Mitch Coffman-LA

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.