Nile virus don’t know it — they never develop symptoms. Others get mild symptoms but recover quickly. Pyeatt is in a third category, stricken severely enough that he’s missed roughly 50 days of school since fall.

Photo by Nick Krug

Kim Ens, disease control program coordinator for the Douglas County Health Department, said such cases were uncommon. Four laboratory-confirmed cases of the virus were found in the county in 2005.

“It’s around, we know it’s around, and it can cause people to get sick,” she said. “For most healthy people, if they get West Nile it’s not going to be a serious illness or anything. There are some people who get sick from it. In rare cases they can get very sick.”

Pyeatt developed the illness in August, though his family doesn’t know how. The family has two fish ponds on its property in Eudora and lives near a creek. But mosquitoes that spread the disease could have found Pyeatt during the family’s summer float trip in central Missouri.

“He got sick just as we were starting the school year,” said Pyeatt’s father, Marty. “We took him to the doctor — he had headaches, aches and pains, flu-like symptoms, and we took him to the doctor.”

Photo by Nick Krug

It took until November, though — and a battery of tests, including a spinal tap — before blood work revealed the cause of Pyeatt’s sickness.

“He was sick that long ... I was thinking he was just having trouble at school or something. ‘Why are you staying home?’” Marty Pyeatt said. “It turned out to be West Nile. I felt bad I was upset with him.”

Chad Pyeatt said the disease had caused him to miss time at school and with friends. His A’s and B’s in classes have turned into F’s. His research tells him the symptoms could last up to a year.

“I’m pretty unlucky,” he said, “to get what I got.”

Guy Lawrence Lozowski-NV

2006-02-10T11:43:00.000-06:00

Guy Lozowski

Services for Guy Lawrence Lozowski, 54, who passed away Jan. 9 from complications due to the West Nile virus, will be held at 10 a.m. Feb. 18 at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on Wilson Road.

He was born Oct. 22, 1951 in Honolulu, Hawaii. He was a Pahrump resident since 1997.

He served in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War. He later owned and operated Wild West Video. He liked working on cars and oil painting. He also loved to count cross-stitch, a hobby he shared with his wife.

His wife Gloria of Pahrump; parents Lawrence and Jacky Lozowski of Pahrump; brother Bradley Lozowski of Las Vegas; sister Susan Carter of Maui, Hawaii; and four wonderful dogs survive him. (01/09/06)

Mike Seiler, ND

2006-02-04T19:40:00.000-06:00

· West Central Tribune ·
Retiring Kandiyohi city clerk recovers from West Nile virus
Anne Polta West Central Tribune
Published Saturday, February 04, 2006
KANDIYOHI — More than 100 friends and neighbors gathered around Mike Seiler last weekend to help him celebrate his retirement as the longtime clerk for the city of Kandiyohi.

For Seiler, it was a double milestone: Not only has he wrapped up a long tenure as one of the town’s key employees, he’s also making a recovery after being severely stricken last summer with West Nile virus.

“It’s great to be home,” he said. “You realize the goodness of people in small communities. There’s a lot of good heart in these people.”

Seiler, 65, has been a fixture in Kandiyohi, population 555, for more than three decades. As the town’s city clerk — only the second person since 1939 to hold the position — he kept the minutes at City Council meetings, wrote out all the electric bills and helped ensure the city ran smoothly.

Craig Aurand, the mayor of Kandiyohi, has known Seiler for more than 20 years.
Seiler does physical therapy at his home in Kandiyohi. (Tribune photo by Bill Zimmer)
Seiler
“Mike was exemplary. I can’t say that enough,” Aurand said. “The books were balanced to a T. He could tell you where every penny was at any given time. He took care of the city like it was his child.”

Like the city clerk before him, Seiler ran the office almost literally from his kitchen table, Aurand said. “People were very accustomed to calling him at home.”

After the death of his wife, Cheryl, in 2002, Seiler decided it was time to turn over the city clerk position to someone else. He announced his intentions to the City Council at the beginning of 2005, giving the council a year to find his replacement.

At the end of July, five months before his last day on the job, he began having severe headaches. His neck hurt. His temperature rose to 105.

He doesn’t remember the ambulance trip to Rice Memorial Hospital in Willmar, nor the trip to Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, where he was to remain for the next several weeks.

“I was out of it. I was extremely, extremely sick,” he said.

At first, the doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Finally, after more than a week, they found the answer: Seiler had West Nile virus. His was the eighth case of the mosquito-borne disease to be confirmed in Minnesota last summer.

Most people recover from West Nile virus with little more than flu-like symptoms. Two percent, however, end up becoming severely ill when the virus attacks their brain and nervous system.

Seiler’s brain had swelled. His limbs were paralyzed. He was unable to swallow. He had hallucinations and unrelenting pain.

“You never would have thought that one little mosquito could take you down so far,” he said.

He thinks he survived because he was determined to live — and because he had so much support from his family, friends, neighbors and medical team.

“Thank God for family and friends,” he said. “I didn’t realize how sick I was most of the time. Several times I wasn’t supposed to make it. You need the desire to live and the people around you to encourage you.”

His daughter, Robin Winterfeldt, a registered nurse, was at his side almost every day. Sons Mark and Jay visited nearly as often.

Word about Seiler’s condition spread quickly through Kandiyohi.

His years of public service had made him well known and liked, said Sue Kidrowski, the city clerk for Pennock who stepped in to replace him.

“It was just like a parent or grandpa getting sick,” she said.

Many friends and neighbors made the 100-mile trip to see him in the hospital.

Aurand visited several times. It was clear the situation was grave, he said. “There were times when I didn’t know if I would see him again.”

It also became clear how much Seiler contributed to the operation of Kandiyohi, Aurand said.

“A lot of people know Mike and know him well but aren’t aware of what it really takes to run a small town,” he said. “There were six weeks there when I missed Mike terribly. I realized even more what it takes.”

Medically, Seiler was in uncharted territory. West Nile virus, which is native to Africa, spread to North America less than a decade ago. There’s little data on the best medical treatment for those who become seriously ill from the virus. Even less is known about how survivors fare in the long term.

As Seiler recovered, he faced a long, slow rehabilitation. The damaged nerves in his arm and legs are expected to eventually grow back, but in the meantime he’s had to learn how to walk again.

It wasn’t until January that he was finally able to go home to Kandiyohi.

“It’s great to be home,” he said. “Through it all I was determined to get better. That was key. It would have been real easy to be discouraged.”

Recovery from West Nile virus can take a year or longer. Seiler still has physical therapy two days a week to help strengthen his legs and his left arm.

He’s optimistic he’ll be well enough by summer to garden and fish. He also hopes to return to his full-time job with Swift and Company in Willmar.

“I’m a firm believer that when your number is up, it’s up,” he said. “I got a second chance. You find a way to do something you didn’t think you could do. I’m going to get better yet.”

Earl Hirschfield, CAN

2006-01-16T11:44:00.000-06:00

January 15, 2006
West Nile virus: left helpless by bug bite
By CP

WINNIPEG -- The 50-year-old trucker was suddenly as helpless as a baby, all because of a tiny insect.

"I was like a newborn," said Earl Hirschfield, a West Nile survivor and father of five grown children. "I collapsed on the floor and couldn't get up. I couldn't move my legs."

Hundreds of family and friends held a fundraiser last night for Hirschfield to raise money to make his home wheelchair accessible.

The man who supported his family for three decades as a miner and trucker before being stricken by illness is now slowly recovering after months in hospital.

Still unable to walk, Hirschfield is lifted and moved with the help of his children and wife.

About 225 people in Canada were reported last year as contracting the mosquito-borne virus, including 58 known cases in Manitoba.

For some, contracting West Nile can mean mild flu-like symptoms and a hospital stay of a few days, but for others, like Hirschfield, it can result in serious disability or even death.

"We had no idea what it was at first ... Earl never even gets sick," said his wife Pamela.

Pamela's eyes cloud over with concern when she looks at Hirschfield's beaten frame. Her husband has withered away, she said, losing 85 pounds from his 250-pound frame since late summer, when he first got sick.

She said Hirschfield was unable to communicate for long periods of time due to feeding tubes.

"All I could do was keep talking to him, and let him know I was there and what day it was," she said.

Hirschfield, now tube-free, said he has no idea how he contracted the virus. He wants to warn others about the life-altering threat of West Nile, adding he's now a big supporter of malathion fogging.

"People don't know it can hit as hard as it did for me," he said.

With months and possibly years of physical therapy ahead, Hirschfield said he's not going to let one little bug bite bring him down.

"I guess I'm just never going to retire," he joked, smiling at the brood of children and grandchildren around him.

Carl “Lefty” Long, Victim-NY

2005-12-08T21:33:00.000-06:00

Family says Ossian man died from West Nile Virus
By ROB MONTANA - STAFF WRITER

An Ossian man passed away at Highland Hospital in Rochester Tuesday from what his family believes to be complications of West Nile Virus.

Carl “Lefty” Long, 69, first became ill in August, his wife, Rose, said this morning. She said he had come into their home one night complaining of a headache. After checking his blood pressure and finding it elevated, Rose said she consulted with Carl's doctor and gave him an extra blood pressure pill. The next morning he was a completely different person.

“He was totally confused, and doing things that were not normal,” Rose Long said. “I had to physically dress him and took him to his doctor's office in Canaseraga.”

Once there, Long said the doctor told her they were sending Carl to Noyes Memorial Hospital in Dansville by ambulance. After a couple days at Noyes he was transferred to Highland Hospital in Rochester.

“He just deteriorated so quickly,” Long said. “He thought he was working, in his mind.

When he was transferred to Highland, he underwent two spinal taps and stomach surgery. Long said the tap showed West Nile Virus.

“It's a scary thing,” she said. “His body, I can't explain it, it just lost all its strength.

“It happened so fast,” Long added. “We tried everything to save him, but we couldn't.”

After looking into the case this morning, Joan Ellison, Livingston County Health Department director, said her office has received no confirmation of West Nile Virus from lab results it has received.

“We are looking into this matter, and we did have contact with the family,” Ellison said. “The lab results we have received have been negative for West Nile Virus.”

Ellison said there are certain tests done to determine West Nile presence through a lab in Albany. She said her office is still checking to see if all the results are in, and for anything that would indicate a test done more recently.

Long spoke with someone at the county health department at the time her husband was stricken.

“I was angry because they never told anybody about it being in the area, they don't think it's here,” she said. “They asked me if he had traveled out of the country, and I told them no, just locally.”

Carl Long's doctor, Dr. Thomas Dwyer, was out of his office this morning, but his office manager said they could not release any information as a result of HIPAA regulations that protect privacy of patients. The physician that cared for Carl at Highland Hospital also was unavailable for comment this morning.

Long spoke with Dwyer's office this morning, and they said they would not release the information until she fills out some legal documents. She said they did tell her they looked at the file and had some information from Highland that said Carl passed away from encephalitis as a result of West Nile Virus.

Matt McChesney, CO

2005-12-06T17:34:00.000-06:00

McChesney hopes to play for Jets
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 12/3/05
BY JOSH THOMSON
STAFF WRITER

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — One Sunday in mid-July, Matt McChesney woke up with a brutal headache. For a football player, headaches usually aren't a big deal, but McChesney just couldn't shake loose from the pounding between his ears.

By the time McChesney decided he better head to the hospital, his body had been so sapped of its strength that his father, David, and younger brother, Zack, had to drag the 6-foot-4, 307-pounder to the car.

Upon admittance to the emergency room, doctors ran a series of tests and eventually divulged to the big, strong, affable former University of Colorado defensive tackle that he had contracted the energy-depleting West Nile Virus. Not only was driving to St. Louis Rams camp the next day out of the question, so was football. Ten days later the Rams cut McChesney loose.

A mosquito bite, his mom says with irony, almost cost her son his entire rookie season.

"Everyone was out there proving themselves for a position," Lynn McChesney said Friday by phone. "And here he was sitting at home and trying to get better."

These days, McChesney is fully healed and has been a member of the Jets practice squad since early November. Considering he just turned 24, McChesney, who was drafted by St. Louis in the seventh round, still has plenty of time to make a mark. But there were days and nights that seemed impossible.

McChesney was in and out of the hospital all summer long and taking medication to numb his headaches. It took the entire 60-day recovery period just to shake the West Nile Virus, so training for the NFL wasn't exactly happening either.

In September, both the Jets and Indianapolis Colts contacted him for a tryout. Because he had only been on his feet about five days by that point, the workout in New York went poorly. He flew to Indianapolis that night but failed his physical.

During October, McChesney flew to New York for another workout. But it took a third trip to New York to land him a spot on the practice squad.

Copyright © 2005 Asbury Park Press. All rights reserved.

Lloyd Martinsen, CA

2005-11-24T11:00:00.000-06:00

Canyon Laker recovering from West Nile Virus

By Shannon Weatherford
Reporter

Lloyd Martinsen and his wife, Ruth, love to spend their summer evenings sitting on the front porch of their Canyon Lake Drive North home, watching the colorful parade of cars, golf carts, joggers and walkers pass by. It was one of those evenings that Lloyd suspects led him to spend the next several months recovering from a potentially fatal illness.
The Martinsens had spent Sunday, August 6, at the Costa Mesa Hilton enjoying the sights and sounds of the Orange County Jazz Festival. Upon waking the following morning, Lloyd knew something was very wrong. Overnight, he had fallen ill with flu-like symptoms accompanied by a high fever, which can be serious enough for a man of 85, but adding to that was severe neck pain which developed into an excruciating headache, numbness in his legs that left him unable to walk and a feeling of general confusion. “I was really out of it and just as weak as a kitten,” Lloyd recalls.
Ruth rushed him to the emergency room at Menifee Valley Medical Center, where he had to be helped into a wheelchair by a nurse just to get from the car into the hospital. Based on his symptoms, an infectious disease specialist was called in to consult and felt that Lloyd was exhibiting signs of bacterial meningitis, an infection of the spinal fluid or the fluid surrounding the brain. Because bacterial meningitis must be treated with antibiotics in the early stages, the specialist indicated a course of strong antibiotics while awaiting the results of various tests.
A week later when the report came in, the results shocked everyone involved – Lloyd wasn’t suffering from bacterial meningitis at all; he had contracted West Nile Virus. The doctor immediately took Lloyd off the antibiotics, which by this time had caused Lloyd’s colon to swell, the result of an infection actually brought on by the antibiotics. As there is no treatment for West Nile Virus, Lloyd and Ruth had no other option but to wait out the illness, hoping that he would recover.
West Nile Virus is often difficult to diagnose because severe symptoms, such as the ones Lloyd displayed, appear in only one out of every 150 infected and can mimic those of other serious illnesses, as they did in Lloyd’s case. In nearly 80 percent of cases, sufferers don’t exhibit symptoms at all. Infection normally occurs within three to 14 days after being bitten by an infected mosquito.
Although the seasonal epidemic is over for the most part now that fall is becoming winter, precautions should still be taken to avoid mosquito bites, including wearing clothing that covers exposed skin and using DEET-based mosquito repellants. Those most at-risk for contracting the illness from an infected mosquito are small children, adults over 50 and those with compromised immune systems.
While still recuperating from the after-effects of the illness as well as undergoing treatment for the infection to his colon, Lloyd says that he is now West Nile Virus-free, and thinks the most likely scenario for having contracted the illness was while enjoying a summer evening right on his own front porch. “We all know that mosquitoes are in abundance in Canyon Lake,” Lloyd says, which is why both he and Ruth plan to take appropriate measures next summer for their evening respites.

Bob "Big Stef" Steffen, OH

2005-11-24T10:58:00.000-06:00

Big Stef battles West Nile
By Shelly Whitehead
Post staff reporter
TERRY DUENNES/The Post
Bob “Big Stef” Steffen, who battles West Nile, proudly showed off his retirement cake recently.

To send messages, cards or flowers to Bob Steffen or donations to Big Stef, Inc.:

On the Web: www.bigstef.org

By mail: Big Stef, Inc., P.O. Box 1844, Newport, KY 41071

One of the biggest hearts in Northern Kentucky - a man whose Newport-based organization helps thousands of the needy and sick each Christmas - is now very sick himself after contracting the deadly West Nile virus.

Bob Steffen, the 68-year-old founder of the charitable group Big Stef, Inc., was diagnosed with the mosquito-borne virus last month about two weeks after he was found unconscious in his Newport home, relatives say.

Now, the well-known philanthropist is a patient in the same Highland Heights nursing home where he launched a simple holiday gift-giving tradition 21 years ago that has blossomed into a year-round charity.

This holiday season, more than 400 needy families and thousands of nursing home residents will receive gifts and parties from Steffen's non-profit group. But, for the first time since 1984, the organization's Santa-sized namesake won't be able to participate. Steffen is simply too sick, said his niece, Megan Steffen.

"He's been down with it for 5½ weeks. They thought at first it was a stroke," said Ms. Steffen, board secretary for Big Stef, Inc.

Three weeks ago, Ms. Steffen said a Utah-based lab confirmed that her uncle had West Nile virus. But, that wasn't all. Ms. Steffen said the 68-year-old former Campbell County Sheriff's deputy was also diagnosed with meningitis and five other viruses during his lengthy stay at St. Luke Hospital East in Fort Thomas.

For much of that time, Steffen was not speaking, walking or able to eat. Family members worried he might not make it. Then, about two weeks ago, he started coming around, Ms. Steffen said.

And of course, he wanted to know how his organization's holiday efforts were progressing. He was particularly concerned about the status of the annual Southgate House benefit in memory of his deceased brother, Tommy, which took place last weekend.

"He knew it was coming up. We hung a poster for it in his room. He kept asking about it," she said.

"We made about $4,800, which is a little lower than last year's with it. I kind of wonder if that had to do with the fact that Uncle Bob wasn't there this year. He was a big draw."

Though nearly everything about Bob Steffen has always been big and generous, his niece said the virus has burned up some of the heft on her famous uncle's frame, which once weighed in at more than 400 pounds. His size never seemed to hamper his swift pace, however, in building Big Stef, Inc. into an organization capable of charitable activities that are continuing through the help of its many volunteers.

Over the next several weeks, dozens of Big Stef's unpaid do-gooders will deliver holiday parties and gifts to residents at nine Northern Kentucky nursing homes. Some will come clothed as Santa himself, a light-hearted touch Steffen inaugurated in 1984 when he first passed out candy canes and gifts to his ailing mother, Clara, and other residents at Lakeside Place Nursing Home.

This year, as one of the residents of the same facility - now known as Northern Kentucky Care and Rehabilitation Center - Steffen will be on the receiving end of his own organization's good works for the first time.

"We keep telling him he can pick his own Santa to visit," Ms. Steffen said.

"There will be three Santas there - one for each floor. ... The residents really do look forward to it ... and appreciate it."

As do the hundreds of needy families each year who receive holiday baskets filled with about $150 worth of food and cupboard staples in the week before Christmas. Supplies for that undertaking are purchased with funds raised through a half-dozen annual Big Stef, Inc. benefit events, as well as annual membership dues paid by hundreds of participants in the organization.

At Coach's Corner, one of the Newport taverns where Steffen started raising money for gifts a decade ago, everybody knows the big guy with the bacon cheeseburger named after him on the menu. And today, everybody there worries about him, too, according to co-owner Midge Brewer.

"Everyone here is thinking about him. We have people come in every day and ask about him," Brewer said.

"We wish him well and we can't wait to see him back here having a cold Miller Lite again ... and a Big Stef burger. He's a wonderful person."

Tom Steiner, WS (2)

2005-11-22T10:51:00.000-06:00

Students Remember Wauwatosa West Principal

Mon Nov 21, 5:46 PM ET

Monday was the first day back to school for Wauwatosa West High School students after learning of the recent death of their school principal.

Tom Steiner died Friday after he was diagnosed with the West Nile virus four weeks ago.

He was the second to die from West Nile virus so in the state of Wisconsin this year.

Steiner was 56 years old and had been at Wauwatosa West for the past five years. Senior David Kruse told WISN 12 News that Steiner was well liked.

He shared a favorite memory about when Steiner came to his rescue.

"Sophomore year, I didn't have any lunch money, so I asked Mr. Steiner, 'Can I borrow some lunch money?' He hands me a $5 bill and says, 'Keep the change.' That's just just cool. I don't care who you are, that's neat. I tried to pay him back the next day and he wouldn't take the money back," Wauwatosa West student David Kruse said.

Green ribbons were handed out to students and faculty in honor and remembrance of Steiner.

Other students paid tribute to their principal publicly on a rock on the front lawn.

Visitation for Steiner will be Friday from 3 p.m..-8 p.m.at Schmidt and Bartelt in Wauwatosa.

The funeral will be on Saturday at St. Bernard's.

Marge Riley, NE

2005-11-22T10:46:00.000-06:00

West Nile was just the start

When Marge Riley of North Platte took out the trash in July, she didn't even think about putting on a long-sleeved shirt. She paid a huge price for that decision. She has temporarily lost the use of her left leg, and she spent months in the hospital after physicians diagnosed her with West Nile virus.

