Chad Pyeatt, KS

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

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

· 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

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

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

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

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

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)

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.