Marge Riley, NE

2005-11-19T20:29:00.000-06:00

11/16/2005
West Nile virus takes toll on local woman
By: Diane Finch , Telegraph Corespondent

When Marge Riley took out the trash in July, she didn't even think about putting on a long-sleeved shirt. After all, the trash barrel was just yards from her house and it would only take her a few seconds.
She paid a huge price for that decision. She has temporarily lost the use of her left leg, and she spent months in the hospital after physicians diagnosed her with West Nile virus.
"It started out just like the flu," said Riley, 75, who now lives with her daughter and son-in-law, Lyndee and John Doyle.
"There were the usual symptoms - headache, vomiting, diarrhea. My mouth was so dry. I didn't go to the doctor until I got so weak I couldn't stand up."
Doyle took her to the emergency room at Great Plains Regional Medical Center, where, after extensive testing and waiting for results, she was diagnosed with West Nile virus.
When her condition steadily grew worse, more tests indicated the virus had precipitated Guillain-Barré, an autoimmune disorder that causes damage to the nerves and muscles. Riley was immediately transported by ambulance to a neurological center in Fort Collins, Colo., where tests proved positive for West Nile.
"West Nile doesn't manifest the kind of paralysis that she had. Both legs were paralyzed and she couldn't swallow," said Doyle, a Federal Express office manager, who has taken a three-month leave of absence to care for her mother. "We had to find out what was causing the secondary effects."
Although Riley doesn't remember much about her two weeks in intensive care, she does recall Magnetic Resonance Imaging sessions (MRIs), where she had to lie perfectly still for two hours.
Next came five days of blood infusion, which can cause severe allergic reactions. After 14 days in intensive care, Riley was admitted to a rehabilitation center in Fort Collins, where they taught her how to relearn little things such as feeding and dressing herself.
The daily physical therapy strengthened muscle but did not bring back the feeling in her left leg. That leg is still paralyzed from the hip down. After three months in Fort Collins, neurologists released Riley, telling her it might take up to a year for the leg to recover, or perhaps longer.
"I've always been so active," said Riley, who has lived in North Platte 44 years and is noted for her culinary talents. The home economics major who studied at Colorado Women's College at one time also gave microwave cooking lessons.
"Now I can't even get in and out of bed by myself. I use the wheelchair for everything but still I need someone to help around the clock."
Riley does physical therapy several times each week and makes it a point to get out of the house, with the help of her daughter. Last week she went with friends to a local restaurant to celebrate her 75th birthday. Each day she thanks the Lord for the help she receives from her three children and grandson, Austin Doyle.
"I try to stay positive," Riley said, smiling. "Sometimes I can even joke about it. My faith has helped me through this."
Still, it's difficult to be cheerful when insurance won't entirely cover the more than $200,000 in hospital bills.
Physicians told Riley that most people who contract Guillain-Barré make a full recovery. Riley believes she contracted the disease because of the earlier West Nile virus, which creates other problems. She urges people to protect themselves again West Nile.
"It only takes one mosquito to attack. This is nothing to take lightly. Cover yourself, spray yourself with a product containing Deet - even if you're just going out to empty the trash."

Latricia Ann Spencer, Victim (3rd Story)

2005-11-19T12:37:00.000-06:00

Funeral Held For West Nile Victim

Latricia Spencer

Start Video

By First Coast News Staff

JACKSONVILLE, FL -- A funeral delayed for a month was held Friday for Latricia Ann Spencer, a First Coast woman who died from the West Nile Virus.
img src="http://www.firstcoastnews.com/assetpool/images/051118192138_rogerfuneral.jpg">
Spencer's family made an appeal for help on First Coast News after being unable to raise money for a funeral.

The response was overwhelming. Money not used for the funeral will be put aside to help families in similar situations.

Delores Hughes, IN-Victim

2005-11-19T12:21:00.000-06:00

Funeral director: Griffith woman died of West Nile
HEALTH: State, county officials haven't confirmed virus as cause of death

BY JERRY DAVICH
jdavich@nwitimes.com
219.933.3376

This story ran on nwitimes.com on Wednesday, November 16, 2005 1:54 AM CST

A local grandmother of six has died from complications related to West Nile virus, according to her family. But state and local health officials say they know nothing about her virus-related death.

Delores Hughes, a spry 76-year-old Griffith widow who worked 20 hours a week and drove herself to teach Sunday school, died Nov. 1 after weeks of battling the virus, said Elizabeth Davids, of Valparaiso, one of Hughes' four children.

"Doctors say that my mother got bit by a mosquito sometime around Labor Day," she said. "We'll never know where or how, but she lived near an open ditch so maybe it had stagnant water and mosquitoes."

The Indiana State Department of Health, however, has not reported Hughes' virus-related death. Since a Hammond resident died from the virus in late September, "we have received no such notification of any other (West Nile-related) deaths," Indiana State Department of Health spokesman Andy Zirkle said.

Nick Doffin, administrator for the Lake County Health Department, said his office also has heard nothing of a new West Nile-related death. Currently, there have been 22 confirmed human cases of West Nile virus reported in Indiana, including 10 in Lake County.

The Hammond death was Indiana's first -- and officially only -- fatality from the virus, according to state health department data.

"If a person dies who has previously been diagnosed as having West Nile virus, we would be provided with death certificate information to verify that," Zirkle said.

Robert Acevez, funeral director at Calumet Park Funeral Chapel in Merrillville, confirmed that Hughes did indeed die from West Nile virus. Hughes' attending physician and her death certificate both stated this, though in medical terms, Acevez said.

"Her body was flagged as contaminated when it got here, for special care," Acevez said.

Dr. Fred Adler, of Munster, completed the cause of death on Hughes' death certificate but did not return a phone call Tuesday for comment.

Hughes' family said doctors at The Community Hospital in Munster told them that her mother contracted West Nile after several tests were performed. But the reporting process of Hughes' death from West Nile left the family wondering how many other deaths were caused by West Nile but were not reported.

"The whole process of treatment and reporting her death was terribly disappointing," said son Bob Hughes, of Portage. "Obviously, there must be other West Nile deaths in Indiana that go unreported."

Community Hospital spokeswoman Mylinda Cane said she cannot comment on West Nile cases.

"The Indiana State Department of Health has set forth specific regulations for reporting of dangerous communicable diseases," she said.

Hughes' children said their mother suffered through West Nile-related encephalitis and meningitis, as well as a 104.7-degree fever, stiff limbs and convulsions before dying of full cardiac arrest.

Hughes was admitted to the hospital Sept. 14 after becoming ill with flulike symptoms, dehydration and severe tiredness, her family said. By the next day, she was placed in the intensive care unit, where she later fell into a comalike sleep for a few weeks.

Up until her hospital admittance, Hughes enjoyed water aerobics, teaching Sunday school and working 20 hours a week cleaning offices, her family and friends said.

"She was in great health, keeping up with things that I probably couldn't do," Davids said.

Clara Browning, of Munster, said Hughes missed one of her weekly meetings for TOPS, Taking Off Pounds Sensibly, and her group became worried. Browning described Hughes as a kind, generous person who, even at 76, was full of life and vibrancy.

"To think that a tiny mosquito killed such a wonderful human being," she said.

Tom Steiner, WS

2005-11-19T12:04:00.000-06:00

Tosa man battling West Nile dies
Steiner was principal of Wauwatosa West High School
By KAWANZA NEWSON
knewson@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Nov. 18, 2005

The principal of Wauwatosa West High School, who was diagnosed with West Nile virus, died Friday - the first such death in Milwaukee County since the disease was first detected in the state in the summer of 2001.
61763Steiner

Wauwatosa West High School principal Tom Steiner died Friday
VIDEO Coverage
Video: TMJ4 newscast (10 p.m.)

Tom Steiner, 55, was hospitalized about three weeks ago at Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital in Wauwatosa, where he remained in critical condition until his death.

Steiner's family and physicians released little information.

"It's such a shock right now," said Lois Weber, president of the Wauwatosa School Board. "People will need to just digest that it's real, because we kept thinking he would get well."

Weber said she learned of the death about 4 p.m., a time when the majority of students had left the school for home. School officials announced Steiner's death at a basketball game Friday night.

Weber said Steiner, of Wauwatosa, is survived by his wife, Cathryn, a son and a daughter, and will be missed by many others as well.

"He was really a good listener (and) he was really well-respected, by not only his students but his staff and the parents," she said. "This is a sad loss for the school and the community."

West Nile is primarily a bird disease that spreads to humans when a mosquito bites an infected bird, becomes infected itself and then bites people.

Most people get no symptoms or only mild, flu-like symptoms from West Nile. But a small percentage develop encephalitis or meningitis - inflammation around the brain or of the spinal cord - and about 10% of those people die.

As with most infectious diseases, the elderly and people with health problems are more likely to die from West Nile than younger or otherwise healthy people.

Wauwatosa schools Superintendent Phil Ertl confirmed the diagnosis of West Nile to a reporter late Monday.
Detected in state in 2001

The West Nile virus first appeared in the United States in 1999 and was first detected in Wisconsin in dead birds in late summer of 2001.

As of Tuesday, 2,676 human cases - 16 in Wisconsin - and 91 deaths from West Nile virus had been reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta this year. Most cases have been in California.

Wisconsin reported 16 cases and one death to the agency this year.

Last year, there were 2,470 human cases and 88 deaths in the U.S.

Raquel Filmanowicz, spokeswoman for the Milwaukee Health Department, said that Milwaukee County has confirmed eight West Nile cases this year, with four of those occurring in the city. The county reported no cases in 2004 and 2003.

Paul Biedrzycki, the Milwaukee Health Department's manager of disease control and prevention, said that 16 mosquito traps tested positive for West Nile this year, compared with only two last year.
Spring weather

The increase was likely the result of this year's very dry spring, he said.

The department has about 20 mosquito traps throughout the city that are tested each week for the virus, he said.

Biedrzycki is not surprised by the rise in human cases.

"Any time you have lots of infected mosquitoes, you're bound to see increases in human cases," he said.

From the Nov. 19, 2005, editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Have an opinion on this story? Write a letter to the editor or start an online forum.

John C. Wood, MD

2005-11-13T12:58:00.000-06:00

CITY'S FIRST VICTIM OF WEST NILE DIES:
VIRUS SEEN AS ROOT CAUSE OF DEATH OF WEST-SIDE MAN STRIKEN 9 MONTHS AGO
By Jonathan Bor and Frank D. Roylance, Sun Staff

Days after John C. Wood was taken to Sinai Hospital in a coma last
August and declared the city's first victim of West Nile virus, his
family assumed that he would also be a survivor.

Wood, a retired steel worker and amateur handyman who loved to sit on
his porch near Druid Hill Park and chat with neighbors, regained
consciousness and was discharged to a nursing home, where he charmed
the staff with his winning smile.

But Wood was never well enough to come home. The virus left him
brain-damaged, unable to speak in full sentences or swallow properly.
Much of the time, his breathing was so labored that he was hooked to
a mechanical ventilator.

Last Saturday, just two days after his sister visited him at the
Levindale nursing home and left reassured that he was looking well,
Wood developed a lung infection and died. He was 73.

Though the immediate cause of death was pneumonia, doctors are
confident that the root cause was West Nile virus, which had made him
prone to inhaling fluids into his lungs.

"It came as a shock to me," said his sister, Jean Williams of Jessup.
"He seemed to be more alert."

Dr. Peter L. Beilenson, the city's health commissioner, said
yesterday that Wood's death does not cause him to reassess what he
said last summer when the mosquito-borne illness sickened two city
residents and four other people in Maryland.

The illness, he said, is rare and most often strikes elderly people
with underlying conditions that hinder their ability to fight off
infection.

Wood had been stricken with cancer. And though he was in good health
when he was bitten by a mosquito in August, the cancer had impaired
his immune system and left him vulnerable.

"Clearly, we feel for the family," said Beilenson. "But this case
points out what we've been saying: Human consequences of West Nile
virus are uncommon."

The first U.S. cases occurred in 1999, when 62 people within a
75-mile radius of New York City were hospitalized with infections of
the central nervous system. Seven of the victims died.

Though a dead crow that carried the virus was identified in Maryland
that year, the first human cases here were not diagnosed until last
year. Of the six people who became ill, three -- including Wood --
eventually died.

A 70-year-old woman from the city's Jonestown neighborhood who died
in September succumbed to an underlying illness, but Beilenson said
yesterday that West Nile was clearly a contributing factor. The death
of a 63-year-old woman from East Point was attributed to causes
unrelated to West Nile.

Cy Lesser, chief of the state's Mosquito Control Section, said
yesterday that it is "quite likely" that Maryland will see more human
cases of West Nile this year.

But the season is off to a slow start. No infected birds, mosquitoes
or horses have turned up this spring, despite their discovery in 10
other Eastern states, including Virginia, and in the District of
Columbia.

Though there has been enough rain this spring to fill the mosquitoes'
breeding pools, Lesser said that recent cool weather has probably
slowed replication of the virus inside the mosquitoes and temporarily
reduced their ability to infect birds.

Though they can't be sure, Wood's family says he could have been
bitten while sitting on his porch on Gwynns Falls Parkway.

"He was a darn nice guy," said his brother, Leroy Wood of Baltimore.
"He loved to talk to everybody who went by."

Neighbors became concerned in August when they noticed that he hadn't
shown up on his porch for about three days. When a nephew dropped by
to see if anything was wrong, he found Wood lying unconscious on his
apartment floor.

Dr. Debra Wertheimer, his doctor at the Levindale Hebrew Geriatric
Center & Hospital, said it was difficult for the staff to get to know
Wood because the brain infection had left him unable to speak in more
than simple phrases.

Wood's funeral will be held at 10:30 a.m. Monday at the James A.
Morton & Sons Funeral Home, 1701 Laurens St.

Copyright (c) 2002, The Baltimore Sun

Reyna Rodriguez, CA

2005-11-13T12:56:00.000-06:00

Girl Who Contracted West Nile Virus Remains Hospitalized
Girl Cannot Walk Or Talk

POSTED: 6:07 pm PST November 11, 2005
UPDATED: 6:22 pm PST November 11, 2005

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- A 13-year-old girl who fell into a coma from West Nile virus remains hospitalized, unable to walk or talk, but her mother is hopeful she will get better.

Reyna Rodriguez was bitten by a mosquito in late August, but did not know she had the disease. Two weeks later, the Wilmington resident was admitted to a hospital with a high fever and rash.

Rodriguez became comatose as a result of a brain infection caused by the virus. She is now awake, but requires 24-hour care.

Maria Gonzalez, Rodriguez's mother, said her daughter communicates through slight movement of her fingers.

Health officials said most people do not get nearly as sick from West Nile virus, which is carried by mosquitoes that infect humans through their bite. There have been 41 reported human cases of West Nile virus in Los Angeles County this year and no deaths, although statewide, at least two people have died from the disease.

About 20 percent of infected people develop a mild illness, while 80 percent have no symptoms and recover on their own, county health officials said. Symptoms generally last three to six days and may include headache, rash, vomiting, nausea or eye pain.

Victims might develop paralysis, headaches, convulsions or fall into a coma.

Sarah Salmon, MS

2005-11-13T12:54:00.001-06:00

West Nile strikes Sanguinetti after hurricane
By DAVID PHELPS
The nAtchez Democrat

Natchez — Natchez resident Frances Trosclair remembers her brother James Sanguinetti’s activities surrounding Hurricane Katrina well.

Temporarily forced away from his house on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, Sanguinetti was one of the lucky ones.

His house had only moderate damage. So he went to work helping neighbors get cleaned up.

That’s until flu-like symptoms set in. Originally diagnosed as a virus, Sanguinetti, 73, wasn’t admitted to the hospital until several days after his first doctor visit.

When Trosclair first visited her brother, on the Sept. 19, he was having trouble speaking. She remembers her sister-in-law asking if he knew who his sister was. He pointed to Trosclair and said, “Flossie,” a name she’d not heard before.

He was moved into intensive care shortly thereafter with a suspected stroke.

The Times-Picayune reported on Oct. 19 that Sanguinetti was one of two reported cases of West Nile virus in the wake of the hurricane.

After three weeks, two strokes and a tracheotomy, Sanguinetti has been transferred to a rehabilitation hospital in Covington. He is paralyzed on the right side of his body and beginning the recovery process.

While Sanguinetti shows symptoms of a stroke — which could have been brought on by the virus’ weakening his immune system — Natchez resident Sarah Salmon had completely different symptoms from her bout with the virus.

Salmon, 65, was infected in Natchez in September 2002. Though she got over her 102-degree fever and was back at work within a week, symptoms including a swollen left foot and tingling of her nerve ends on her left side sent her to the doctor.

“It affected my blood pressure, sent it sky high,” she said. “It took a year to get it back down.”

She still has periods where the nerves on the left side of her head tingle, but she considers herself lucky nonetheless.

She credited a support group for helping her deal with an illness nobody really understands.

“People who have had it talk to each other about their symptoms, it makes you feel better,” she said.

“You could talk to other people (outside of the group), but they had no idea what you were talking about.”

Salmon said she wanted to help spread the word about the virus in hopes that education will lead to prevention.

The Sanguinettis said they are doing a good job of letting family and friends know what James is going through.

E-mail updates written by his son, Jay, and Jay’s wife, Lucy, keep loved ones posted on the steady, if slow, progress.

The younger Sanguinettis, of Hattiesburg, and Trosclair are among the family members who travel regularly to Covington to visit James and Claudette.

They’ll make a special trip this weekend to wish Sanguinetti a happy birthday. Jay Sanguinetti has gathered nearly 100 cards — including a “who the heck is Flossie?” card from Trosclair — e-mails and letters which he is having bound to give his father as a present.

“The outpouring of support has been incredible,” his wife Claudette Sanguinetti said. “I couldn’t have made it without it.”

Sarah Salmon, MS

2005-11-13T12:54:00.000-06:00

James Sanguinetti, MS

2005-11-13T12:51:00.000-06:00

Kristy Chapman , CA

2005-11-05T22:09:00.000-06:00

Student diagnosed with West Nile Virus
By: Adrienne Moore

A Cal Poly student could be the first human case of the West Nile Virus in San Luis Obispo County this year.

24-year old Kristy Chapman believes she was infected with the potentially serious illness while running on the track at Cal Poly in early October. She says her body was covered in mosquito bites and she developed flu-like symptoms.

"Around seven, that's when they're out here the most, so they're out here like crazy," says Chapman.

After being misdiagnosed at the Campus Health Center and Sierra Vista Hospital, Chapman consulted her hometown doctor in Sacramento.

"They thought it was strep throat, but when I talked to the doctors in Sacramento, they said the symptoms of strep throat and the symptoms of West Nile are pretty similar-- swollen lymphnodes," says Chapman.

The health department says they're unsure why thy appropriate information was not shared by the doctor, but are hoping to resolve the matter as soon as possible. Chapman's case would be the first human one on record with the county this year. For now, she says she will continue to wear bug spray every day, and now opts for a treadmill instead of the track for her treadmill.

"We've been going to the gym because I won't go outside, now I'm deathly afraid of mosquitos, I hate them," says Chapman. "So I don't like being outside."

Kristy Chapman says she feels fine today, and is looking forward to graduating next year. In 2004, one human case of the West Nile Virus was reported in San Luis Obispo County.

Ted Upgren, ND

2005-11-05T22:07:00.000-06:00

West Nile Survivor: How I Almost Died from a Little Mosquito Bite

Ted Upgren's love of fishing may have cost him his life. Months after contracting West Nile virus from a mosquito, the author still suffers from the illness. Wildlife biologists muck around in the field so often and put up with biting insects like mosquitoes so routinely we may think we're immune to everything. I think differently today.

I was rapped hard by the West Nile virus, and while owning the distinction of being the first human West Nile case diagnosed in North Dakota in 2003, I had little else to crow about as this dreaded disease took me for a ride that almost ended my life.

I was a reasonably healthy 60-year-old in July 2003, but on the morning of the 17th I awoke in my camper at Lake Sakakawea State Park in another world. Weak, feverish and overcome by flu-like symptoms, I was in no shape to join my son Michael for the final day of pre-fishing for North Dakota's Governors Cup Walleye Tournament.

I stayed behind and Mike returned to check on me around 1 p.m. I was delirious, feverish and suffering a strange, fatiguing weakness in my right arm. My wife Kaye arrived around 3 p.m. to cart me home. Doctors diagnosed a flu condition. At home throughout the next day I continued to deteriorate.

Doctors Suspected Stroke

The next morning, Kaye had had enough when, sitting in my recliner chair, I was unable to lift or lower the recliner lever. At the emergency room, doctors ran blood tests -- the virus did not show in the blood. They did x-rays and a CAT scan, suspecting a stroke.

By evening, they decided to airlift me to Rochester. Kaye and two nurses accompanied my gurney, secured in a twin Cessna, to St. Mary's Hospital. From 1:30 a.m. until nearly noon, I was tested and quizzed by many doctors. A spinal tap finally confirmed the West Nile virus. I was informed that no treatment existed.
a d v e r t i s e m e n t

By this time, my right arm was in total paralysis, my left arm was weak and I was experiencing shortness of breath. Taking morphine for pain and other medications for nausea, a vicious cycle ensued.

Alarmed at the progression of the virus, doctors suggested an experimental therapy using the drug alpha-interferon. Administered by an injection in the stomach area, they put me on a 14-injection cycle.

Interferon Stopped the Virus?

After about the seventh injection, tests showed that my blood pressure was dangerously low, my kidneys were shutting down and my liver had abnormal enzymes. My body was being defeated by the virus.

Of all the things I can't recall since that fateful July day, this was not one of them. I still see me joking with the nurses as they poked and stuck me, buzzers and alarms sounding throughout the emergency room, and Kaye sitting at the foot of my gurney with tears streaming down her face, foretelling the seriousness of my condition.

Presuming an allergic reaction to the interferon, the shots were stopped. It is our conviction that the interferon also stopped the spread of the virus.

Three more days in the hospital finally stabilized me. Several additional days of outpatient appointments and I was finally given the OK to head home on August 1.
a d v e r t i s e m e n t

Road to Recovery

I remained nauseous, weak, fatigued and 40 pounds lighter. I suffered a paralysis of my right hand and fingers, arm and shoulder and general weakness in my left arm. I would finally see improvement after nine months of occupational therapy three times a week.

And still I'm not out of the woods. My right shoulder is paralytic and I suffer some balance and cognitive challenges. I'm where I am today only because of the loving sacrifices of my wife Kaye, the dogged work of medical professionals and an abundance of prayerful support from many people.

The message here is, don't tempt West Nile virus. You don't need to end up like me, disrupting job, family and income.

Change your outdoor behavior. Use repellents. View the ubiquitous mosquito in a new light. The new version can make you sick with yet the possibility, however remote, of making you dead. I've had the virus and may or may not be immune. But nowadays I always carry and use repellents. You should too.

Tips to Prevent West Nile Virus

Where there's a mosquito, there's a threat. Remember to use insect repellent when outdoors. Many of these repellents contain the chemical DEET, which should not be used in amounts greater than 10% on children. Repellents with DEET are not recommended on infants two months or younger.
a d v e r t i s e m e n t

Despite the threat, the summer months are a time to enjoy the outdoors. Here are some at-home tips to prevent West Nile:

1. Drain pooled water daily. This can collect in flowerpots, birdbaths or areas in the yard and can provide breeding grounds for mosquito larvae.

2. Wear protective clothing. Long sleeves and pants prevent bites, and mosquitoes are not attracted to khaki and neutral-colored clothing.

3. Keep grass short. Taller grass provides a convenient place for mosquitoes to hide.

4. Repair window and door screens. Keep those pesky mosquitoes out of the house.

For more information and statistics on West Nile in your area, check out the website for the Center for Disease Control.

Grant Choate, IL

2005-11-02T13:31:00.000-06:00

Nile
Joe Leicht
Of the Suburban Journals
Enterprise Journal
11/02/2005

David Choate of Smithton is concerned, but cautiously optimistic about his son Grant's health.

Grant Choate, a 15-year-old freshman at Freeburg High School, loves to four-wheel in his spare time and was hoping to make it onto the basketball squad this year.

But in early October, Grant Choate began complaining of a fever that never seemed to subside. The fever gave way to a rash and eventually, he sought medical treatment.

"They said is was Roseola, which is not that serious and about that time, he started doing better," David Choate said.
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But the rash became blotchy and turned into welts that covered most of his body. Then he became nauseated and bed ridden and his temperature climbed to 105.

"I knew there was something very wrong and it wasn't going to go away by itself," David Choate said.

Grant Choate was checked into Cardinal Glennon Hospital in St. Louis where he was diagnosed with West Nile fever, a viral disease carried in animals and birds and transferred to humans by mosquitoes.

Grant Choate had to undergo a spinal tap as part of his diagnosis and treatment.

"We have no idea when or where he got it, but it's almost always from a mosquito bite," Grant Choate said. "Earlier, there was a horse in Smithton that had West Nile and a blue jay and crow."

The Illinois Department of Public Health did not name Grant Choate, but confirmed it is investigating a case of West Nile in St. Clair County, where one West Nile-related death was recorded earlier this year.

The IDPH reports nine West Nile deaths so far in 2005 and a total of 235 cases.

The disease is not contagious among humans and it is unlikely any persons who have not already contracted the virus will do so because fall temperatures have slowed or stopped mosquito activity.

Grant Choate is back in school but carries a water bottle and has been granted permission from school officials to take additional time getting to and from class, his father said.

Doctors have instructed Grant Choate to drink plenty of water, the best advice they can give.

"He's going to be all right," David Choate said. "It just takes time. But there is no cure for West Nile, they can only treat the symptoms and hope the body builds its own defenses."

Willie Gay, FL

2005-10-26T15:23:00.000-05:00

A West Nile Virus Survivor

PLAY Video

By Ken Amaro
First Coast News

JACKSONVILLE, FL -- The Centers for Disease Control says when someone is infected with the West Nile Virus, one of three things happen. 1 - There are no symptons. 2 - There is West Nile Fever. 3 - There is severe West Nile Disease such as Meningitis or Encephalitis.

Last year, 70-year old Willie Gay was stricken with the West Nile Virus and recovered to say "do not ignore" the symptons.

July 2005 was the first time Wille Gay was able to return home.

"I left in July and came back in July," says Gay.

For the past year the military veteran was in the battle of his life.

"I was sick and the doctors didn't think I would make it," says Gay.

Last Summer, Gay was sitting on his front porch, as he usualy does, and was bitten by mosquito.

Gay says, "When a mosquito bites you, its not the bite. It is what it leaves behind when it bites you."

A few days later Gay wasn't feeling well and visited a hospital emergency room. However he was discharged with a sinus infection.

But he said his condition got worse.

"I knew I was sick, I didn't know how sick," says Gay.

He made another trip to the hospital.

"I had a fever so bad, I couldn't break it."

And then they told him the diagnosis - he had the West Nile Virus.

"When they told me, I thought I was going to die," says Gay.

Gay had so many complications, at one point they called in his family. Eventually, he was moved to a Veterans Hospital for a lengthy stay.

He recovered.

"I'm blessed, I wasn't ready to die," says Gay.

How do you know if you've contracted the West Nile Virus?

Ruth Voss is an Epidemiologist Nurse.

She says you can have it and not know it. "That is very common from what we understand," says Voss.

If you have symptopns they would be fevers, headaches, stiffness around the neck.

Voss says you have to keep an eye on your condition.

"If you're not feeling well and your body temperature is not improving, call your doctor,"
says Voss.

Two years ago, the C-D-C concerned about misdiagnosis, cautioned doctors about confusing viral meningitis with the West Nile Virus.

The Duval County Health Department says prevention is the key. Here are some tips:

Use repellent containing DEET if you're outdoors.

Avoid being outdoors during dusk or dawn hours. That's when mosquitoes are most active.

Wear clothing that covers your skin.

Get rid of any standing water around your home.

Created: 10/25/2005 5:50:39 PM
Updated: 10/25/2005 6:51:01 PM
Edited by Ken Amaro, Consumer Reporter

Latricia Spencer, FL-Victim

2005-10-24T23:31:00.000-05:00

Firstcoastnews.com
Family of West Nile Virus Victim Speaks

Latricia Spencer

By Ken Amaro
First Coast News

JACKSONVILLE, FL -- Letisha Spencer remembers her mother.

"She loved to cook," says Spencer.

And she loved to entertain her friends, family and neighbors.

Letisha Spencer says her mother would grill outdoors, ten feet from a ditch full of standing water.

Spencer believes her mom was grilling when she was bitten by a mosquito carrying West Nile Virus.

That was on a Sunday.

Two days later she was rushed to Shands Jacksonville.

LaTricia Spencer died one week later.

The family believes she was treated for viral meningitis, instead of West Nile Virus.

"They messed up, they did," says Spencer.

By law, Shands cannot discuss the patient's condition or treatment.

But the death captured news headlines and caused the Duval County Health Department to issue a West Nile Virus alert last Friday.

Spencer was also a diabetic and had no insurance.

"What we need the most is help to bury our momma," says Spencer.

The Spencer family is telling anyone who would listen, if you're going outdoors use insect repellent.

The city's Mosquito Control treated the ditch behind the Spencer's apartment, and plans to treat it again.

Shands is reportedly conducting an autopsy and will forward the cause of death in a death certificate to the funeral home.

Anyone who would like to help the family can contact the Vystar Credit Union on Dunn Avenue.

First Coast News

Dorothy Mahl, OH- Victim

2005-10-24T23:20:00.000-05:00

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Dorothy Mahl, 88, was teacher in Covington
West Nile virus suspected

By Rebecca Goodman
Enquirer staff writer

FORT WRIGHT - Dorothy Burk Mahl, a retired teacher at John G. Carlisle School in Covington, died Friday evening at St. Elizabeth Medical Center South in Edgewood. The cause was West Nile virus, according to her brother, Willard Burk of Fort Thomas. The Fort Wright resident was 88.

She was a "very nice person, very friendly and smart," her brother said. After his wife died when his daughter, Carolyn Cruse of Villa Hills, was a child, Mrs. Mahl helped to raise her.

"Dorothy always was willing to take Carolyn - take her shopping or do anything with her. She was a second mother to my daughter."

Born in Covington to William and Alma Burk, Mrs. Mahl graduated from Eastern State Teachers College in Richmond. She taught fifth grade at Carlisle until about 20 years ago.

She liked to garden and to play bridge. She was a member of Delta Kappa Gamma and Gloria Dei Lutheran Church. She also was a member and former secretary of the Covington Art Club.

She became ill about 10 days ago. "She was very spry and did a lot of yard work," her brother said.

Northern Kentucky health officials say tests are being done to confirm that her death resulted from West Nile, which is carried by mosquitoes.

Mrs. Mahl's husband, Karl Mahl, died in 1985.

Survivors include her brother; a son, Karl Mahl Jr. of Trabuco Canyon, Calif.; a sister, Betty O'Toole of Crestview Hills; and one grandchild.

Visitation is 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. today followed by the funeral at Swindler & Currin Funeral Home, Latonia. Burial will be at Highland Cemetery in Fort Mitchell.

Memorials: American Heart Association, 333 Guthrie St, Suite 207, Louisville, KY. 40202.

E-mail rgoodman@enquirer.com

Ellis "Junior" Holloway

2005-10-21T10:58:00.000-05:00

Posted on Fri, Oct. 21, 2005

Ga. man dies from complications related to West Nile virus

Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ga. - A 63-year-old retired house painter died from complications related to the West Nile virus, the first known death from the mosquito-born disease in Georgia this year.

Ellis "Junior" Holloway thought he had the flu, but died two weeks later, his family said. "He'd been ill, vomiting for about three or four days, before he went to the hospital," said Lois Gentry, Holloway's sister.

There have been 15 reported cases of the virus in Georgia this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Last year, the state had 22 human cases of West Nile virus, none of which were fatal, according to the Georgia Division of Public Health.

In most cases, the disease is spread from mosquitoes that have bitten infected birds. In a small portion of cases, the virus is spread through blood transfusions, organ transplants and breast-feeding, the CDC said.

Victims often suffer mild flu-like symptoms, but the virus can cause deadly inflammation of the brain.
Information from: Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, http://www.ledger-enquirer.com

Jim Stuerebaut-IL

2005-10-20T13:15:00.000-05:00

Local man survives first Illinois confirmed 2005 West Nile case

BY TODD SHIELDS
STAFF WRITER

"It's like being struck by lightning," recalled Rolling Meadows resident Jim Stuerebaut, the first Illinois resident confirmed to have contracted West Nile virus in 2005.

"I enjoyed being outdoors, golf and working around the house," said Stuerebaut, 55, who works in the accounting office of a Chicago hotel.

"It all happened fast, and it has been very, very difficult. No one can know what this is like unless they have it. No one," Stuerebaut said last week in an exclusive interview with the Review.

Although the Cook County Department of Public Health has not been releasing the names and hometowns of county residents with West Nile virus, with Stuerebaut's permission, department spokeswoman Kitty Loewy confirmed his identity to the Review and his status as the state's first confirmed person to get the virus this year.

Fitted with a brace to help him walk, Stuerebaut still uses a wheelchair around his home. A yard ramp was built up to the front door. He works two days a week and attends physical therapy sessions the other three days.

He said he feels better, but the affliction's ceaseless strain on a person's will to be healthy and lively again is evident in his voice.

"I'm trying to adapt to this change and get back to a normal life," he said.

Because Stuerebaut had been camping this summer in south-central Michigan during the incubation period, the Cook County Department of Public Health cannot determine if he acquired the virus in Illinois.

Stuerebaut said he began having intense flu symptoms July 5, followed by a month's stay in a hospital, during which a laboratory for the Illinois Department of Public Health tested his blood.

Both he and his wife, Grace Gargantiel, continue to seek Web site information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, but no cures or vaccines have been developed.

"And we've contacted government offices in Springfield to no real avail. All you can do is spray yourself with bug repellent," she said. "Jim is getting better now. Before, he couldn't get out of bed, but now he can.

"It's a terrible disease, and we never really knew much about it and didn't care. Now we know how paralyzing West Nile can be."

Illinois Department of Public Health officials said symptoms usually occur 14 days after the bite of an infected mosquito, and people older than 50 years are at highest risk. The most severe cases cause paralysis or death.

In suburban Cook County, 72 cases of West Nile virus have been reported this year. Four people with the virus have died, but three succumbed to other causes, Loewy said.

In Illinois, eight deaths have occurred among 218 reported cases this year. In 2002, Illinois counted more West Nile virus cases, 884, and deaths, 67, than any state in the nation.

Todd Shields can be reached at tshields@pioneerlocal.com.

Peter Carpenter, CA-Victim

2005-10-19T12:57:00.000-05:00

Stanislaus County Man Dies From West Nile Virus

(AP) MODESTO A 63-year-old Patterson man has died from complications from West Nile virus.

Stanislaus County health officials say the man, identified in the Modesto Bee as Peter Carpenter, died Friday in a Turlock hospital.

Three more cases of West Nile virus had been confirmed in the county, bringing the total number of cases to 85 this year.

John T. Phillips Jr., TX-Victim

2005-10-19T12:39:00.000-05:00

Man's death linked to West Nile

Wylie: Results pending; daughter says he was ailing before diagnosis

12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, October 19, 2005

By BILL LODGE / The Dallas Morning News

A Wylie man who died Saturday may be the first person to die from the West Nile virus in the Dallas-Fort Worth area this year, Collin County officials said Tuesday.

The man, identified by his family as John T. Phillips Jr., 78, spent three weeks at Medical Center of Plano before his death.

"Although preliminary lab reports indicated that this gentleman was not positive for WNV, lab results received today indicate otherwise," said Jamie Nicolay, the county's health educator. She said officials are not aware of another West Nile death this year.

Mr. Phillips' daughter, Gail Beltz, said Tuesday that her father was diagnosed as having the virus a week and a half ago. She received confirmation of the diagnosis from health officials Monday.

She said she thinks her father, who was already in poor health, was infected while planting bushes and watering shrubs at the home where he lived with his wife on Windsor Drive, just south of Lake Lavon.

"You just can't believe a mosquito bite can do this. It's just incomprehensible," Ms. Beltz said.

Ms. Nicolay said lab tests showed that Mr. Phillips had two West Nile antibodies – the state's requirement for declaring a case of the virus.

One Plano resident and one in Parker were diagnosed with West Nile this year. Both have fully recovered, Ms. Nicolay said.

Wylie officials said mosquitoes trapped in Mr. Phillips' neighborhood have not tested positive for the virus. They scheduled mosquito fogging from midnight until 5 a.m. today in four subdivisions – Kensington Manor, Harvest Bend, Pointe North and Meadowview estates.

Ms. Nicolay said infected mosquitoes have been trapped in Plano, McKinney, Richardson and unincorporated areas.

County officials said residents should eliminate standing water, use mosquito repellant that contains DEET and remain indoors at dusk and dawn, when mosquitoes are most active.

Most people who come in contact with West Nile do not have adverse reactions.

Researchers with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 80 percent of people infected with West Nile never develop noticeable illnesses.

Among those who do, however, about 0.75 percent develop life-threatening illnesses, such as encephalitis and meningitis, according to the CDC.

Staff writer Paul Meyer contributed to this report.

E-mail blodge@dallasnews.com

Alan Bugg, NM-Victim

2005-10-19T12:30:00.000-05:00

Man who died from West Nile virus was from Tucumcari
Last Update: 10/19/2005 8:20:14 AM
By: Associated Press

TUCUMCARI, N.M. (AP) - A Tucumcari woman says she’s angry that the state Department of Health doesn’t do more to educate the public about the West Nile virus.

Catherine Bugg says she’s also upset the agency doesn’t do more to help put a stop to the mosquitoes that carry the disease.

Bugg says her husband, 50-year-old Alan Bugg, was the second New Mexican to die this year from a West Nile viral infection.

Bugg says the department just stated that a 50-year-old male died of a disease, but she says the male was a person, and she wants to put a face on it.

Alan Bugg, who survived a simultaneous kidney and pancreas transplant in June, died October 7th.

Department officials say privacy laws permit them to disclose only the ages and home counties of West Nile virus victims.

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Craig Beard, MT-Victim

2005-10-14T15:58:00.000-05:00

Powell man first victim of West Nile in state

A 53-year-old Powell man died Oct. 4 in a Billings hospital of encephalitis derived from the West Nile virus.

The victim was Craig Baird.

”He was imuneocompromised,“ said Kelly Weidebach of Cheyenne, surveillance epidemiologist for the Wyoming Department of Health.

Barid's wife was quoted in press accounts saying her husband recently had a kidney transplant.

Weidenbach said the death was the first this year in Wyoming attributed to West Nile virus.

The incident was the seventh case of the illness confirmed in the state in 2005, she added.

The other victims all are recovering, although some still show symptoms, she added.

They are from Sheridan, Natrona, Goshen, Weston and Campbell counties.

Weidenbach said Park County residents have little to fear from West Nile virus at this time of the year.

”Since the weather has been getting colder, we feel this is the end of the West Nile season,“ she said.

Incubation of the disease usually is 3-14 days from the time an infected mosquito bites a victim, she added. That means Baird likely contracted the illness about Sept. 20, and probably in Park County.

Mosquitoes ”generally die off once we've had our first freeze“ or snowfall, she said.

”The risk is low“ at this late point in the season, which peaks in late July or in August.

Even among those bitten by infected mosquitoes, West Nile virus causes neurological invasive illness in less than one percent of victims, Weidenbach added.

Eighty percent of victims experience no symptoms at all, she said.

Since 2002, when West Nile virus first appeared in Wyoming, there have been 10 human deaths, counting Baird, Weidenbach said.

In 2002 there were two human cases and no deaths; in 2003 there were 393 cases and nine human deaths; in 2004 there were 10 cases; and this year there have been seven cases and one death.

To learn more about West Nile virus and how to prevent it, visit www.badskeeter.com.

Dorothy Burk Mahl, OH-Victim

2005-10-14T14:48:00.000-05:00

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

West Nile death suspected
Woman, 88, had enjoyed being outdoors

By Andrea Remke
Enquirer staff writer
ADVERTISEMENT

FORT WRIGHT - An 88-year-old retired Covington teacher who enjoyed doing yard word is believed to have died of West Nile virus, according to her brother Willard Burk of Fort Thomas. Tests are pending to confirm the cause of death.

Dorothy Burk Mahl, who had taught at John G. Carlisle School, died Friday evening at St. Elizabeth Medical Center South in Edgewood. Mahl was a resident of Fort Wright.

The Northern Kentucky Independent Health District would confirm only that the death of a Kenton County woman Friday was believed due to West Nile. Officials would not release a name, citing privacy laws. Health department spokeswoman Emily Gresham said samples were sent to the Kentucky Public Health Lab in Frankfort, where more sophisticated tests can be performed.

"If confirmed (by the state), it would be the first West Nile death this year in Kentucky," Gresham said.

Burk said his sister was a "very nice person, very friendly and smart." After his wife's death, Mahl helped him raise his daughter, Carolyn Cruse of Villa Hills.

"Dorothy always was willing to take Carolyn - take her shopping or do anything with her. She was a second mother to my daughter."

Born in Covington to William and Alma Burk, Mahl graduated from Eastern State Teachers College in Richmond. She taught fifth grade at John G. Carlisle School until about 20 years ago.

She liked to garden and to play bridge. She was a member of the PTA, the 620 Club, the Eastern Kentucky Alumni Association, the Retired Teachers Association, Delta Kappa Gamma and Gloria Dei Lutheran Church.

She was also a member and former secretary of the Covington Art Club.

She became ill about 10 days ago.

Mrs. Mahl's husband, Karl Mahl, died in 1985. In addition to her brother, survivors include a son, Karl Mahl Jr. of Trabuco Canyon, Calif.; a sister, Betty O'Toole of Crestview Hills; and one grandchild.

Visitation is 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. today followed by the funeral at Swindler & Currin Funeral Home, 214 West Southern Ave. in Latonia. Burial will be at Highland Cemetery in Fort Mitchell.

Memorials can be made to the American Heart Association, 333 Guthrie Street, Suite 207, Louisville, KY 40202.

Through last week, Health department spokesman Gresham said, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 55 deaths this year across the nation from West Nile virus.

People who get the virus, primarily transmitted to humans through mosquitoes, usually show flu-like symptoms such as aches, pains and fever, Gresham said.

Although the mosquito population dies off as it gets colder, many cases still occur in late August and September, Gresham said.

The health department also monitors West Nile cases in birds and horses. There have not been any cases in either animal reported in the Boone, Campbell, Kenton or Grant county areas, but six horses and two birds tested positive in other parts of the state, according to the department.

If confirmed, Friday's death would be the fourth human case of West Nile in Kentucky this year. In two of the cases, a Kenton County man and a Grant County woman were hospitalized and are recovering, Gresham said. The other case was in the Louisville area.

Rebecca Goodman contributed to this report. E-mail aremke@enquirer.com

Eugene Lee, MN-Victim

2005-10-14T14:40:00.000-05:00

Posted: 10/11/05
West Nile claims Rogers man
Riverview Community Bank

by Susan M.A. Larson
Staff writer

Eugene Lee, 76, Rogers, is believed to be Hennepin County’s first death due to West Nile virus (WNV). Lee died Sept. 29 at North Memorial Medical Center, Robbinsdale.

According to Doug Schultz, Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) spokesperson, it is not the MDH’s policy to release names, but he confirmed that a 76-year-old male from Hennepin County died from West Nile and “as far as we can tell from our records, we have had no other deaths in Hennepin County since we’ve had West Nile in the state in 2002.” Lee’s is the second West Nile death in Minnesota in 2005.

Jim Stark, public affairs coordinator for the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District (MMCD), said his department was notified by the Minne-sota Depart-ment of Health that a Rogers resident had been diagnosed with West Nile.The MMCD then looked for immature and adult mosquitos in Rogers.

“There needs to be a certain threshold of mosquitos (to spray for them) and the mosquito population (in Rogers) didn’t warrant any treatment,” said Stark.

Lee’s daughters, Wendy Lee and Jane Erickson, said their father didn’t really show any symptoms of illness. In mid-September, said Wendy, “He said he didn’t feel right. He went to an urgent care, but they didn’t find anything.”

On Sept. 21 he was to have left on a trip to Niagara Falls. But instead, Lee ended up in the hospital. Later that evening, he developed seizures, became unresponsive and had a fever of 104 that couldn’t be controlled. On Sept. 27, according to his daughters, they were told their father had West Nile, which turned into encephalitis. According to the Minnesota Department of Health, a small percentage of people infected with the West Nile virus, especially the elderly, develop encephalitis (inflammation of the brain); approximately 10 percent of these encephalitis cases are fatal. However, most people infected with the West Nile virus have either no symptoms or a very mild illness. Lee also had diabetes and a heart condition.

The typical incubation period for West Nile, the MDH reports, is two–six days, although it can be as long as 15 days. Most people infected with West Nile virus will be asymptomatic or experience a flu-like illness; 20 percent of those bitten by an infected mosquito will develop the symptoms of West Nile fever and one out of 150 people bitten by an infected mosquito will develop the more severe form of West Nile, West Nile encephalitis.

Erickson and Lee stress that they don’t want to be alarmists, but “it happens and people need to be able to take precautions,” said Erickson.

“But we don’t want them hiding in their houses,” Lee added.

“We don’t want people to hibernate, just take precautions,” said Erickson.

West Nile virus (WNV) is maintained in a transmission cycle involving one or more species of mosquitoes and birds.The MDH recommends personal protection measures such as use of mosquito repellents, avoiding outdoor exposures at dusk and dawn (peak feeding time for many mosquitoes), and wearing long-sleeved shirts and long pants to reduce the risk of West Nile. Removal of water-holding containers (mosquito breeding sites) from residential areas will reduce mosquito numbers.

Erickson and Lee remember their father as loving travel, being outdoors and genealogy.

Mamie Carda, SD-Victim

2005-10-14T14:12:00.000-05:00

Family copes with West Nile's toll

Associated Press--Posted on Wed, Oct. 12, 2005

TABOR, S.D. - The family of a woman who died of West Nile wants to make sure others are aware that the deadly disease is still around.

Mamie Carda, 90, or Tabor, died last month and was the state's second West Nile fatality in 2005.

And her family doesn't want to see it happen to anyone else.

"The whole family is concerned about others," said Jennifer Carda, 28, wife of grandson Brad Carda, 29. "People need to be aware of West Nile."

The Cardas hope to save at least one life by telling Mamie's story, Jennifer said.

Despite her age, Mamie didn't fit the profile of the West Nile victim, Jennifer said.

"Grandma wasn't outside much," she said. "She went outside to get her mail or put her garbage out, but she didn't go many places."

Mamie lived at home and was very independent, and very healthy, Jennifer said.

"Other than this (West Nile), she was really healthy. There is a sense of frustration because she was doing so well."

But just a couple of minutes outdoors can be enough for a West Nile mosquito to bite, said April Borders, an Extension educator in Yankton County.

"I'm not saying you shouldn't go outside anymore, but you have to take precautions," she said. "You need to wear long clothing and use protectants or repellents. Our theory is that this is the last chance (for the insects) to feed before they have to hibernate for the winter."

Borders also said that mosquitoes try to get inside when the weather gets cold, so screens and windows should be checked for holes.

Mamie's case illustrates the elderly's susceptibility to West Nile, said Borders.

"At about 50 years old, you see the number of cases go up, and the cases spike for those over 70 years old," Borders said. "The older persons' immune systems are weaker, and they catch so many more things."

West Nile numbers spike in September and the current warm weather has prolonged the West Nile season, she said. The state currently has 278 reported West Nile cases and two deaths.

This time last year, South Dakota had 44 human cases and on death, much smaller than 2003's reported 1,035 cases and eight deaths.

Mamie's death has made the entirely family more vigilant about the deadly disease, Jennifer said. They're more protective of themselves and their 4-year-old son.

"West Nile can hit any time, and we have bug spray nearby for ourselves and our little boy," she said. "Our family wants to make people aware the mosquito is still out there. They need to take care of themselves."

Dan Cullinan, AZ-Victim

2005-10-13T15:18:00.000-05:00

Fountain Hills man dies of West Nile virus

Jessica Coomes
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 13, 2005 12:00 AM

FOUNTAIN HILLS - A 74-year-old man from Fountain Hills died after battling the West Nile virus for three weeks.

Dan Cullinan, a retired teacher and part-time bartender, is the third person in Maricopa County this year to die because of complications from the virus, a county health official confirmed Wednesday.

"It got worse and worse," said Julie Cullinan, his wife of 43 years. "It was absolutely horrific. I've been through so much stuff, and I've never seen anything like this."
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Cullinan went to the hospital with flulike symptoms, including nausea, high temperature and aches. Less than a week later, Cullinan was unconscious, paralyzed and on life support, his wife said. He died Monday evening.

Mosquitoes carrying the West Nile virus were found in northeast Fountain Hills earlier this month, and the county has fogged in the area from McDowell Mountain Road to Grande Boulevard and from Saguaro Boulevard to San Carlos Drive.

Although the number of fatalities from West Nile is down from last year, county health officials encourage people to remove standing water from outside plants and buckets and to report stagnant water to the county.

The county also advises repairing windows with holes as well as wearing mosquito repellant and long clothes while outside, especially before dawn and after dusk.

The other West Nile casualties in the county this year were a Northwest Valley man in his 60s and a central Phoenix woman in her 80s.

Health officials confirmed 56 human West Nile cases in Maricopa County this year. Last year, 355 people in the county had the virus, 15 of whom died.

It's unknown where Cullinan contracted the mosquito-borne virus, said Emily Poland, a spokeswoman for the Maricopa County Department of Public Health.

Peter Moen, CAN-Victim

2005-10-13T14:56:00.000-05:00

Widow of West Nile victim urges vigilance
Oct 13 2005 09:16 AM CDT
CBC News
The widow of a Regina man who died of the West Nile virus says people need to take the disease more seriously.

Eighty-three-year-old Peter Moen died in hospital last month.

His wife says the illness came as a shock, because her husband was always active and healthy.

"Every summer at the cottage at Regina Beach, we'd have a few leaks. Up he'd be on the top of the roof, carrying the tar pail. Right up till a couple weeks before he took ill," she said.

When he got sick, the doctor said it was probably just the flu, but Moen knew her husband had been bitten by mosquitoes at their cabin.

"It was very rapid. Very, very rapid. One day he was absolutely, perfectly healthy himself. The next morning, he went for coffee, to the Golden Mile, which he did every day to meet the boys," she said. "He came home, he was flat on his back."

Within weeks, Peter Moen was dead – along with another elderly Regina man who also had the virus.

Moen's wife says she wants people to do more to protect themselves.

Saskatchewan had 60 West Nile cases this year, up from five in 2004, but far fewer than the 947 cases recorded in 2003.

According to Ross Findlater, the province's chief medical health officer, the biggest factor is actually the weather.

"There was some cool weather from the beginning of August to the middle of August, which was quite important in keeping the mosquitoes down. And then it did warm up later on, but by then many mosquitoes were already getting ready for the winter anyway."

Findlater says wearing bug spray is a good practice, but local mosquito control programs are even more important.

Those programs remain a big challenge for rural areas and resorts, he said.

Jessica Forst, Nevada

2005-10-07T14:05:00.000-05:00

Douglas student diagnosed with West Nile Virus

by Sheila Gardner
Nevada Appeal News Service
October 7, 2005

GARDNERVILLE - At age 17, Jessica Forst should be having the time of her life.

As a Douglas High School senior, her plans this year included looking ahead to graduation with friends she's known since kindergarten.

Instead, Jessica lies curled up on a leather loveseat in her family's Chambers Field home.

Too weak to brush her shoulder-length strawberry-blonde hair, Jessica can't walk to her bedroom unattended or take a shower on her own.

Food makes her nauseated and body aches are so intense she stopped sleeping in her bed, preferring to catnap on the couch.

Rather than celebrating senior class milestones or camping with her family, Jessica has spent the past few months battling a baffling series of illnesses including spinal meningitis.

On Tuesday, Jessica got an additional diagnosis that might put things in perspective.

She has West Nile virus, one of the three human cases in Douglas County.

"It was almost a relief," her father, Jim Forst, said Wednesday.

Jessica's problems began after she had her wisdom teeth extracted in July. She developed osteomyelitis that has required surgery.

"My mouth was just full of bacteria," she said.

The infection was accompanied by swelling and intense pain that doctors fought with antibiotics and painkillers that made her sick.

She lost her appetite and 11 pounds. A teaspoon of applesauce fills her up.

With the West Nile Virus diagnosis, Jessica and her family believe things are looking up.

"We suspect now that her immune system was overloaded," Jim Forst said.

Jessica said she has no clue where the disease-bearing mosquito came from.

"I never get bit by mosquitoes," she said. "Who could think this little mosquito could cause all this trouble?"

Her parents say doctors aren't sure whether to tie the bone infection to the West Nile virus, but the spinal meningitis is a definite symptom.

On Sept. 24 Jessica had a stiff neck and a raging headache.

The next day, she was in agony.

"It was like this big lightbulb went off," Susie Forst said. "I told Jessi to look on the Internet under spinal meningitis and she had all the symptoms."

Once Jessica was officially diagnosed with spinal meningitis, she was quarantined and hospitalized for a week.

The West Nile Virus was diagnosed Tuesday.

"My doctor came out and said, 'You are the most unlucky person,' and told me what it was," Jessica said. "I just laughed at it. I couldn't believe I had it."

Jessica is under orders to rest and recover. There's not much else she can do.

"I'm not able to sleep at night," she said. "My muscles hurt even in my own bed. I leave the television on, and fall asleep on the couch."

Jessica goes to the infusion center at Carson Valley Medical Center every day where liquid and antibiotics are pumped into her frail system.

Every time her mom walks by, she tries to coax Jessica to eat a cracker or take a sip of water.

"Being a nurse is hard," she said. "I'm normally busy, but this is very time consuming."

But Susie Forst is not complaining.

Last year Jessica helped nurse her mother through breast cancer.

"She was my mom," Susie said. "She drove me everywhere and took care of me. Now it's my turn."

The Forsts said friends and neighbors have offered unflagging support.

The daughter of one of Susie Forst's co-workers at the Hairport set up a bank account to help with expenses associated with Jessica's treatment.

Some medical bills are covered by insurance and the Forsts are preparing to tackle the rest.

"We've had unbelievable support," Susie Forst said. "Somebody takes her to the infusion center if I can't. People are bringing over meals.

"If it wasn't for everybody's prayers and our faith in God, we couldn't make it through," she said. "Even the nurses at the hospital prayed for us."

Jim Forst said he and his wife have been grateful for the quality of care Jessica has received.

"I've watched the doctors and nurses. Day in and day out, they have to do all these things and they treat Jessica like she's their only patient," he said.

Some days, Jessica's fragile condition gives way to tears of frustration.

"She wants to know, 'Why me, Mom?'" Susie Forst said. "I don't know why she's had to suffer so much."

Jessica tries to keep up with her friends by e-mail and text messaging, but some days even that is too much effort.

"When they come over to visit, I usually fall asleep," she said.

Jessica said her illness has led her to think about becoming a nurse.

"I've been treated so awesome," she said. "It's just because of the good care and how people treated me. I like to help people out."

Jessica isn't thinking too much about the schoolwork that lies ahead. She said it's difficult even to try to read, but she still has concerns.

"I want to graduate with my class," she said. "I can't wait to go back to school and see all my friends."

- Contact reporter Sheila Gardner at sgardner@recordcourier.com or 782-5121, ext. 214.

Charlie Ray Hatten-LA, Victim---Clarice Hatten, wife

2005-10-07T13:54:00.000-05:00

Widow: Grayson man died of West Nile
10/7/2005, 10:10 a.m. CT
The Associated Press

GRAYSON, La. (AP) — The West Nile virus killed an 81-year-old Grayson man, his wife said.

Clarice Hatten said new autopsy results show that Charlie Ray Hatten's death on Sept. 10 was caused by the virus. The state does not confirm or deny individual cases, said Dr. Raoult Ratard, the state epidemiologist.

As of Sept. 23, the state listed six deaths statewide from the virus. Ratard has said that because some families do not want to be identified, he will not release list parishes where the virus killed people until the season is over.

At the last report, 99 people had been diagnosed with the virus in Louisiana — 54 with neuroinvasive infections of the brain or spinal fluid, 27 with less serious West Nile fever and 18 without any symptoms, infections which may be identified if someone gives blood.

___

Information from: The News-Star, http://www.thenewsstar.com

Katherine Pistone, IL

2005-10-03T15:13:00.000-05:00

Patients confront a lonely battle
Drug research lags on West Nile virus

By Josh Noel
Tribune staff reporter
Published October 2, 2005

When West Nile disease left her mother comatose and paralyzed in a hospital bed last fall, doctors could offer Patty Fritsch no sure remedy.

Her best option, they said, was a drug called Alferon N. Scientists are testing it as a treatment for West Nile, but so far, it has been approved only to treat the virus causing genital warts.

Fritsch felt she had no choice but to try it.

"When you're at life and death, you want the pill," she said. "The question isn't, `Will I get it?' It's, `How soon can you get it here?'"

More than 15,000 people have been infected by the West Nile virus since it reached the United States six years ago; almost 400 have died. Yet researchers say a vaccine won't be ready for at least two years. Work on treatments is lagging even farther behind, as scientists put a priority on prevention.

In the meantime, families are left to gamble on treatment and hope for recovery.

"The necessary work has been put in," said Vishnu Chundi, the infectious disease specialist who treated Fritsch's mother, Katherine Pistone, last year. "But it's moving at a snail's pace."

The mosquito-borne disease is nowhere near the threat it was in Illinois during the summer of 2002, when 884 people were infected and 67 died, according to the state Department of Public Health. But there has been a resurgence this summer, with new cases announced almost daily and four people dead, according to the state. Illinois has had the third-highest number of West Nile infections in the country this year (188), trailing California (801) and South Dakota (278).

Those most susceptible to West Nile are older than 50 and have suppressed immune systems.

Against the odds, Pistone, 64, appears to be beating the disease.

Days after getting 10 treatments of Alferon N, she opened her eyes. For months there was no movement, no speech and no recognition of anyone in her deep brown eyes.

Now, Pistone is conscious and gets around a North Shore rehabilitation facility in a wheelchair. She can lift her arms a few inches and do things that were unimaginable just a few months ago: brush her hair, feed herself, scratch an itch.

Fritsch, 38, doesn't know for sure if Alferon N caused Pistone's improvement, but she's on the Internet most days hunting for another new or experimental treatment. She'll consider anything that could help her mother continue to beat West Nile.

"If there's something that can speed up the process, we'll do it," Fritsch said.

Vaccine research began at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1999, shortly after the first U.S. cases were seen in New York, said Jeff Chang, an infectious disease research microbiologist at the CDC.

Within six months, a West Nile vaccine for animals was created based on an encephalitis vaccine, he said. There are vaccines for mice, monkeys and horses, among others.

But approving that vaccine for humans has been a slow process even though a modified version is in trials sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a division of the National Institutes of Health.

Chang said he is certain his vaccine will protect humans, but the trials are necessary.

"Proof the vaccine works is one side of the coin," he said. "The other side, more important, is safety."

At least two other trials for West Nile vaccines are ongoing, said Pat Repik, who leads studies on emerging viral diseases for NIAID. Some vaccines will wind up better suited for those most at risk. More robust vaccines will be better suited for younger people, she said.

However, even as interest surges from patients and health departments, industry fears simmer about whether there is actually a market for a West Nile vaccine, she said. Labs raced to find a Lyme disease vaccine when the disease dominated headlines but stopped making it when no one bought it, she said.

"Everyone is clamoring for the vaccine, but we have to see if people will actually be taking it," Repik said.

Lagging far behind and given less priority in scientific circles, is the search for West Nile treatment. The thought, said Walla Dempsey, who is leading an NIAID clinical trial, is that a West Nile vaccine will supplant the need for treatment. However, treatment still could be necessary for people with immune systems too fragile for a vaccine, she said.

At least three public and private trials are ongoing for West Nile treatments, but NIAID's trial is slow going.

The study targets 100 patients, but after three years, it is stuck at about 40 people nationwide, Dempsey said. The biggest problem has been finding patients within seven days of showing symptoms, she said.

While research continues, people such as Pistone and their families are left to fend for themselves.

Although the drug Pistone used is not approved as a West Nile treatment, Chundi said, he had no problem getting it from manufacturer, Hemispherx Biopharma, because it is FDA approved. He fed Pistone 10 doses over nine days, which is how it is being used in West Nile trials at New York Hospital Queens.

No one knows if it made a difference.

"We as doctors claim to know about a lot, but in this disease we don't really know where the outcomes are going to be," Chundi said.

Nevertheless, Pistone is getting better. She spends several hours per day in physical therapy, and her family visits daily.

She laments the horror of paralysis but maintains a bright outlook, and she even smiles as she wonders how a mosquito could so change her life.

"It upsets you that something that little can do so much damage," she said.

With no treatment or vaccine available, Chundi said, the most effective response to West Nile is simple.

"The best we can do right now is prevention," he said. "And prevention is not to be bitten by a mosquito."

----------

jbnoel@tribune.com

Ron Orndoff, CA

2005-10-03T15:06:00.000-05:00

West Nile sickness wallops veteran
Fresno man was unaware of the severity of the virus.

By Cyndee Fontana / The Fresno Bee

(Updated Sunday, October 2, 2005, 9:51 AM)

Ron Orndoff hadn't missed a day of work in years and wasn't about to surrender that streak to a pair of wobbly legs.

Orndoff, 60, isn't the type of guy to crawl into bed for a cold or the flu. So when his 82-year-old mother suggested he call in sick on Aug. 14, Orndoff quickly dismissed the idea.

Instead, just as he did every other workday, Orndoff walked into the garage from their west-central Fresno home about 20 minutes before midnight. He headed toward their Toyota Camry and an eight-hour shift as night manager at the Quality Inn on Ashlan Avenue.

This time, the routine exit was followed by a loud thump.

The 6-foot-2, 230-pound Orndoff collapsed and didn't have the strength to drag himself to his feet. But as he crawled back into the house to call his boss, Orndoff was entering a harrowing medical drama.

Somehow — though he's not the outdoorsy type — Orndoff had been bitten by a mosquito carrying the West Nile virus. For the past six weeks, he has lived at Veterans Affairs Central California Health Care System hospital in Fresno while struggling to fight off high fever, partial paralysis, tremors and other symptoms related to the virus.

It was the hospital's first case of West Nile.

Orndoff developed meningitis and myelitis, an infection of the spinal cord, and his hands shook so badly that he couldn't lift a cup to his lips. Such severe symptoms are rare in most victims of West Nile, which attacks the central nervous system.

The majority of those infected develop no outward signs and only about one in five suffer flulike symptoms. Orndoff falls into the small category of people — less than 1% — who become seriously ill. People older than 50 and those with weakened immune systems are at greatest risk.

Neither Orndoff nor his family realized there was such a debilitating middle ground with the virus, which mainly makes headlines when it kills.

"Anybody I told about this, they had no idea that there's this serious effect," says Maureen Abston, Orndoff's sister. "We thought either you get sick [briefly] and recover, or you die."

Orndoff now is working to regain his health. His hands have stopped shaking and the high fevers have passed. He estimates that he's lost about 30 pounds.

He has sensation in his legs but limited ability to move them. Daily sessions of physical therapy are helping build the strength he needs to move himself in and out of a wheelchair.

Doctors can't predict whether he will recover full use of his legs. Orndoff says emphatically: "My goal is to walk."

While Orndoff only now is understanding the severity of his ordeal, his mother and sister believe he was twice close to death. They say he was confused at times — likely from the fever — and doesn't remember the worst days.

Orndoff, whose genial nature masks a stubborn streak, barely recalls an insect bite that bothered him in late July. Because he spends little time outside — his attempt to grow tomatoes lasted all of a day — Orndoff doesn't know where he met up with a mosquito.

"If you think of anyone who wouldn't be bit by a mosquito, it would be him," Abston adds.

In early August, according to his mother, Orndoff seemed to be suffering from the flu. But he'd managed to stay on his feet until Aug. 14, when he collapsed just outside the home he shares with his mother, Opal.

Orndoff had moved from Los Angeles back to Fresno in the early 1990s to help his mom. The roles were reversed when she found him in the garage that night.

Orndoff, who spent several years in the Army and once traveled the Midwest as an actor, knew he needed to see a doctor. But he decided to wait until morning before heading to the VA hospital, crawling back to his bedroom to sleep through the night.

The next morning, his mother drove the Camry over the curb and onto the lawn to shorten the walk for her weakened son.

"He crawled to the car," she says, "but he didn't have the strength to get in."

Opal Orndoff called paramedics, who ultimately transferred her son into the car. She drove to the hospital.

After a few hours, she says, doctors told her "we don't think he had a stroke but we don't know what it is."

Orndoff promised to call the next morning, and she finally left for the night. When he didn't call, she went back to the hospital and found "a room full of doctors" and a very sick son.

According to Dr. William Cahill, the chief of staff, doctors immediately suspected West Nile. He and other doctors have seen cases on the East Coast.

The virus first appeared there in 1999 and has since spread across the country. It can be transmitted to people or animals from mosquitoes that feed on infected birds.

In California this year, 16 people have died from West Nile-related illness. Six of the deaths occurred in Fresno, Kings and Tulare counties.

There is no specific therapy for the virus; doctors treat the symptoms that develop. In Orndoff's case, symptoms included a 103-degree fever and muscle weakness.

When doctors first tested Orndoff for West Nile, the results were negative. It was too early to detect it; a second test a few days later diagnosed the virus.

Dr. Hewitt F. Ryan Jr., a neurologist who treated Orndoff, says the initial negative test didn't affect treatment because "the pattern of his illness was so striking."

Cahill says it was important to diagnose West Nile to "confirm that we were on the right track, that we weren't missing something else."

Abston immediately drove to Fresno from Yuba City when word of her brother's condition traveled the family grapevine.

When she first saw her brother, he seemed heavily drugged, mentally confused and had little feeling in his legs.

Abston and her mother visited twice a day to help feed him lunch and dinner because Orndoff's hands shook so badly.

A blood clot complicated his recovery, and he spent several weeks in the hospital's intensive-care unit.

Now, he has recovered enough to move to the extended-care unit and begin physical therapy.

Chuck Toland, a physical therapy intern at the hospital, says Orndoff has improved dramatically since his first session. When the two started, Toland was handling about 75% of Orndoff's body weight.

Now Orndoff carries most of the load. On Thursday, Orndoff was deep into his physical therapy session when Toland asked whether he wanted to do more.

"It's up to you," Orndoff answered.

"I'm here all day," Toland said.

"Well, I'm here all day, too," Orndoff countered with a grin.

He remains upbeat while talking about his health. Orndoff says he doesn't fear dying and figures he'll go when his time comes.

He also doesn't ponder just how a man who doesn't spend much time outside wound up with West Nile virus.

"I don't know why it happened to me," Orndoff says. "I guess it's gotta happen to somebody."
The reporter can be reached at cfontana@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6312.

Wendy Payton, CA

2005-09-27T17:59:00.000-05:00

West Nile victim fears more cases on horizon

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Click to Enlarge

Dave Moller, davem@theunion.com
September 24, 2005

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A Penn Valley woman who is the third person to get West Nile virus in Nevada County this year thinks there could easily be more cases.

Her opinion was backed up Friday by Dr. Brent Packer, the county health officer, who said the good news was that the season is waning for the mosquitoes that carry the virus. However, "I expect there are more (cases) in the pipeline," Packer said.

Wendy Payton, 53, said she was bit by several mosquitoes Aug. 27 while watching her son play soccer on a soggy field in Marysville next to a stream. Payton showed none of the classic symptoms the week after, which include fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, rash and bodyaches that come on from three to 14 days after a bite.

But on Sept. 4, she woke up with body aches like those she has experienced during other illnesses. This time there was no other sickness involved until Sept. 8, when she woke up, "and my stomach felt weird."

Payton vomited while on her job as a teacher at Bear River High School and decided to visit the emergency room at Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital in Grass Valley. She suspected West Nile because of the mosquito bites but still had no fever, headache or rash.

She asked for a West Nile test at the hospital, but was told it was unnecessary because she lacked the symptoms.

"The very next day the rash popped up and got bad that weekend," she said. You can still see it on her arms and legs, although the California Department of Health Services said it usually shows up on the trunk of victims.

Payton said she called the hospital on Saturday, Sept. 10, and was told her symptoms did not call for a West Nile test. She called her doctor the next day and was transferred to a physician covering for him, who said no test was warranted.

On Sept. 12, she went to her doctor, who ordered a test for West Nile from the hospital. On Sept. 20, he called to tell her she was positive for West Nile.

"This week I felt a little fuzzy-headed and stiff but now I feel better," Payton said. "I bet there's people out there who feel achy that don't equate it with West Nile."

Payton said she was not upset with anyone at the hospital and had been treated with courtesy throughout. She said with only three human West Nile cases in the county this year, she could understand if physicians are not looking close for the virus, "but it was hard to get a test."

Dr. Joseph Britton is the medical director for the emergency room at SNMH and said flu-like symptoms from West Nile would not necessarily call for a test to find it.

"We don't often test for it because it doesn't change our treatment, because there is no medicine for it," Britton said. "We treat the symptoms and if they persist, we tell them to call their primary care doctor, who would order the test."

However, Britton said those with acute symptoms for West Nile like convulsions, vision loss, high fever, disorientation or tremors should not hesitate to come to the emergency room. Payton did not have those symptoms.

Packer said Payton's body aches, nausea and vomiting might have been enough for some physicians to order a West Nile test right away, while others would have made a different judgment.

"The nausea and vomiting goes with a million other things as well," Packer said. "Sometimes it's a judgment call and you're wrong." But Packer predicted area doctors might be quicker to order West Nile tests now after hearing about Payton's case.

ooo

To contact senior staff writer Dave Moller, e-mail davem@theunion.com or call 477-4237.

Don Adams, OH

2005-09-27T17:52:00.000-05:00

W. Nile hits neighbors; city's response faulted
Monday, September 26, 2005
Harlan Spector
Plain Dealer Reporter

Cleveland's Old Brooklyn section has suffered its share of misery from the West Nile virus. Now two men on the same street have been sickened and people were asking Sunday where the city Health Department has been.

Greg Nawalaniec, a 45-year-old carpenter, has been ill in bed for weeks with West Nile virus, said his partner, Billy Singell. They live across from Don Adams, 72, who was recovering after being hospitalized six days with the illness.

Nawalaniec "was so bad yesterday that I had to call EMS, and they took him to Lutheran" Hospital, said Singell. "This is his 18th day. He's been in the hospital four times for hydration . . . It's the beast of all flus."

The neighborhood on the city's southern tier was hit hard in a West Nile outbreak in 2002. At least three residents died.

Singell and Tim Adams, who lives with his father, Don Adams, questioned why the city had not sprayed for mosquitoes. West Nile is transmitted by bites from infected mosquitoes.

Singell had contacted Councilwoman Emily Lipovan Holan. She harshly criticized city health officials Sunday. Holan said she asked the Health Department to spray pesticides after residents complained about an invasion of mosquitoes in recent weeks.

"People can't even sit on their porches," she said.

Holan said she received no response. The councilwoman was appointed four months ago to represent Ward 15, which includes Old Brooklyn. She said health officials should have done more public service announcements to warn residents, given the neighborhood's history of West Nile illness and the summer's dry, hot weather conditions, which nurture its spread.

"Residents of Ward 15, they're getting second-class treatment from the Department of Public Health," Holan said.

Health Director Matt Carroll said the city has not sprayed for mosquitoes for two years.

"It was taken out of the budget at budget-cutting time," Carroll said.

He also said the level of West Nile activity - taking into account positive tests in people and in trapped mosquitoes - would not justify spraying the neighborhood.

The city has recorded 13 or 14 human cases in other areas. Carroll said he knew of only one confirmed case in Old Brooklyn, presumably the case of Don Adams.

Councilwoman Holan said she considers the second case bona fide, even if confirmation has not been reported to the Health Department.

Singell said the Cleveland Clinic diagnosed his partner's virus Sept. 20.

Carroll, responding to criticism of the Health Department, said the city mailed notices about West Nile to residents in utility bills and also put the word out in news releases.

He said the city applies larvacide in watery areas where mosquitoes lay eggs.

Singell and Tim Adams said they thought mosquitoes were breeding in an algae-covered swimming pool a few doors down.

On Saturday they shared concerns with the owner, who on Sunday was draining the pool.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

hspector@plaind.com, 216-999-4543

Greg Nawalaniec, OH

2005-09-27T17:49:00.000-05:00

Carol Peterson, Canada

2005-09-27T14:59:00.000-05:00

This story ran on nwitimes.com on Tuesday, September 27, 2005 12:35 AM CDT

Dealing with West Nile
BY OLIVIA CLARKE
oclarke@nwitimes.com
219.933.4078

At first Carol Peterson was just a little light-headed.

But that light-headedness turned into dizziness paired with a headache.

She went to the doctor in mid-August and was given several tests and some medication to combat the vertigo. She went back several days later to have blood work done. She was admitted to the hospital Aug. 21 because her conditions worsened.

A few days later she learned she had the West Nile virus, a potentially serious illness that is typically contracted through mosquitoes that become infected when they feed on infected birds.

State health officials announced last Thursday that a Hammond resident died from West Nile virus. As of last Thursday, there were nine reported human cases across the state, and last year there were 11 human cases and one death caused by the virus.

Peterson spent about 2 1/2 weeks in the hospital. Her husband, Michael, said she also developed encephalitis, which is an inflammation of the brain that is typically caused by a viral infection.

She doesn't remember much from the first week, but family and friends who visited said whenever she opened her eyes they fluttered and jumped around. She spent the week with her eyes mostly closed because of the dizziness.

Doctors told her there was no specific drug therapy for the virus, but one injection drug could work. But nothing changed after she took the drug for three days. Many people feel badly for a couple of days and then get better, she said. West Nile sometimes goes undetected or people do not realize they have it, she said.

"They basically told me everybody reacts differently to it," said the 48-year-old Munster resident, who is a speech therapist. "I was the lucky 1 percent that actually gets sick. I was so dizzy it made me very nauseous. It was like being severely car sick all the time, but only worse."

She eventually moved to the rehabilitation section of the hospital. She said she was in pretty good shape before she got West Nile, but she had to relearn how to walk using a walker. She would walk around the room one time and be worn out, she said.

"I couldn't get out of bed by myself," Peterson said. "Just being dependent on other people was kind of strange. I never got the feeling from doctors or family members that I was at real risk of not making it. I guess I was just an optimist."

Her therapist told her she was making progress and released her Monday. But she must still do exercises at home to control her dizziness.

She said she will know more at her next doctor's appointment in a couple of weeks. She said she still moves slowly and can't drive. Working on the computer can make her dizzy, she said.

"I really don't know where I got it," she said. "I don't think you can be paranoid about a mosquito getting you. ... I don't remember having mosquito bites. You can be careful, but you can't be paranoid."

For the last week and a half she has tried to give herself little projects to do around the house. On Monday she put photos in albums.

Her doctor told her to look at her progress from week to week, not day to day. She said she received a lot of support from friends and family. People took turns staying with her when she came home from the hospital, she said.

Michael Peterson said he is thankful for all the work the hospital did and is thankful for how understanding his employer, Strack & Van Til in Merrillville, was about what his wife was going through.

The doctors expect his wife to make a full recovery, he said. While she seems to be done with the West Nile virus, she's left with the vertigo, he said.

"I've never seen her that ill," he said. "Ever since she graduated college and became a speech therapist she's dealt with children and been around illness. She's had nothing more than a cold her whole life. To see her in that kind of state was scary. To see her totally incapacitated, she couldn't even pick up her head, was a scary experience."

Katherine Craven, MA

2005-09-21T12:25:00.000-05:00

School building czar recovering from bout with West Nile virus

By JESSICA VAN SACK
The Patriot Ledger

Katherine Craven's latest directive is not of a bureaucratic nature.

The state's school building czar, who tangled with Quincy officials over the city's high school proposal, is one of three state residents who contracted the potentially deadly West Nile virus this year.

‘‘To have a mosquito borne illness when you don't go outside ever is really an unlucky sort of thing,'' said Craven, one of the few pregnant women in the country to have contracted the disease.

Her message to residents: ‘‘When they tell you to take caution, take caution.

‘‘If I had known then what I know now, I would have been covered head-to-toe in DEET.''

Craven, a 32-year-old West Roxbury resident, spoke openly yesterday about her fears of the virus' impact on her unborn daughter, her third child.

‘‘You have to think everything will be fine for the baby,'' said Craven, who is nearly seven months pregnant.

According to the national Centers for Disease Control, at least one case of mother-to-child transmission of West Nile was reported in 2002.

Craven is the first person in Massachusetts diagnosed with West Nile in two years. Other cases have been reported in Newton and Watertown.

Craven learned that she had tested positive for West Nile on Friday, the day Gov. Mitt Romney declared a public health alert because of West Nile and Eastern equine encephalitis, another disease transmitted by mosquitoes.

This year, 1,302 cases of West Nile have been reported in 38 states and 29 people have died.

Craven spent the first week of September at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center with flu-like symptoms.

Her husband, who is a doctor, thought at first she had viral meningitis, which can be one of the causes of West Nile.

West Nile virus causes illnesses that vary from a mild fever to more serious diseases such as encephalitis or meningitis.

Although her doctors have urged her to take time off, Craven said she is gradually feeling better and anxious to get back to work.

Craven, who was a top lieutenant of former House Speaker Thomas Finneran before being appointed to the building authority, oversees state spending on school construction.

While sick, she took work calls on her cell phone, said her friend, state Rep. Ronald Mariano, D-Quincy. Craven also said she received daily deliveries from her office.

The West Nile cases follow two deaths from Eastern equine encephalitis during the past month on the South Shore.

The disease claimed the lives of a 5-year-old Halifax girl and an 85-year-old Kingston man.

West Nile virus is not as dangerous as Eastern equine encephalitis, with fewer than 1 percent of infected people becoming seriously ill.

In both diseases, birds spread the virus to mosquitoes, and in turn, mosquitoes infect horses, birds and people.

Mosquitoes carrying encephalitis or West Nile virus had been found this summer in Kingston, Carver, Halifax, Duxbury, Pembroke, Hanover, Norwell, Rockland and Abington.

Reach Jessica Van Sack at jvansack@ledger.com.

Copyright 2005 The Patriot Ledger
Transmitted Tuesday, September 20, 2005

John Miller, UT- 2nd story

2005-09-18T12:17:00.000-05:00

Washington County man warns people about West Nile viral infection
By The Associated Press

ST. GEORGE, Utah (AP) -- In July, 21-year-old John Miller was working full time and had enrolled at Dixie State College. By August, he was so sick that doctors ordered tests to see if he had a brain tumor.

It turns out he was infected with the West Nile virus.

Miller has survived the toughest part of the illness, but he and his parents say they want people to know more about the infection. An unidentified southern Utah man died this month from complications of the infection, health officials said.

From the beginning of August, Miller had been dealing with painful headaches, a symptom his mother Darlene thought may have been the result of the dust from the cabinet shop where he was working.

Then the symptoms got worse. Miller had chills, aches, nausea and weakness -- in addition to the headaches. He saw a doctor who ordered a scan for a possible brain tumor.

Miller developed a rash. His mother was worried enough to take him to the Southwest Skin and Cancer Center to see specialists, who suggested returning to his family doctor and getting tested for mononucleosis.

Just before Labor Day, one of the specialists suggested Miller be tested for the West Nile virus. On Sept. 6, the test results showed that he had been exposed to the virus although the acute symptoms were gone.

"It was frustrating not to know what he had," Darlene Miller said. "When they found out it was almost a relief, but scary at the same time because people are dying of it."

Now, the Millers hope to use John's experience to help raise awareness about West Nile virus in Washington County.

"When the man in Vernal died, I thought, people have got to know," said John's father, Doug Miller.

On Sept. 12, the state Department of Health publicly confirmed the state's first West Nile-related fatality. The Health Department said only that the man was from Uintah County and older than 65.

John's now sensitive to light and loud noises, and he has good and bad days.

"Even still, I have headaches right now," he said. "They gave me medication for that, which hasn't worked very well."

Miller was told by doctors that symptoms typically last up to two months, so he's looking forward to returning to work, school and dating.

He acknowledged that he's never been vigilant about wearing mosquito repellent, especially after returning five months ago from a mission in the Philippines where he was bitten every day.

Children and the elderly are more susceptible to West Nile infections, which can be transmitted through mosquito bites. For most people, the risk of becoming seriously ill from the virus is low.

At least 23 people in Utah have gotten sick from the infection this year, health statistics show.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been at least 18 deaths nationally this year.

Information from: The Spectrum, http://www.thespectrum.com

Rusty-Equine West Nile Virus Victim

2005-09-17T11:26:00.000-05:00

Saturday, September 17, 2005
Print Article | Email Article
Heartbreak comes to horse-loving family
Bob Brownne
Tracy Press

Published on Saturday, September 17, 2005, in the Tracy Press.
The heartbreak of West Nile Virus hit a Banta family earlier this month.

Nancy Barney said that “Rusty,” who died on Sept. 5, had been with the family for only a couple of years after her sister, Valerie Rhoden of Castro Valley, saw him living the easy life in a pasture and bought him.

Barney’s husband, Gary, saw that Rusty had the personality and experience of a talented rodeo horse. Gary began to take Rusty to events, including an American Cowboy Team Roping Association tournament in Reno last October, where they learned a little bit more about Rusty’s history.

“This guy says, ‘Where’d you get this horse?’” Nancy Barney recalls. “He said (Rusty) had won a lot of money in Texas where he was born and bred.”

It turned out the inquisitive man was Rusty Rice of Terrell, Texas, a national director of the roping association and a well-known horse rancher. He was the one who raised Rusty and gave him his distinctive double-R brand.

“And he remembered this horse after 16 years,” Barney said.

She isn’t certain about Rusty’s age, but figures he was 18 to 20 years old, which is old enough to retire from most rodeo competition but not too old to stay on the job.

Barney said he fit right in at her job, which is to chase down exuberant racehorses at Golden Gate Fields in Albany when they stray from the track.

“My horse I usually ride was lame so I took him in,” she said.

Rusty was on the job for about a month. “He did the job and he did it well,” Barney said.

But it was on one of these trips to the racetrack that they saw Rusty was ill. Barney said Rusty appeared to trip and fall, his back legs going under the back of the travel trailer, as he stepped into the trailer, then fell again coming out of the trailer when they got to the track.

They called in some veterinarians, who said Rusty could have pulled some leg muscles or was just tired. But there were a couple more falls, and by the fourth day, his condition was worse. Barney said a veterinarian who works with racehorses finally delivered the bad news.

“The horse was so dramatically different than the day before and he said his chances for recovery were slim,” she said.

Rusty was euthanized on Sept. 5 and through the racetrack Barney was able to get an autopsy done. Tests confirmed that he had a severe case of West Nile virus.

Barney said she and her family are especially sad because they knew Rusty and the family’s half-dozen other horses were vulnerable to the disease and they tried to prevent it. The disease is spread by mosquitoes, which pass it along to birds, horses and people.

Barney had seen the dead birds around Banta and had made sure all of their horses were vaccinated. Rusty, though, still hadn’t received a booster shot that would have improved his immunity.

Gregory Ferraro, director of the Center for Equine Health at UC Davis, said what happened to Rusty is typical of horses that come down with severe cases of West Nile virus.

“The older horses are more susceptible to the more severe forms,” Ferraro said.

Even with vaccines, it takes several weeks for an older horse to build up immunity, he added.

Symptoms in horses can range from mild muscle tremors to the inability to stand up. He said about 40 percent of the horses that get sick in California have died, and of those that recover, as many as one in five could relapse and die later on.

“There are many more horses that get bitten, get the disease and throw it off with their own immune systems,” Ferraro said.

“For every (infected) horse that shows clinical symptoms, there are probably four that don’t.”

To reach reporter Bob Brownne call 830-4227 or e-mail brownne@tracypress.com.

Irving Shoebridge, MI--Victim

2005-09-17T11:20:00.000-05:00

West Nile claims first state victim this year

Web-posted Sep 17, 2005

By KANIQUA S. DANIEL
Of The Oakland Press

A Wayne County resident died Thursday after testing positive for the West Nile virus last month at Royal Oak Beaumont Hospital.

The state's first fatal West Nile case this year, Irving Shoebridge, 74, of Melvindale was hospitalized at Beaumont Hospital when diagnosed, said his wife, Mary Shoebridge. He remained there Aug. 5 through Sept. 2, then was transferred to Wyandotte Hospital in Wayne County, where he died.

West Nile is a mosquito-borne virus. Specialists warn of standing water, which attracts the Culex mosquitoes that carry the virus.

"You never think it could happen to you or someone you love, but it happened," Mary Shoebridge said. "People need to be more aware of their surroundings. I think he got it right in our back yard."

After suffering a high fever and flulike symptoms, Shoebridge said her husband first checked into Oakwood Hospital in Dearborn, but hospital staff members were unable to determine the cause of his illness.

"He became sick July 29," said Shoebridge, 65. "It continued for about a week, then we went to Oakwood Hospital ... On Aug. 5, he checked into Beaumont. They ran every test they could, and couldn't find anything at first. Then they did a spinal tap on Aug. 10 and sent it to the state to be tested."

Shoebridge said the results came back in two weeks verifying that her husband had contracted the West Nile virus. According to the Michigan Department of Community Health, there are six confirmed cases, total, in the state this year, with three in Wayne County. The other cases are in Grand Traverse and Kent counties.

A 57-year-old Pontiac man was diagnosed with the virus Sept. 2 - the first Oakland County resident with West Nile this year - but was expected to recover, said George Miller, manager of the Oakland County Health Division.

The county had one confirmed case and one probable case in 2004. During summer 2002, West Nile killed 51 people in Michigan, and 20 in Oakland County.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site, www.cdc.gov, reports people age 50 and older have the highest risk of death from the disease. Because there is no cure, the site states that in severe cases, intensive supportive therapy is suggested involving hospitalization, intravenous fl uids, airway management, respiratory support (ventilator), prevention of secondary infections and good nursing care.

Shoebridge said her husband was in intensive care for most of his stay at Beaumont because he could not breathe on his own and was nearly paralyzed from the virus.

Prior to being diagnosed with West Nile, Irving Shoebridge had a condition called myasthenia gravis, a chronic autoimmune neuromuscular disease characterized by varying degrees of muscle weakness.

Shoebridge, however, said it didn't affect her husband's health as he was able to walk two miles each day and golf. Through tears, she said he was in so much pain from the virus that he said he wanted to die.

John Miller, UT

2005-09-16T10:27:00.000-05:00

Article published Sep 16, 2005
Man battles West Nile virus

Family wants public to gain awareness

By RACHEL TUELLER
rtueller@thespectrum.com
ST. GEORGE - As of July of this year, Washington County resident John Miller led a lifestyle common to many 21-year-olds.

He held a full-time job and was enrolled for classes at Dixie State College.

But things changed quickly in August when bouts of sickness ranging from severe head and body aches, rashes and chills led him and his family on a near month-long search that involved multiple doctors and numerous tests, only to discover Miller had been living with West Nile Virus.

Miller remembers Aug. 19, when he became the sickest.

From the first of August, Miller had been contending with painful headaches, a symptom his mother Darlene thought may have been the result of the dust from the cabinet shop he was working at full-time.

But when John went to work on a Monday morning the symptoms started getting worse - enough that after a few hours, the headache, along with the chills, side aches, nausea and weakness that now accompanied it on the 19th, sent him home, then to the doctor's office. After describing his pain to the doctor, Miller was tested for a brain tumor, a CAT scan was conducted, but results came back negative.

Two days later, Miller woke up with a rash. Small red dots covered his body. The dots weren't bumps, but Darlene worried enough to take him to the Southwest Skin and Cancer Center to see specialists Scott Condie and Dean Duke, who suggested returning to his family practitioner and suggested conducting blood tests for mononucleosis. Those tests also turned up negative.

Just before Labor Day, Duke again contacted Miller's family doctor to recommend blood tests for West Nile Virus. The family spent five days wondering. The Tuesday after Labor Day they called for his test results and were told John was exposed to the illness and that although the acute symptoms were gone, the chronic cells remained in his blood.

When John's parents first learned of his diagnosis, their emotions were mixed. On one hand they finally knew what illness had been inflicting their son after a frustrating and long process with doctors and a battery of tests. On the other, they became worried about the information they read on the Internet about the potential of the virus. Doug was concerned when he read that in some it might lead to memory loss, coma, encephalitis, meningitis or even death.

"It was frustrating not to know what he had. When they found out it was almost a relief, but scary at the same time because people are dying of it," said Darlene.

But today John and his parents breathe a bit easier knowing he made it through the toughest part of the illness but they wanted to get the word out and are hopeful their experience creates awareness of West Nile's presence in Washington County.

"West Nile never occurred to me because he's been here and there's only been some cases of some birds or chickens and some horses reported," his father, Doug, said. "I kept reading in the paper about a horse that died in Washington County. When the man in Vernal died, I thought, people have got to know."

For John, the virus hasn't been so much painful as it is annoying. He's sensitive to light and loud noises and he has good and bad days. "Even still, I have headaches right now," he said. "They gave me medication for that, which hasn't worked very well."

John was told by doctors that symptoms typically last up to two months, so he's hopeful he'll soon be through the woods and looks forward most to returning to work and other usual regimes like school, and dating again, as his father teases.

John admits that he's never been vigilant about wearing repellent, especially after returning five months ago from a mission in the Philippines where he was bitten every day. But, he never contracted malaria or any other diseases and doctors indicated he's likely immune to the virus now.

Doug and Darlene say until now, they've never done much to protect themselves from mosquito bites, either. Darlene's allergies to DEET kept her from using repellent and Doug never sustained many bites. But today they both take measures to cover up when outside.

After the incident with his son, Doug is now reconsidering his plans to move and retire to New Harmony where the family recently purchased property - a locale where he's noticed significantly more mosquitoes than at his Washington City home.

Doug hopes county commissioners from both Washington and Iron counties will consider putting more money into mosquito abatement, especially in areas where irrigation water sits.

Dezie Woods Jones, CA

2005-09-16T10:25:00.000-05:00

West Nile strikes ex-lawmaker
Former Oakland City Council member hospitalized for a month in Fresno
Inside Bay Area

Former Oakland City Councilmember Dezie Woods Jones is recovering in a Fresno rehabilitation center from a severe West Nile virus attack.
She has been hospitalized in Fresno for a month from the illness, which she contracted in Madera, a city near Fresno, where she and her new husband live.

They were married in a large formal wedding at Allen Temple Baptist Church in June and moved into a new home they had built in Madera.

Woods Jones is well-known in Oakland for her long tenure on the council and as president of the Black Women Organized for Political Action.

Cards and letters would be appreciated as she recovers. The family requests friends to send mail to her home at 13892 Killarney, Madera, CA 93638.

Amber Hopf, South Dakota

2005-09-12T12:35:00.000-05:00

For Aberdeen woman, West Nile virus has been a long, painful journey

Associated Press
Posted on Sun, Sep. 11, 2005
ABERDEEN, S.D. - More than two years after Amber Hopf contracted West Nile virus, she still hasn't recovered fully and the 21-year-old wonders whether she ever will.

"People don't understand how scary it is until they're in that spot," said Hopf of Aberdeen. "It's the sickest I've ever been, and hopefully the sickest I will ever be."

Hopf thinks she got mosquito-borne virus on July 27, 2003, while she dined with friends on the deck of a Mina Lake home.

"I had more than 50 bites," she said, even though she wore jeans and a long-sleeved shirt and took other precautions that Sunday evening.

Later, it led to viral meningitis.

Hopf said her recovery has been long and painful, and she still lacks energy.

"I can't go a full day without a 10-minute nap, at least," said Hopf, a student at North Dakota State University in Fargo, N.D. "I just had my routine annual physical and my blood counts are off. That's where my frustration comes in. There's still a lot of proof in my body that I had it."

Kathy Hopf, of Aberdeen, said her daughter has faced a variety of problems because of West Nile including permanent optical nerve damage.

"We don't know how many things were affected, or what else we may find out in the next five to 10 years," Hopf said.

She said it was an eye-opener to realize young people who contract the virus can end up with a serious disease such as meningitis. More commonly, such complications happen to older people.

Early in the progression of the disease, Amber was hospitalized for six days, mainly for dehydration. Fever and vomiting plagued her. She lost about 30 pounds from August to December 2003, she said.

There were times when she couldn't walk more than a half block without falling down, her mother said.

While Amber missed the first two weeks of the 2003 fall semester at NDSU, she was able to take a reduced load that semester and did most of her class work from her parents' home in Aberdeen.

"Thank God I passed my classes. My professors were really nice about it," Amber said.

Now that she knows what West Nile can do, Amber said she wants to help others avoid it.

"People need to watch out for each other," she said.

She also hopes the city of Aberdeen will beef up its mosquito-control efforts so that others might be spared what she endured.

"It's not buggy in Fargo," Amber said. "I could go to the park every day this summer to read or play Frisbee and not worry about mosquitoes. But in Aberdeen people can't have fun outside and just enjoy a summer."

Brown County has some the highest numbers of West Nile cases in the state and many of them have been in Aberdeen.

"It's important that we work together," said Bryan Hopf, Amber's father. Homes and businesses should do their part, "but there are so many places in Aberdeen that are public," he said.

Mayor Mike Levsen said he is confident the city is doing everything it can.

When state Department of Health officials recently visited Aberdeen to promote West Nile prevention, Levsen said they praised the city's efforts.

"I know people are frustrated. No one likes to be bit by mosquitoes," Levsen said. "We all want the city to be totally mosquito free, but that's impossible. We're doing as much as we can."

Ronni Nann, Michael Johansen, Dana Andrews, CA

2005-09-11T12:50:00.000-05:00

Tales of survival
For the unlucky handful with grave symptoms, the virus doesn't have to be life-threatening to be devastating
By Dorsey Griffith -- Bee Medical Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Sunday, September 11, 2005
Story appeared in Metro section, Page B1

For some people who contract West Nile virus - the small percentage who develop the most serious forms of the illness - the only silver lining is that they probably never will get sick again from the mosquito-borne disease.
Survivors of the most serious infections have trouble finding words to describe the prolonged misery they endured as a result of a tiny insect bite.

"I felt like my brain was short-circuiting," said 40-year-old Ronni Nann of Antelope.

"I felt like I got hit by a truck," said Dana Andrews, a 48-year-old from Land Park.

"My legs felt like someone stuck a knife in them and wiggled it around," said Michael Johansen, 45, of Stockton.

Sacramento County is the state's top producer of West Nile cases this year, with 129 logged as of Friday, and California leads the nation with 593 cases.

The number of people actually infected with West Nile is believed to be far higher, since four out of five people who contract the virus won't experience symptoms. Twenty percent of those infected will get symptoms that can be as mild as flulike fever, body aches and rash. Only one in 150 will experience the most serious consequences: central nervous system problems such as disabling paralysis, brain inflammation or meningitis that can lead to death.

But the unlucky ones who do get sick describe an illness that surpasses just about anything they've suffered.

"It's like 10 times the worst flu I have ever had," said Johansen, who considers himself an otherwise healthy man. "I needed help even to go to the bathroom."

While they don't reflect the most common West Nile cases, the stories of Johansen, Nann and Andrews help illustrate how serious the disease can be, even in relatively young people. They also shed light on the wide spectrum of illnesses caused by the virus, including symptoms that may never entirely disappear.

Johansen, who runs a machine shop in Fremont, frets he may never again be able to work running mills and lathes and other shop equipment at full capacity.

About a week after his first symptoms - the excruciating leg pains, fever and sore joints - Johansen lost movement of his left shoulder.

That was Aug. 23. To this day, he said, he can move his fingers but can't lift his elbow. He eventually was diagnosed with West Nile meningitis - an inflammation of the lining of the brain and spinal cord - and later with a related case of brachial neuritis, inflammation of the nerves that allow movement of the arm.

"I don't know how I am going to work," said Johansen, who temporarily is collecting disability payments. "I find even three hours of physical work feels like 15 hours of work. But I need to be there. I don't want to lose my job."

The nerve damage that in rare cases occurs with West Nile has been referred to as acute flaccid paralysis. It also is being called polio-like syndrome.

"The virus gets into the spinal cord and picks only the nerve cells that control the muscles," explained Dr. David Richman, a neurology professor at UC Davis Medical Center. He said researchers cannot predict how permanent the nerve damage will be in any particular patient.

A recently published study of 32 patients who had West Nile-related paralysis in Colorado found that half still had the condition four months after the illness set in.

Nann, of Antelope, was luckier, in that she never lost the ability to move a limb. But her case proved surprisingly serious as well.

"I spent my 40th birthday in the hospital," said the stay-at-home mom.

Nann suffered for a week with high fever and diarrhea before her symptoms really began to worry her.

"I slept for two days straight," she said. "About a week after that, I started getting the headache. It started out with some weird dizziness. It felt like my brain was short-circuiting. My vision was a little blurry."

Nann went to the emergency room, where she was told to check in with her regular doctor the next day. That's when a spinal tap confirmed the meningitis. More than a week later, the West Nile test results came back positive. She spent five days in the hospital.

Even after she went home, she felt anything but herself. "My mom had to come and stay with us for 2 1/2 weeks because I was so weak," she said. "Even a shower exhausted me."

Seven weeks later, she said, she is easily fatigued and needs naps of up to two hours a day.

Even those whose symptoms don't escalate to a neuroinvasive illness - those diagnosed with West Nile fevers - can feel lousy for weeks.

"We used to say, 'As long as it's not a neuroinvasive case, don't worry about it,' " said Dr. Carol Glaser, chief of the viral disease laboratory at the state Department of Health Services. "We all have an acceptance now that West Nile fevers are not as benign as we thought."

A recent study out of Illinois found that West Nile fever patients typically felt exhausted for at least a month and had muscle weakness for nearly as long. About a third required hospitalization.

Even more intriguing, study authors found, was that the duration of illness was not associated with the patient's age.

That may be of some consolation to Andrews, the Land Park man who got sick last month.

"I was relieved to know what I had," Andrews said, "but I felt like a chump for not being one of the 80 percent (who had no symptoms)."

Fit and active, the stay-at-home dad had joked with his wife that his symptoms could be those of West Nile when he fell ill Aug. 9.

He had a fever and body aches for nearly a week before he went to his doctor. An initial West Nile test came back negative, and soon Andrews felt well again, even venturing to the beach one day.

"In the middle of the following week, I got the rash, and by Friday I couldn't get out of bed. I was in bed for seven days. I had a very severe headache. When I coughed, it felt like I was going to explode."

Andrews was retested, and on Aug. 26 learned he had West Nile virus.

Andrews began feeling stronger early last week, well enough to tackle overdue projects in his back yard and garage.

"The next day, I woke up and felt like I had gone back four days," he said. "Now, I'm afraid to do too much."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WEST NILE AT A GLANCE
Here's a summary of information about West Nile virus in the region, the measures taken to deal with it, and tips to avoid it:
Reported human cases of the disease in regional counties: Sacramento, 129; Stanislaus, 65; San Joaquin, 26; Placer, 23; Butte, 15; Yolo, 10; Sutter, seven; Solano, three; Tehama, two; Yuba, two; Nevada, one; Plumas, one; Solano, one.

Where to get information

* To report a dead bird, call (877) 968-2473. (WNV-BIRD)

* Sacramento and Yolo counties: Residents can request mosquitofish, report untreated pools of standing water, get aerial spraying information and sign up for e-mail notification of local insecticide treatments by calling the Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District at (800) 429-1022 or (916) 685-1022, or at www.fightthebite.net.

* Placer County: Residents can get information and obtain mosquitofish by calling the Placer Mosquito Abatement District at (916) 435-2140.

For updates and changes to the ground-spraying schedule, go to www.roseville.ca.us or call (916) 435-2140.

For other information, call the Placer County West Nile virus line at (530) 889-4001 or go to www.placermosquito.org or www.placer.ca.gov/wnv.

* Butte County: Residents can go to www.buttecountypublichealth. org, or call (800) 339-2941.

* Anyone with concerns about the health effects of spraying can call the California Poison Control number at (800) 876-4766.

* Other Web sites: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, www.cdc.gov; state Department of Health Services, www.westnile.ca.gov.

Prevention tips

To reduce the risk of catching West Nile virus, the Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District recommends:

* Use an effective mosquito repellent containing ingredients such as DEET, Picaridin or oil of lemon eucalyptus.

* Repair tears in door and window screens.

* Drain standing water.

* Wear long pants and long sleeves outdoors when practical.

* Avoid being outside at dawn and dusk, when mosquitoes are most active.

About the writer:
The Bee's Dorsey Griffith can be reached at (916) 321-1089 or dgriffith@sacbee.com.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Norm Mansfield, IL

2005-09-07T18:05:00.000-05:00

West Nile is back; 89 in state have it

BY STEPHANIE FOSNIGHT
STAFF WRITER

Three years ago this week, Norm Mansfield was in a coma.

"I thought it was pretty weird that, in all the things I'd lived through in 59 years, a mosquito could do me in," said the 62-year-old Mansfield.

Mansfield was one of the 884 Illinois residents to contract the West Nile virus in 2002, the year Illinois led the nation in human cases. While 2003 and 2004 brought only 54 and 60 cases, respectively, health officials caution this year could be as bad as the 2002 outbreak that killed 67 people.

"At this point, it looks similar, in terms of the number of cases and the weather patterns," said Dr. Craig Conover, an infectious disease specialist with the Illinois Department of Public Health. "It's certainly worrisome."

As of Friday, 89 cases had been reported in Illinois, with 46 in suburban Cook County and 18 in Chicago. There have been 13 in DuPage and seven in Kane counties. Lake, Will and St. Clair counties have had one case each, and there have been two in Peoria County. A 92-year-old suburban Cook County woman died of the disease Aug. 27.

More than half the people stricken are between the ages of 45 and 59.

"Protect yourself, especially at dusk and dawn," said Mansfield.

The virus is most dangerous in people over age 50 and individuals with compromised immune systems. There is no cure.

None of the reported West Nile cases have been in Proviso Township, said Kitty Loewy, spokeswoman for the Cook County Department of Public Health.

"Your guess on that one is as good as mine," Loewy said. "I don't quite understand how the infection picks certain areas and not others."

But that's not to say people here aren't at risk, she added.

"We don't want to water down the message," Loewy said. "We don't want people to get complacent and think it's in those other areas. People travel. People drive places.

"As long as we have warm days left here and a few weeks of summer, the possibility of contracting West Nile is still high, so people have to be careful."

This summer's drought has actually fueled the risk of West Nile.

While the dry weather has eliminated large numbers of the pesky floodwater mosquito, pools of brackish water are the breeding ground of choice for the stealthier house mosquito that carries the virus.

"They prefer to go after putrid water," said entomologist Phil Nixon from the University of Illinois-Extension. "The lousiest, stinkiest, brownest water you can think of is what this mosquito loves to lay its eggs on."

Late August and September are prime times for the Culex pipiens house mosquito, and so far 66 percent of the Culex samples tested in Cook County have been positive for West Nile, said state entomologist Linn Haramif. He and other officials are pleading for the public to use mosquito repellent, especially during morning and evening hours when the bugs are out.

"What we don't want people to do is count mosquitos; we want people to listen to public health officials and use repellent," Haramif said.

While products with DEET have the longest protection, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control also recommends alternatives picardin and lemon of eucalyptus.

Norm Mansfield is a big believer in repellent now, but he never dreamed his first mosquito bite of the season would send him to the hospital and leave him with lingering health problems.

"I was sitting on the patio," he said. "I was bit in the neck."

For the next few days, Mansfield was fatigued and began to ache. Four days later, he went to the hospital with double vision. A spinal tap and brain scan confirmed that his brain had swelled with encephalitis, and then he fell into a coma.

"It wasn't my time, but had I died, I wouldn't have known about it," said Mansfield, who didn't revive for four days.

It took him six months to regain his energy, and his short-term memory is still only functioning at about 70 percent, though it's been slowly improving. In addition, the nerves in his left rotator cuff were permanently damaged.

"I can't lift a dinner plate past my waist," Mansfield said.

West Nile symptoms only show up in about two of 10 people infected, and the illness is usually mild, with fever, headache and body aches that go away. But 1 in 150 of those infected will get the severe symptoms, which may include high fever, stiffness, disorientation, coma, convulsions, paralysis, encephalitis and meningitis.

Though state officials have run an aggressive education campaign since the virus appeared in Illinois three years ago, only 40 percent more people are wearing repellent, Haramif said. Many communities have mosquito-abatement programs and agencies have fanned out across the state to help eliminate preventable pools of standing water. But that may not be enough, especially if you're over 50 years of age.

"No mosquito-control program is 100-percent effective," Haramif said.

If you've been bitten and notice a headache that doesn't go away, a stiff neck, confusion or problems walking, Dr. Conover recommends visiting a physician.

"It can be quite a devastating disease," he said. "It can leave you in a wheelchair.

"It can kill you. That's certainly reason to take it seriously."

Stephanie Fosnight can be reached at sfosnight@pioneerlocal.com.

Bill Ballou, CA---Molly Duke, CA

2005-09-01T20:56:00.000-05:00

Sacramento and San Joaquin counties.

Bill Ballou got sick in late July, suffering from nausea and a fever that got worse, despite three visits to three different doctors. He said that not one of the doctors mentioned West Nile virus.

Finally, Ballou demanded to be tested for the virus. His test came back positive, and now he is recovering.

"I think it would have helped all of us to know earlier because they did two different batteries of tests, all of which were unnecessary," Ballou said.

Molly Duke, of Fair Oaks, said she had to push her doctor to even consider West Nile virus. And when she was finally tested she too came back positive for West Nile virus.

"It frustrated me when I went in to get the blood test. I felt they didn't take me seriously," Duke said.

An expert with Kaiser Permanente, Dr. Dave Herbert, told KCRA 3 that West Nile virus is difficult to diagnose, adding that a patient can have the virus without testing positive. He said that the blood test only works after the virus has incubated, producing anti-bodies in the patient.

Kaiser officials said that they understand the frustration of patients, who want to immediately know what is wrong with them. They added that seven out of every 10 people who are being tested for the virus are coming up negative.

Glenn Downer (2), NV

2005-08-30T10:23:00.000-05:00

Blackouts, other problems plague Fallon man with virus
Nevada Appeal News Service

Glenn Downer is confined to a bed in his home and is now partially paralyzed after he was bitten by a mosquito and contracted West Nile virus.

BURKE WASSON
Nevada Appeal News Service
August 28, 2005

FALLON - While spending an August afternoon tending to his backyard garden, Fallon resident Glenn Downer was stricken with a common summertime nuisance - a mosquito bite.

But after a few weeks of deteriorating health and a few blood tests in September, doctors concluded the 83-year-old Downer was suffering from an affliction far from the ordinary - West Nile virus.

According to reports obtained from the Nevada State Health Laboratory in Reno and Quest Diagnostics in Las Vegas, Downer tested positive for West Nile in September 2004.

Since then, he has experienced multiple health problems including paralysis, blackouts and loss of memory and has been prescribed to a hospital bed in his home since Feb. 28.

While the West Nile virus is not contagious in humans and only mosquito bites can spread it, Glenn's 77-year-old wife, Doloris Downer, said she never expected something as small as that bite to cause so many health problems in her husband of 58 years.

"It's very serious," she said. "I think the fact that he was fairly healthy before he was bit makes it even more serious. But ever since then, he's just not the same."

Glenn is now confined to a bed in his home and is visited by various doctors and nurses' assistants a few times a week. While he struggles to carry on a conversation, he appears to be in good spirits and can acknowledge visitors.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, less than 1 percent of people who are infected with West Nile develop a fatal illness, and most don't develop any illness at all.

The fatality rate for humans who have been diagnosed with West Nile is 3 percent to 15 percent and is highest among the elderly.

The fact that Glenn was 82 when he was diagnosed with the virus in September and has lived nearly a year later has been tempered by the fact that he has experienced multiple health problems since his diagnosis.

After Glenn was bitten last August, Doloris said, he didn't show any symptoms or any illness for a few weeks until Labor Day morning.

"We were going to be out picking peaches and plums in the garden," Doloris said. "Glenn usually gets up and shaves and gets dressed right away. Well, that morning he was just slumped at the table and he said he was so tired. He said he'd never been that tired."

Doloris told Glenn to get some sleep, and he did - until 7 p.m.

Eventually, Glenn was taken Sept. 8 to Banner Churchill Community Hospital, where his memory slipped and he was suffering from the first stages of the virus, although no one yet suspected him of having West Nile.

He still experiences blackouts from his bed, and Doloris said Glenn told her he had "the worst one he ever had" nearly four weeks ago.

"His legs flew straight up and his eyes closed," she said. "He told me afterward he'd had quite a bad one."

Glenn is still on 72-hour pain patches for all the ailments he's contracted since being diagnosed with West Nile.

Through it all, Doloris said she never would have expected her husband to catch the virus, which made its first reported appearance in Nevada last year.

"I'm not sure what West Nile does to the body, but I know he's not been the same since," she said. "He's had a bladder infection, paralysis, spasms - he's just not the same."

n Burke Wasson can be contacted at bwasson@lahontanvalleynews.com

Mark Gardner, OH

2005-08-30T10:14:00.000-05:00

Teacher recovering from West Nile virus

33-year-old Dayton father developed severe form of mosquito-borne disease

Click to Enlarge
Mark Gardner, his wife, Katy, and their 10-month-old daughter, Kendra, sit in their Dayton living room Friday. Mark Gardner, a physical education teacher at Empire Elementary School, is recovering from the West Nile virus. BRAD HORN/Nevada Appeal
by F.T. Norton
Appeal Staff Writer, ftnorton@nevadaappeal.com
August 28, 2005

DAYTON - About three weeks ago, Mark Gardner starting feeling sick. He had headaches, body aches, fever and fatigue.

When his fever spiked to 103.5 degrees, Gardner went to the doctor.

A battery of tests later, the Empire Elementary School physical education teacher was diagnosed with West Nile meningitis, an inflammation of the membrane around the brain and spinal cord and a more severe form of West Nile virus.

"Right now I don't have the energy to go back to school. That drives me nuts. I had just gotten my books and was starting to get read. Now I don't have the energy to think about it," Gardner said from his Dayton home. "It takes all I have just to walk down the hall."

Gardner doesn't appear to be among four other Nevadans reported by the Nevada Nevada State Health Division as being diagnosed this year with the viral infection.

West Nile virus was detected in Nevada in 2004 and has been reported in all counties except Lander and Esmeralda. The virus is not spread person to person and is most commonly transmitted to humans by the bite of infected mosquitos who fed on infected birds.

"I was kind of relieved to know what was wrong finally. They were testing for this and that and they just didn't know -that was stressful," Gardner said.

He speculated he may have been contracted the illness while playing softball or golf, but he has no recollection of being bitten by a mosquito. The incubation period in humans can be from two to 15 days.

With no specific treatment for West Nile, the normally active father and husband just has to sweat it out.

"I'm feeling tons better," he said Friday. "I'm hoping after one more week I'll be able to go (to work)."

According to the Center for Disease Control, there were 4,156 reports of human infection in 44 states. Of these, about 3,000 were central nervous system disease cases, 300 of which were fatal.

In the U.S., West Nile virus cases are most prevalent in late summer and early autumn; in Nevada, mosquito season is typically April through October, according to Nevada Health Division.

Generally, the elderly and young are most susceptible to the severe and sometimes fatal forms of the disease - a sobering and eye-opening fact for Gardner, whose daughter Kendra is just 10 months old.

"I'm definitely glad it was me who got this," he said. "I'm going to stock up on bug spray."

Contact reporter F.T. Norton at ftnorton@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1213.

Glenn Downer, NV

2005-08-27T10:57:00.000-05:00

Lahontan Valley News

Living with West Nile: Glenn Downer said a mosquito bite brought on malady

http://www.lahontanvalleynews.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=LF&Date=20050827&Category=News&ArtNo=108270012&Ref=AR&MaxW=550&title=1
Doloris Downer talks about the timeline of her husband Glenn's deteriorating health after he was bitten by a mosquito and contracted West Nile virus. Below, Downer is confined to a bed in his home and is now partially paralyzed.

BURKE WASSON
BURKE WASSON, bwasson@lahontanvalleynews.com
August 27, 2005

While spending an August afternoon tending to his backyard garden, Fallon resident Glenn Downer was stricken with a common summertime nuisance - a mosquito bite.

But after a few weeks of deteriorating health and a few blood tests in September, doctors concluded that the 83-year-old Downer was suffering from an affliction far from the ordinary - West Nile virus.

According to reports obtained from the Nevada State Health Laboratory in Reno and Quest Diagnostics in Las Vegas, Downer tested positive for West Nile in September 2004.

Since that time, he claims he has experienced multiple health problems including paralysis, blackouts and loss of memory and has been confined to a hospital bed in his home since Feb. 28.

While the West Nile virus is not contagious in humans and only mosquito bites can spread it, Glenn's 77-year-old wife, Doloris Downer, said she never expected something as small as that bite to cause so many health problems in her husband of 58 years.

"It's very serious," she said. "I think the fact that he was fairly healthy before he was bit makes it even more serious. But ever since then, he's just not the same."

Glenn now spends most of his time in bed and is visited by various doctors and nurses' assistants a few times a week. While he struggles to carry on a conversation, he appears to be in good spirits and can acknowledge visitors.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, less than 1 percent of people who are infected with West Nile develop a fatal illness, and most don't develop any illness at all.

The fatality rate for humans who have been diagnosed with West Nile is 3 percent to 15 percent and is highest among the elderly.

The fact that Glenn was 82 when he was diagnosed with the virus in September and has lived nearly a year later has been tempered by the multiple health problems he has experienced over the past 12 months.

After Glenn was bitten last August, Doloris said he didn't show any symptoms or any illness for a few weeks until Labor Day morning.

"We were going to be out picking peaches and plums in the garden," Doloris said. "Glenn usually gets up and shaves and gets dressed right away. Well, that morning he was just slumped at the table and he said he was so tired. He said he'd never been that tired."

Doloris told Glenn to get some sleep, and he did - until 7 p.m.

Eventually, Glenn was taken Sept. 8 to Banner Churchill Community Hospital, where his memory slipped and he was suffering from the first stages of the virus, although no one yet suspected him of having West Nile.

Doloris said Glenn was diagnosed with pneumonia at Banner and was then taken to the Regent Care Center in Reno.

He was taken Sept. 13 to Regent Care of Reno with an initial diagnosis of pneumonia. Once there and at Washoe Medical Center in Reno, it was confirmed that wasn't the case. It was there that they learned he had West Nile.

"It really surprised me," she said. "I thought he had a stroke. But his brain was so swollen from the West Nile, that they couldn't tell if he had a stroke or not."

After returning home in December for the holidays, Glenn collapsed at the dinner table Dec. 27 and was taken by ambulance to Banner Churchill Community Hospital once again.

Since being released from the hospital that time, he has been at home in bed since Feb. 28, after local physician Lyle Hutto prescribed it for Glenn.

He still experiences blackouts from his bed, and Doloris said Glenn told her he had "the worst one he ever had" nearly four weeks ago.

"His legs flew straight up and his eyes closed," she said. "He told me afterward he'd had quite a bad one."

Glenn is still on 72-hour pain patches for all the ailments he's contracted since being diagnosed with West Nile.

Through it all, Deloris said she never would have expected her husband to catch the virus, which made its first reported appearance in Nevada last year.

"I'm not sure what West Nile does to the body, but I know he's not been the same since," she said. "He's had a bladder infection, paralysis, spasms - he's just not the same."

Burke Wasson can be contacted at bwasson@lahontanvalleynews.com

Shane Ducharme, Manitoba-CAN

2005-08-25T11:31:00.000-05:00

Thursday, August 25th, 2005
Teen has West Nile - Ducharme family wants Brandon fogged for mosquitoes
By: Ian Hitchen

Shane Ducharme recuperates from a confirmed case of West Nile virus as his mother Connie looks on Wednesday afternoon in their Brandon home. The teen first visited the family doctor on Aug. 15 after developing a rash.

(Colin Corneau/Brandon Sun)
Brandon has recorded its first human case of West Nile virus this year and the 14-year-old’s parents want the city fogged for mosquitoes to avoid future cases of the illness.

Connie Ducharme said their family doctor called her Tuesday to let her know her bed-ridden son is suffering from the mosquito-bourne virus.

“It’s here, how many other people can it happen to?” Ducharme said, adding she wants other Brandon parents warned.

“I think (he was infected) here because he’s spent the majority of his time outdoors in Brandon.”

Her son Shane first visited the family doctor on Aug. 15 after he developed a rash on his chest, back and legs.

At first, the doctor thought it was some form of virus that had to run its course, but Shane slept most of the next two days and developed nausea, a headache and sore legs.

He was sent to the Brandon Regional Health Centre on Aug. 18 where Ducharme said a doctor took a blood sample to test for West Nile, just in case.

Shane spent three days in hospital. Now home, his headaches are gone but Shane, who usually likes bike riding and hanging around with friends, still doesn’t feel well.

“I get dizzy when I stand up, my stomach is so sore right now,” he said.

Usually, people infected by West Nile virus have no symptoms and do not become ill. When they do they can have a fever, headaches, fatigue and body aches. Milder symptoms of West Nile fever usually improve without medical care.

Less common is West Nile neurological syndrome which can inflame the brain. In some cases the virus can cause serious illness or death.

Manitoba Health reports 21 Manitobans have tested positive for the virus this year, including five new cases reported yesterday. Shane is the first in the Brandon Regional Health Authority to test positive for the virus and there have been five positive tests reported in the Assiniboine RHA, which surrounds Brandon.

Elise Weiss, medical officer of health for both health authorities, said there’s a chance more West Nile cases will be found.

“There’s still some mosquito activity,” Weiss said. “It’s still certainly a possibility.”

That’s why the Ducharmes want the city fogged.

The province’s chief medical officer of health has to order mosquito fogging to battle West Nile and city’s public works manager Rick Bailey said city crews already have the truck-mounted equipment and malathion needed should the order be made. There are currently no such plans, said Weiss.

“If the province calls us and gives the order for us to spray then we’re ready to go,” Bailey said, adding the city has been larvaciding since the start of May and continues even though mosquito season is coming to a close.

Bailey said the province deals with culex tarsalis, the pest that carries the virus, while the city controls nuisance mosquitoes that don’t generally carry West Nile. The city larvacides rather than sprays because it’s more efficient, he said.

Residents can protect themselves by reducing the time they spend outdoors between dusk and dawn and wear light-coloured, loose-fitting, long-sleeved tops and long pants outdoors.

They should also wear insect repellent containing DEET, and check door and window screens fit tightly and are free of holes.

Jim Becker, FL

2005-08-23T12:25:00.000-05:00

For him, West Nile is much, much worse than the flu

Though a Largo man keeps hearing talk of mild flu-like symptoms, he has been ravaged by the disease. He still can't walk.

By LISA GREENE, Times Staff Writer
Published August 23, 2005
[Times photo: Douglas R. Clifford]
Jim Becker, 55, finishes dinner at HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital in Largo. He fell ill on July 28; doctors later diagnosed West Nile.

LARGO - Just a few weeks ago, Jim Becker spent hours outside every day, working in the yard and walking 7 miles a day.

But Becker, 55, never wore mosquito repellent. He didn't spend time worrying about West Nile virus.

He does now.

Becker still can't walk. He can barely raise his left arm. He has lost 16 pounds. And he remembers little about the last few weeks - the fever so high he was packed in ice, the delirium, the tremors.

But he wants everyone to know just how bad West Nile can be. The news reports he has seen on TV, the ones that talk about mild flu-like symptoms, don't begin to describe what he has gone through.

"I'd like to have everybody know this is not like getting the flu," he said.

What happened to Becker is one of the puzzles of West Nile, a virus that showed up in the United States in 1999. Scientists admit they still don't know enough about it.

Most people who get infected with the virus, carried by mosquitoes, never get sick. Most of the rest get sick for a few days or a week, with symptoms that doctors describe as flu-like.

But a few are unlucky. About one in 150 people develop far worse symptoms. They become too weak to move, lapse into comas, even die.

Nobody knows why.

"It's one of the most intriguing and important questions we face," said Dr. Ned Hayes, a medical epidemiologist with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "It's a complicated and difficult question to answer."

Doctors know people are more likely to get really sick if they're elderly, or have immune symptoms weakened by cancer or other diseases. Diabetes and high blood pressure might be risk factors.

But could there be something else? A genetic difference that makes it easier for West Nile to invade cells? Some research indicates that some mice have a gene that helps them resist the disease, Hayes said. But that resistance has never been demonstrated in humans.

In many diseases, people have immunity built up because they've been exposed before. But few U.S. residents have been exposed to West Nile.

"You're not dealing with widespread immunity," Hayes said.

Sometimes, the virus changes rapidly so that some people get infected with a stronger variant. But strains of the virus found in different parts of the country have been very similar, Hayes said.

"At this point, we need to advocate that everybody take precautions against mosquito bites," he said. "We don't have all the answers."

That's the message Becker hopes to send. Although his memories of the last few weeks are fuzzy, his wife of 32 years, Gail, remembers it all.

He first felt sick on a Thursday, July 28.

By then, health officials had warned the public that some of Pinellas County's sentinel chickens had tested positive for the virus. But the county's first-ever human case wasn't confirmed until the day after Becker fell ill.

Pinellas now has eight cases of people with the virus. Health officials say all are recovering.

Health officials can't warn the public with specific details of patients' cases because of medical confidentiality rules, said spokeswoman Jeannine Mallory. But she says they want people to realize the disease can be serious and take precautions.

"You walk a fine line there, because the majority of people don't know they have it, or have flu-like symptoms," she said. "We don't want people to be overly alarmed, but we want them to be alert and conscientious."

At first, Becker had chills and fever. On Friday, he was worse. Saturday, he went to the doctor, and came home with antibiotics.

Sunday, he tried to get out of a chair and couldn't walk.

"The only thing that clicks in my head ... is falling against the furniture," Jim Becker said.

His family took him to the hospital, where an infectious disease specialist told Gail Becker he suspected West Nile. It would take more tests to be sure.

"I was scared to death," she said.

She tried not to show it around her husband. She waited until she got home to cry. They had been together since she was 17, and she had never seen him so ill.

It's still strange to her that he got such a bad case of the disease. After all, Becker, a retired electrician, was fit. He walked around Taylor Park so much that a police officer recognized him when he arrived in the Largo Medical Center emergency room. He doesn't drink, doesn't smoke.

"He's Mr. Healthy Guy," she said.

Jim Becker smiled.

"Luck of the draw," he said.

After 11 days in the hospital, Becker was moved to HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital in Largo. On Wednesday, he will have been there for two weeks.

When he arrived, he looked much worse, said his brother-in-law, Gregg Frangipane.

"He looked like he'd had a stroke," Frangipane said.

In physical therapy, Becker at first lacked the finger strength to open a clothespin.

Now, he can lift his right arm above his shoulder. Doctors aren't sure how much he'll recover, but Becker has set some goals.

"First, to kill every mosquito in the world," he joked.

What he would really like is to be home, able to walk, by Aug. 31. Even with a walker. It will be his 56th birthday.

He wants a party, the kind where normally he would be the chef.

"We can have a little barbecue, and I can tell people what to do: "You over there! The chicken's burning!"'

Then he'll work on the long-term.

"That's my next goal," Becker said. "To be back to 7 miles at Taylor Park."

His sister, Peggy Frangipane, hopes he'll do things a little differently.

"Wear OFF! this time," she told him.
[Last modified August 23, 2005, 04:45:04]

Mitch Coffman-LA

2005-08-22T11:11:00.000-05:00

Back Article published Aug 22, 2005
West Nile survivor recalls fight
Lafayette man nearly died from mosquito-borne illness

Claire Taylor
ctaylor@theadvertiser.com

Mitch Coffman was a healthy 37-year-old landscape architect pursuing dual graduate degrees at LSU in August 2002 when his life suddenly and mysteriously changed.

It began with a slight ringing in his ears and a headache that gradually increased as though pressure were building inside his head. Coffman dismissed the symptoms and headed to an LSU football game. Oddly, he couldn't find his friends among the fans in Tiger Stadium, even though they were in the same place the group always met. Coffman was confused and disoriented. He went home without watching the game.

By midnight, Coffman said he suffered "complete body failure," which included profuse diarrhea, night sweats and excruciating headaches. By 7 a.m. the next day, he called a friend, pleading for help.

"Dude, I'm dying," he recalled saying.

Thirty minutes later, when the friend took him to the hospital, Coffman collapsed out of the car, unable to walk. He knew he was in trouble, but for weeks, neither Coffman nor his doctors could identify the cause.

Coffman was one of the first in Louisiana to suffer the effects of the West Nile virus, probably contracted from a mosquito bite he suffered while working in his garden.
Ignorance and indifference

Back in 2002, Louisiana was just beginning to experience West Nile virus in epidemic proportions. Physicians weren't prepared to diagnose the disease, Coffman said, pointing to that first emergency room visit.

"At that point, I was failing, and no one in the emergency room was recognizing that," he said.

Coffman was diagnosed with vertigo and an inner ear infection, and was sent home.

Confined to his bed for days, Coffman was extremely sensitive to light, sound and movements. Days later, he saw an ear, nose and throat doctor who immediately admitted him to a Baton Rouge hospital.

Confusion prevailed as doctors looked for traditional answers, including multiple sclerosis, stroke, even tendinitis. Weeks into a hospital stay in which he experienced seizures and writhed in pain, doctors finally tested for West Nile virus. It was positive. Coffman had developed encephalitis and meningitis.

Even then doctors weren't sure how to treat him. They said they couldn't really do anything except provide "compassionate care," Coffman said. His symptoms eased and worsened over five weeks. A weekend doctor, not his regular physician, suddenly sent Coffman home alone with three doses of steroids. He gained more than 50 pounds in three days, his legs swelled and cracked, he was sick and miserable. The next week, his regular internist re-admitted him to the hospital, but Coffman said the caregivers had grown weary of him because he didn't seem to be improving.

"These people were not understanding what was happening to me," he said. "Their ignorance became indifference."
Family support

It was October 2002, and Hurricane Lili was bearing down on Louisiana. Unhappy with the care he was receiving, Coffman left the hospital, convincing his parents and siblings in Lafayette that he could make it on his own. However, Coffman seriously misjudged his ability to care for himself. His body again began to shut down, and he became disoriented. He collapsed on the floor but managed to crawl to his cell phone and dial one of his sisters in Lafayette before blacking out.

Coffman slipped in and out of coherence for hours. He heard his sister screaming on the telephone, heard a friend banging on his door and heard another friend hollering into his answering machine. He couldn't respond.

Then came a knock on the door and the familiar voice of his father, Vernon. Somehow, Mitch managed to get to the door. His parents had driven through the approaching storms of Lili from Lafayette to Baton Rouge.

"He said, 'We came to take you home, boy,' " Mitch said, wiping away tears. "I just said, 'Thank you.' "

Vernon carried his grown son to the car, and the family drove across the Atchafalaya Basin as the hurricane approached. He remained at his parents' home for six weeks with fever, seizures and sweats.

"I was just trying to live," he said.

By late November, Coffman began to experience better periods but would again relapse. He did not walk normally for about 20 months.

"The doctors said if he would not have been young, healthy and in real good shape, he would not have survived," Vernon Coffman said. "That was one of the worst cases they had seen."

When did Mitch Coffman know he would be OK?

"That's relative," he said, explaining that he's still not truly recovered. However, Coffman experienced a turning point earlier this year.

"In February, I woke up and I felt different, more clear," he said.
Sharing the support

His experiences with West Nile virus led Coffman to create a support group, the West Nile Virus Survivors Foundation, and a Web site at www.westnilesurvivor.com.

He wants others to know the virus is survivable. He wants them to share and document their experiences so that the medical and scientific communities can better learn how to diagnose and treat the disease, which presents itself differently in each person.

Survivors and their families are seeking answers, Coffman said. They are dealing with lingering effects of a disease they don't understand and the medical community does not understand.

"Our message is you can survive this, but you can die from it, also," he said. "If we can help you understand the seriousness of this and the lingering effects and how to deal with those, that's the best thing we can do."
No cure

Coffman still struggles at times physically and emotionally from the ordeal. He credits his family for his recovery and faults the medical and scientific community for not recognizing the disease and knowing how to treat patients even today.

The public health community is focusing on prevention, but failing to look beyond prevention to the treatment or cure of those who acquire the virus, Coffman said. Treatment of West Nile patients today still is uncertain in part because the disease affects everyone differently. Some develop encephalitis, others meningitis, some develop both, Coffman said.

Dr. Raoult Ratard, state epidemiologist, said there still is no drug to kill West Nile virus, so physicians treat the brain swelling and provide the patient with support.

"If West Nile virus killed too many cells in your brain, something is not going to work," leaving some patients with speech impediments or balance problems, he said.

Ratard counters Coffman's assertion that the medical community was unprepared for the West Nile virus epidemic. In 2001, Louisiana diagnosed one human case of West Nile virus and identified the virus in birds and horses. Officials knew an outbreak was coming and advised the medical community of symptoms, warning residents to take precautions against being bitten by mosquitoes that transmit the disease, he said.

By the end of 2002, 204 people in Louisiana - including Coffman - had contracted West Nile virus, Ratard said.

Joan Randall, CA

2005-08-21T15:06:00.000-05:00

A West Nile mystery
Age, immune system, genetics may affect severity of symptoms
By Dorsey Griffith -- Bee Medical Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Sunday, August 21, 2005
Story appeared on Page A1 of The Bee

Joan Randall keeps two glass trophies on her mantel, small but meaningful tributes to her years of lifesaving contributions.
As a regular donor to Blood Source, the 60-year-old Davis woman also has received scads of information about West Nile virus, the mosquito-borne illness that can spread through blood transfusions and, in rare cases, be deadly to those vulnerable to the disease.

Even so, Randall never gave her body aches a thought when, earlier this month, she traipsed into the Blood Source site in Davis for her regular twice-monthly platelet donation.

"I thought I had gotten sick because I was working too hard," Randall said.

Instead, as she would learn, Randall had become Yolo County's first confirmed case of West Nile virus in 2005, a year that's become Northern California's worst yet for human infection rates.

Randall's fairly mild bout with West Nile is typical of someone who develops symptoms. For all the fear of the mosquito bite this season, most victims won't even know they've been infected unless diagnosed through a blood test.

"What I've learned from (Joan's) experience is that a lot of very mundane symptoms can occur with this virus," said Dr. Barbara Renwick, Randall's family practitioner in Davis who provided the follow-up care. "It basically encompasses any of the symptoms we commonly see from a viral illness - things like fever, fatigue, rash, nausea, diarrhea, congestion and joint aches."

Researchers have determined that four out of five people infected with West Nile will not experience symptoms. Twenty percent will get symptoms that can be as mild as flulike fever, body aches and rash. Only one in 150 will experience the most serious consequences: central nervous system problems such as disabling paralysis, brain inflammation or meningitis that can lead to death.

Why do some people get gravely ill from West Nile, while many others never know they've been infected?

"The question is one of the more interesting and perplexing questions we face," said Dr. Ned Hayes, a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Vector-Borne Diseases in Fort Collins. Colo. "We know that age is a risk factor, but we don't really know why."

As a 60-year-old, Randall falls into this higher risk category. But if she hadn't given blood, Randall may never have known she had the virus.

Her encounter with West Nile began July 27 with exhaustion and a headache she experienced while spending time with her 2-year-old grandson. She was relieved when the boy took a long nap, giving her a chance to rest. The next day, Randall thought she felt well enough to have dinner out with friends, but tuckered out before night's end.

"I would not walk one block until I knew for sure I was going in the right direction, because my legs and my feet hurt so much," she said. "It was like pushing a chain. That's how I felt."

A compact dynamo of a woman with lively brown-and-green-flecked eyes, Randall figured she had overdone it in the intense heat. In recent days, she had painted her house, broken up a concrete path in her front yard with a jackhammer and demolished a wooden deck.

Confronting her symptoms, she said, she tried to get more "centered," adjusting her mind-set, slowing her pace.

About a week later, on Aug. 4, Randall was feeling normal again and returned to donate blood. This time, her contribution was rejected after it tested positive for West Nile. She won't be able to donate again for six months, when the blood bank safely can assume she is free of the virus.

Dr. Chris Gresens, medical director of clinical services at Blood Source, which runs 17 fixed donation sites throughout the region, said the blood banking industry has been testing for West Nile for two years. While Blood Source had been running the tests on pools of 16 samples at a time, the caseload surge in both Sacramento and Butte counties this month prompted the bank to start testing each sample separately.

In most cases, Gresens said, donors are surprised to learn they've tested positive. While some report having had flulike symptoms, he said, most say they've had no signs of illness.

Older people not only are more susceptible to West Nile virus, but also are at higher risk for developing a more serious, neuroinvasive form of the disease. Of the 58 cases diagnosed so far in Sacramento County, 20 people have developed a neuroinvasive complication. Those with more serious illness range in age from 29 to 86; the median age is 57.

Doctors aren't sure why Randall's case didn't progress to a more severe condition such as encephalitis or the poliolike syndrome called flaccid paralysis.

In addition to age, immune function appears to play a role in who gets sick and who doesn't, experts say. Even so, the effects are not across the board.

"We don't really understand what the mechanisms are," said the CDC's Hayes. "The risk is higher in older people, but we don't know why. It could be related to a decrease in the strength of the immune system with age, or it could be related to underlying conditions that become more frequent with age."

For example, research has found that people who have suppressed immune systems as a result of organ transplants are at greater risk for a West Nile-related illness. Those with diabetes and high blood pressure also may be at higher risk.

By the same token, there is no evidence that people with HIV, AIDS, cancer or other diseases that weaken immune function are at higher risk, Hayes said.

Hayes suggested that genetics may play a role, as well.

Researchers have found a gene that confers resistance to mosquito-borne viruses such as yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis, dengue fever and St. Louis encephalitis - in mice. "It hasn't been elucidated in humans yet," Hayes said.

Even lacking scientific proof, Randall believes maybe her mother passed along some disease resistance.

"My mother had tuberculosis in the 1930s and most everyone in her sanitarium died," she said. "My mother had breast cancer when she was 71; they said she would die in two years and she lived a long life - she died when she was 84. As my mama would say, 'I'm from good stock.' "

Tom Beardman, CA-Victim

2005-08-19T00:44:00.000-05:00

Banning Man Sixth Californian To Die Of West Nile Virus
Health Officials Say Former Police Officer Had Underlying Illnesses
UPDATED: 5:38 pm PDT August 18, 2005

BANNING, Calif. -- A 72-year-old retired police officer is the sixth Californian to die from West Nile virus this year, health officials said.

The man "did have some serious underlying illnesses, which may have complicated his condition," Riverside County Disease Control Director Barbara Cole said. Tests confirmed Tuesday that he had the illness.

His widow identified the victim as Tom Beardman, a former Anaheim police officer. He was hospitalized on July 13 after suffering a headache, breathing problems and neck, back and chest pain, Barbara Smith-Beardman said.

He lost consciousness the next day and died Sunday at Loma Linda University Medical Center, she said.

West Nile virus is spread by mosquitoes, which are active at dusk.

Beardman's widow said that despite the insects, he often enjoyed sitting outside at nightfall. They lived on a golf course and had the view.

"He'd sit out there with a big citronella candle and a flyswatter," she told The Press-Enterprise.

In Riverside County, 31 people have contracted the virus this year, including Beardman and one other man who died, authorities said.

Around the state as of Tuesday, 208 cases had been reported since Jan. 1.

Most of the cases have been in Central and Northern California, said Vicki Kramer, chief of the Vectorborne Disease Section of the California Department of Health Services.

In addition to the two deaths in Riverside County, victims have died in Fresno, Kings, San Joaquin and Butte counties.

The virus killed 100 people in the country last year, including 28 in California.

Most people who contract the virus display no symptoms. About one in five develop mild symptoms that can include fever, headache, body aches, rash and fatigue. About one in 150 suffer life-threatening swelling of the brain or spinal cord.

State health officials advise people to wear insect repellent and get rid of standing water, where mosquitoes breed.

Dave Vincent- OH

2005-08-18T14:07:00.000-05:00

Clermont man inches toward recovery from West Nile virus
Hamilton Co. mosquito ills also suspected

By Maggie Downs
Enquirer staff writer
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UNION TWP. - Dave Vincent can put a shirt over his head by himself.

It's those little milestones that mean much more, now that the Clermont County man is recovering from West Nile virus.

Vincent, 47, is the region's first confirmed case this year of the virus, which attacks the central nervous system and is transmitted to humans by mosquitoes.

He was diagnosed on Aug. 5. The Clermont County Health District was notified Aug. 8 and confirmed the case.

"Right now it feels great to be alive, which is no understatement," Vincent said.

Most people who are bitten by a West Nile-infected mosquito never get sick, with about 80 percent showing no symptoms at all.

Up to 20 percent have some symptoms, such as fever, headache and nausea.

Vincent, finance director for Fairfield Ford, is one of the few who developed serious symptoms, which appear within two to 15 days after being infected.

His aches began in late July, around the time he was vacationing in Tampa, Fla.

"Really, I thought I was just tired, and I blamed it on the heat," he said.

After returning to Ohio, Vincent's temperature blazed around 103 degrees. He suffered almost a complete loss of upper body strength. His brain developed some swelling. His vocal cords were temporarily paralyzed. Muscle spasms made his body shake.

"You could see the nerves underneath my arm just jumping," he said.

He spent a few days in the intensive care unit at Mercy Hospital Anderson, as well as some time in the emergency room. After tests, the doctors determined the infection was West Nile virus.

"There isn't a part of my body this didn't attack," Vincent said.

The Clermont County Health District collected mosquitoes from Vincent's property twice last week. The mosquitoes were sent to the Ohio Department of Health for tests to see if they match West Nile samples. The Clermont agency is awaiting results.

"We have not had any positive batches [of mosquitoes] that we have sent previously [this season]," said Health Commissioner Janet Rickabaugh.

"It is likely that this will be positive. We're assuming the contact was here," she said.

Last year in Ohio, there were 12 confirmed human cases of the virus and two deaths.

A Hamilton County woman had a suspected case of the West Nile virus and was awaiting test results.

On Wednesday, Good Samaritan Hospital spokesman Joe Kelley said the hospital cannot release details about the patient's status. However, a spokesman from the Hamilton County Health District said the county has no confirmed human cases of West Nile.

As for Vincent, he is recovering a little more each day.

"Every day I can move my arm a little more or squeeze my hand a little bit more," he said. "It sounds silly, but these are milestones for me."

E-mail mdowns@enquirer.com

Ray Jespin, TX--Victim 2003

2005-08-18T13:56:00.000-05:00

Top News
West Nile toll in county continues rising
By: Deborah Rowe, Courier staff
08/18/2005
Email to a friend Voice your opinion Printer-friendly

The toll keeps rising. Two more people in Montgomery County were stricken by the deadly neuroinvasive West Nile virus reported in July, bringing the number of infected to three for the county. The first case was reported in June.

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West Nile virus can have mild, flu-like symptoms, but can also be neuroinvasive, causing swelling of the brain, spinal cord or surrounding membranes, resulting in death. People and animals contract the virus from the bite of an infected mosquito, not from other people, animals or birds.
According to Doug McBride, press officer for the Department of State Health Services, all three victims are male adults.
According to Pat Buzbee, Montgomery County Environmental Health director, the two latest victims reside in the Conroe area.
"They have already been treated and released from the hospital," he said. "Their symptoms were not severe."
McBride said that the names of the victims could not be released to the public because of medical confidentiality laws.
Montgomery County has had its share of West Nile virus cases in the past. In 2004, one person contracted the disease; in 2003, 17; and 2002 there were seven, McBride said.
The disease took the life of Conroe resident Ray Jepsen, in 2003.
Other new cases since June were reported for Angelina County, 1, Swisher County, 1, Tarrant County, 1, Harris County, 2, Hardin County, 1, and Jefferson County, 1.
The department also released other West Nile virus cases for Texas this year: birds, 85; mosquitoes, 204; horses, 3; other, 6; bringing the total to 298 cases, including the 10 people.
The department also released summaries of West Nile virus victims in Texas in previous years. In 2004, there were a total of 119 cases reported in 40 counties. In 2003, there were 439 cases reported in 86 counties. In 2002, Texas had 202 cases of West Nile virus reported in 37 counties.
North Montgomery County is taking an active role in the prevention of the spread of the virus.
According to Precinct 1 Commissioner Mike Meador, they spray for mosquitoes in the area every night.
"We spend approximately $12,000 a month for the spray," he said. "We have been spraying since June."
Dr. James Kennedy, professor of biology at the University of North Texas, said that people need to be vigilant in protecting themselves from the virus and aware that mosquitoes are adaptable and are here to stay.
"When scientists test mosquitoes for viruses they often combine a number of individuals representing species likely to be carrying an arbovirus - a virus carried by organisms like insects, ticks and spiders," he said.
According to Kennedy, control and prevention is the key to addressing the problem.
"But control methods such as spraying at night with pesticides must be scrutinized for safety and should not be applied routinely," he said. "Even though chemically-based pesticides are effective and become less hazardous over the years, I recommend environmentally friendly control methods as a first line of defense, rather than pesticides."
Kennedy said that environmentally friendly control methods are less likely to cause human health problems.
"For example, public education, eliminating mosquito breeding grounds in residential areas and use of environmentally friendly control methods as a first line of defense, rather than pesticides," he said.
These techniques are less likely to cause human health problems, Kennedy explained.
"For example, public education, eliminating mosquito breeding grounds in residential areas and use of environmentally friendly biocides like Bacillus thuringiensis can be applied to habitats where mosquito larvae live," he said.
According to the Department of State Health Services, there are four things to do to prevent exposure to the West Nile virus.
1.Don't go outside unless you have to between dusk and dawn.
2. When you do go outside, wear long sleeves and long pants.
3. Wear DEET, an insect repellent, on any exposed parts of the body.
4. Drain any standing water in your yard or on your property that may breed mosquitoes.
The department also lists some of the most common places to look for mosquito habitation: clogged-up roof gutters, birdbaths, plant trays and natural holes in trees in the yard. Drain standing water around home to reduce mosquito-hatching grounds.
For more information about West Nile virus, visit www.tdh.state.txs.us or call 1-888-883-9997.

©Houston Community Newspapers Online 2005

Maureen Brookman, Chicago IL- Victim--Husband Bob Speaks

2005-08-18T13:47:00.000-05:00

West Nile scare tactics
Heartfelt or hype? Radio ads focus on worst-case scenario

By Tom Polansek
STAFF WRITER

Bob Brookman's wife fell into a coma and died after being bitten in September 2002 by a mosquito carrying West Nile virus.

He now is the voice on a radio ad being played throughout the Chicago area that warns people to stay inside or protect themselves with insect repellent.

"My wife and I were sitting in our back yard, and she was bitten by a mosquito," Brookman, who lives in Chicago, says in the public service announcement. "Thirteen days later, she basically suffered paralysis, went on a feeding tube and a respirator, and was in that condition for 13 months before she succumbed to the West Nile virus."

The ad, sponsored by the Illinois Department of Public Health, highlights the worst possible scenario for those infected with the disease.
But no deaths in Illinois have been linked to West Nile so far this year, and public health officials report that the disease has been confirmed in only 18 people in the state.

With those figures in mind, the dramatic tale has left some wondering whether the state is fueling unnecessary paranoia about the disease.

Indeed, officials within the department report that, of those bitten by mosquitoes infected with West Nile, only about two out of 10 will ever experience any symptoms. And a statement released Wednesday by the department, which announced two new cases in Cook and DuPage counties, conceded that most medical problems related to the disease are minor.

"Illness from West Nile disease is usually mild and includes fever, headache, and body aches," the statement reads.

State defends campaign

Nevertheless, the department defends its ads as an important educational tool.

Spokeswoman Tammy Leonard said the state wanted to encourage people to protect themselves and avoid the high number of West Nile-related fatalities it saw in 2002. That year, Illinois led the nation with 884 human cases and 67 deaths.

"We don't want to see a repeat of that ever, especially when people can take precautions to being bit by a mosquito," Leonard said.

In 2003, the number of human cases dropped to 54, with just one death, according to the department. Infections were back up slightly in 2004 with 60 human cases and four deaths.

For Brookman, it is impossible to overstate the seriousness of the disease. He lauded the department for publicizing what happened to his wife, Maureen, and said people need to understand the risks of West Nile.

He was paid for his work but said he donated the money to charity.

"I think public health agencies were trying to avert public panic (in 2002) and were underplaying the number of cases and also the seriousness of the illness," he said in an interview. "I think they've come to realize that's not the way to approach this thing. A little bit of panic might go a long way, and I certainly hope it does."

The radio ads featuring Brookman made their first run in 23 markets statewide from June 29 to July 22. They then were suspended until Aug. 7, when they returned for another run through Sept. 1.

Leonard said the most recent run will be heard only in the Chicago area, as reports of the disease have been centered in Cook, Kane and DuPage counties. Locally, listeners can hear them on WLS and WGN.

Cautions against complacency

And, despite the slow start to the West Nile season this year, local health experts cautioned people not to become complacent.

Sallie Rivera, epidemiology coordinator at Sherman Hospital in Elgin, said a high number of birds and mosquito samples have tested positive for West Nile and those cases could easily be transferred to humans.

"If you want to be cute about it, it's only a bite away," she said about West Nile.

Rivera urged people to wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts when they go outside and apply insect repellent with DEET. As for the ads, she agreed they were scary.

"It's really a dramatic thing," Rivera said about Brookman's story. "I don't know if that's good for us or bad for us. Not all people will get that sick, but people will get sick."

-Staff writer Mike Danahey contributed to this report.
8/18/05

David German, Louisiana

2005-08-16T23:54:00.000-05:00

Family Remembers Caddo Man Who Died of West Nile

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

When Janet German took her brother-in-law David German to the hospital a few weeks ago, he was complaining of nausea and pains in his chest. She knew he`d suffered from heart problems in the past.
But the family was shocked to find out that David German`s symptoms were actually a result of contracting the West Nile Virus.

"It really shocked us to find out what it was because you never suspect that your family is gonna be a part of it.You hear of other people," said Janet German.

In the past month, state health officials confirmed 5 cases of West Nile Virus in northwest Louisiana.The virus is contracted through mosquito bites, and often has flu-like symptoms.

German` bother James tell us that David was an outside person who
loved the outdoors and fishing.

David German will be remembered as a man who was very devoted to his family.He lived with his mother and was her primary caregiver.

Sister-in-law Janet German is still in shock.
"One little mosquito did all that to him....the wrong mosquito got him."

Nicole Thomas, OH

2005-08-15T12:36:00.000-05:00

Monday, August 15, 2005

Recovery slow for possible West Nile virus victim
Greenhills woman's polio-like symptom is unusual for such cases

By Eileen Kelley
Enquirer staff writer

CLIFTON - Nicole Thomas sits in a hospital bed unable to move her legs.

Progress and recovery from what is possibly the area's first case of the West Nile virus this season has been slow.

"It's a long process, but God is going to heal her," said Thomas' mother, Wanda Dean of Forest Park.

Dean said she and Thomas, 22, were told Friday that Thomas is suffering from the West Nile virus.

A spokeswoman for Good Samaritan Hospital, where Thomas has been a patient since Aug. 4, said Sunday the hospital is still waiting for test results.

Dr. Steve Englender, director of epidemiology and emergency public health preparedness for the Cincinnati Department of Health, said the polio-like symptom that Thomas is experiencing is rare with West Nile cases. The doctor said late Friday his department had not been informed of the case and didn't expect to be informed - if in fact there was a confirmation - until the weekend was over. "Certainly West Nile is possible because it has become pandemic across the country," said Englender.

West Nile virus is a potentially serious illness, which in some cases can be deadly. If Thomas' case is West Nile, it will be just the second confirmed human case of the disease in Ohio this year.

The Ohio Department of Health reported last month that a 27-year-old person in Drake County contracted the virus.

There have not been any reported cases in Kentucky this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. West Nile was first reported six years ago in New York.

"It's been a very interesting disease to watch it spread west," said Englender.

About one in 150 people infected with the virus will need to be hospitalized.

The virus is most commonly spread through the bite of mosquitoes.

Typically, symptoms appear within three days to two weeks from the mosquito bite. Local health officials reported in early July that mosquitoes carrying the virus had been detected in Madeira along Dawson road.

The first human case in Ohio was in 2002, a year when 142 human cases were confirmed and 31 people died. Statewide, the virus has waned since that first case.

There were 12 confirmed cases last year and two deaths.

So far this year, California has the highest reported number of cases with 84 as of Aug. 9, according to the Centers for Disease Control. South Dakota is second with 28 human cases. A total of 22 states have reported human cases.

Friends and family of Thomas say that the Greenhills woman had complained about feeling weak prior to her hospitalization.

"She just kept getting weaker and weaker," said Jammie Jackson, 21, a close friend.

Thomas' mother said her daughter went to Mercy Hospital Fairfield. on Aug. 3 to find out what was wrong. She was told she had some sort of virus and was sent home.

The following morning, Thomas woke up and couldn't move her legs and screamed for help. A meter man heard her cries and called for emergency help.

"Temporarily paralyzed; I'm not going to say she is paralyzed because I'm just not going to believe it," said Dean.

Thomas' sister, Stephanie Dean, said doctors are hopeful they can transfer Thomas to Drake Center in about two weeks to begin rehabilitation.

Jim Rodgers, CA--Daughter Pam Shands Comments on Father's Death

2005-08-15T12:28:00.000-05:00

Pam Shands speaks out Sunday about county health officials disclosing little information about the recent death of Shands' father, James "Jim" Rodgers, due to the West Nile virus. (Ryan Harris/News-Sentinel)

West Nile virus victim's family angry at county, state officials
By Ross Farrow
News-Sentinel Staff Writer
Last updated: Monday, Aug 15, 2005 - 07:00:16 am PDT

Family members remained angry Sunday at state and county authorities over the death of Acampo resident James "Jim" Rodgers.

"I'm very angry," said Pam Shands, one of Rodgers' two daughters. "He was healthy Saturday (Aug. 6). I shouldn't have to be worrying about my dad dying from a bug bite."
Pam Shands speaks out Sunday about county health officials disclosing little information about the recent death of Shands' father, James "Jim" Rodgers, due to the West Nile virus. (Ryan Harris/News-Sentinel)

Rodgers, 86, died four days later in what is being described as Northern California's first fatal case of the West Nile virus this year. He lived for about 30 years at Arbor Mobile Home Park on the eastern frontage road of Highway 99, just north of Woodbridge Road. Shands lives about three miles away on Peltier Road.

Rodgers appeared to be quite healthy until the afternoon of Aug. 6, when neighbors described him as "hallucinating." He was taken to Dameron Hospital in Stockton that night and died on Wednesday.

But Shands' family maintains that state and county officials aren't doing enough to combat the West Nile virus.

Authorities haven't publicized it enough to the community how deadly serious the disease is, nor have they done what they can to remove stagnant water, a favorite breeding ground for mosquitoes, which transmit West Nile, the Shands family said.

They also say that county officials were too secretive about Rodgers' death. The announcement issued by the county's West Nile Virus Task Force stated only that an elderly male from somewhere in San Joaquin County had died from complications of the West Nile virus. That could have been in Tracy, Escalon or Ripon.

Or Acampo, as it turned out to be.
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Dr. Karen Furst, the county's health officer, told the News-Sentinel on Friday that the information couldn't be disclosed for confidentiality reasons.

Nevertheless, the Shands maintain that county health officials should have alerted Arbor residents Wednesday night about the potential of the West Nile virus being in their backyard. Instead, mosquito abatement officials waited until Thursday night to discuss the virus with residents.

"Wouldn't you want to know Wednesday night?" Shands' husband, Dave Shands asked rhetorically.

Glen Taylor shows where he found a dead bird last week while his wife, Vi, watches. Glen Taylor reported the dead bird to the San Joaquin Mosquito and Vector Control District. A district employee told him there had been no reports of West Nile in the Acampo area, and to dispose of the bird and to contact the district if he hears of any other dead birds in the area, he said. (Mike Graffigna/News-Sentinel)

John Stroh, manager of the county mosquito abatement district, said after Thursday's meeting at the Arbor Mobile Home Park clubhouse that he couldn't discuss deaths related to the West Nile virus.

Information about any deaths caused by West Nile can only be answered by the county's public health department, Stroh said, but no such representatives attended the mobile home park meeting. The only issue Stroh said he was allowed to discuss that night was killing mosquitoes and how to avoid being bitten by one.

Dori Kiniry, Pam Shands' daughter is in town from Arizona to attend Rodgers' funeral. She said that authorities in the greater Phoenix area where she lives have been vigilant about killing mosquitos. They have sprayed once a year for the past three years in Arizona and have numerous signs posted reminding people about standing water, Kiniry said.

"We know all about it; it's a big deal in Arizona," Kiniry said. "California had plenty of time to know this was coming."

Arizona officials will even issue citations to residents who have stagnant water in their swimming pools, Kiniry said. On a complaint basis, she said, Arizona officials will fly over a pool to determine if it's stagnant.

Nevertheless, Dave Shands said he's seen stagnant water at several locations in the Lodi area this week. And his wife wondered if people at area nursing homes are susceptible to West Nile because of their compromised immune systems.

"I can't help my father, but I'd like to help somebody else (avoid contracting the virus)," Pam Shands said.

The public doesn't realize how painful a West Nile death can be, Pam Shands said. She found out first-hand with her father.

"It was a horrible, horrible death," Pam Shands said. "He was gasping for air for three days."

She said she wonders if Rodgers' death was California's fourth, as state officials maintain. Could deaths caused by pneumonia, meningitis and other diseases been a result of West Nile as well, Pam Shands asked.

"I don't want to be a drama queen, but we need to get (the facts) out there."

Contact reporter Ross Farrow at rossf@lodinews.com.

West Nile Virus Survivor Stories from the West Nile Virus Survivors Foundation

Lauren Ashley Miller-CA

Richard Gibson, CA survivor

Melissa Dimond, UT Survivor

Stacie King, MS

Rev. Richard Gibson-CAN

West Nile virus victim feels the bite

Mel Lacy, ID

Ray Stevens-CAN

David Kelly, SC survivor

Megan Cherkas, CAN survivor

Megan Cherkas. credit: Don Healy, The Leader-Post

Cherkas sees good things

Murray McCormick, The Leader-Post

University of Regina Cougars guard Megan Cherkas. credit: Don Healy, The Leader-Post

Cherkas saw a doctor, who diagnosed that she had West Nile. Cherkas was able to bounce back after plenty of rest. Cherkas added that Meryl Jordan, another guard with the Cougars, was infected with the West Nile virus during the summer.

Donald "Don” Lee Wood, OK

Debbie Fiddler, OK Survivor

Faces of West Nile: 'Not knowing what was wrong' was the hardest part for survivor

James William Cook Sr. , OK-Victim

Robert Moore, ND survivor

It took the West Nile Virus to slow this Devils Lake teaching legend down

Matthew Arambula, Bakersfield, CA

Former police chief DuPey gets West Nile-IL

Former police chief DuPey gets West Nile

Wayne Hinrichs, NE

Early West Nile Cases Cause Worry

Friday 6.22.07, 10:50 p.m.

Jerry Barton, Survivor WI

Elizabeth Zopff, CO

Ken Speake: In his own words- MN (2)

Ken Speake-MN

Donnie Manry, TX

Kadi Renowden, WI

Chris Cottrell WI

Megan Suzanne Most, Nevada

Thomas Alan Shade, Victim-OH

Kenneth "Pete" Clay

David Cole - Boise Idaho Survivor

.westnilesurvivor.com

Megan Most-NV

Francesca Jarvis

Dr. Bill Shelton TX victim

Chad Pyeatt, KS

Eudora teen and his family struggle with West Nile virus

Guy Lawrence Lozowski-NV

Mike Seiler, ND

Earl Hirschfield, CAN

Carl “Lefty” Long, Victim-NY

Matt McChesney, CO

Lloyd Martinsen, CA

Bob "Big Stef" Steffen, OH

Tom Steiner, WS (2)

Marge Riley, NE

Marge Riley, NE

Latricia Ann Spencer, Victim (3rd Story)

Delores Hughes, IN-Victim

Tom Steiner, WS

John C. Wood, MD

Reyna Rodriguez, CA

Sarah Salmon, MS

Sarah Salmon, MS

James Sanguinetti, MS

Kristy Chapman , CA

Ted Upgren, ND

Grant Choate, IL

Willie Gay, FL

Latricia Spencer, FL-Victim

Dorothy Mahl, OH- Victim

Ellis "Junior" Holloway

Jim Stuerebaut-IL

Peter Carpenter, CA-Victim

John T. Phillips Jr., TX-Victim

Alan Bugg, NM-Victim

Craig Beard, MT-Victim

Dorothy Burk Mahl, OH-Victim

Eugene Lee, MN-Victim

Mamie Carda, SD-Victim

Dan Cullinan, AZ-Victim

Peter Moen, CAN-Victim