[ back ]
Cause is unknown for local teacher's rare illness
(by Sue Hoffman - January 07, 2010)
Cause is unknown for local teacher's rare illness
By SUE HOFFMAN
For Solon High School honors biology teacher Jeffrey Pehanic, the event that triggered his contracting the rare Guillain-Barre syndrome always may remain a mystery. However, he said his experience could help raise awareness about the illness and its symptoms.
The syndrome usually occurs after a respiratory or gastrointestinal viral infection, and occasionally has followed surgery or vaccinations. Guillain-Barre, which affects some 3,000 to 6,000 people in the United States each year, is a disorder in which the body's immune system attacks part of the peripheral nervous system.
According to his neurologist, Mr. Pehanic said the cause for his case is unknown. "I think that my neurologist suspected that the numerous vaccines I had in a short period of time may have sent my immune system into overdrive," he said.
"I don't want to scare anyone," said Mr. Pehanic, who's in his 20th year of teaching.
What happened to him was "one in a couple million," he said. And the possible connection with vaccines did not stop him from having his 15-month-old daughter, Chloe, inoculated for H1N1, or swine flu, he said.
Mr. Pehanic shared details about his illness with his students when he returned to school the week before winter break. He had been out since Oct. 9, when he could not walk at all. The illness wasn't accurately diagnosed until nearly two weeks later, which brought additional suffering.
In September, Mr. Pehanic and his wife, Stacie, who live in Broadview Heights, had been preparing to travel to China on Oct. 28 to adopt Chloe. They both had vaccines for hepatitis A and B, tetanus and typhoid, and they had a seasonal flu shot.
"It was my first flu shot ever," Mr. Pehanic said. Later, he would recall one of the booklets he casually had read while waiting to receive vaccines, in which a rare occurrence of Guillain-Barre syndrome is described as a possible side effect.
On Oct. 5, Mr. Pehanic woke up with back pain. "My legs felt heavy," he said. He went to school anyway, but it was difficult to climb the stairs, he recalled. "I tried to stay for first period, but it kept getting worse. I felt I might not be able to walk at all if I waited any longer," he said.
Mr. Pehanic left school to see his family doctor. "She did a routine check, and said it might be a little stress due to the adoption." The following day, he went back to school. "It wasn't getting better and it was getting more difficult to walk," he said.
On Oct. 7, he went to the emergency room at Southwest General Health Center in Middleburg Heights. "They did blood work and a CAT scan. Everything came back normal. They sent me home and said it could be stress-related due to the adoption. I stayed home Thursday (Oct. 8) and convinced myself it was stress related." He returned to school Oct. 9.
"That weekend, I would stand up and try to walk, take a few steps and fall," Mr. Pehanic said. "I felt like someone was tapping on the back of my knees to knock me down. One minute I was up. The next I was headed to the ground. There was nothing I could do to catch myself."
Mr. Pehanic's doctor advised him to see a psychiatrist. "She saw me twice and thought it was a conversion disorder," in which no physical reason can explain the paralysis. "She told me that the mind does weird things to the body and I started to believe that," he said.
The psychiatrist prescribed anti-anxiety drugs, "but I felt no anxiety," he said. "We had been planning the adoption for three years." In fact, the Pehanics had applied for a child with special needs to speed up the process. Chloe has a cleft lip and palate, which are scheduled to be corrected by surgery later this month.
"Eventually, the psychiatrist put me into the emergency room and checked me into a psychiatric ward. They took my shoes, shoelaces and sweat-pants string." That happened on Oct. 15. "At this point, I couldn't walk and was in a wheelchair. I was there a few days and went to group therapy. No one was allowed to talk to me because that could feed a patient's anxiety."
While in the ward, he was given periodic physicals, he said. One of the doctors from the main hospital saw that he had no reflexes and questioned if that was normal for him. "He indicated it could be Guillain-Barre. He said he was going to have a neurologist contact the psychiatric ward.
"It was frustrating," he said. "You know it's not anxiety, but no one was listening." He remembered what he had read about Guillain-Barre in a pamphlet when getting his vaccinations.
"On Oct. 17, I finally wheeled myself to the front desk," he said. That task was difficult because the numbness had moved up to his arms. He could not even grip a pen or write his name. "I said to the nurse, 'You have to Google Guillain-Barre.'" It was against the rules, for fear of feeding a patient's anxiety, but the nurse checked. "Within two hours, a new doctor was doing tests and checked me into the hospital."
A spinal tap confirmed that he had Guillain-Barre, he said. "From that point on, it was a matter of time. I was so happy. At least I knew what it was and what it wasn't."
Mr. Pehanic received a five-day treatment in which he was given immunoglobulin intravenously for six hours daily. "That stopped the progression." However, he said he didn't feel better until he had about six weeks of physical therapy and occupational therapy. He said he continues to have some tingling sensations in his legs at night.
While Mr. Pehanic was receiving physical therapy, Mrs. Pehanic left for China on Oct. 28 as planned. Mrs. Pehanic's mother was able to get a passport and visa quickly with the help of the adoption agency so that she could go with her. They returned with Chloe on Nov. 13.
"I wasn't close to walking when Stacie left. I was able to get a gate pass to meet her at the gate when she came home. She did a double take."
It was a good thing he was starting to feel better, he said, because Chloe was walking. "There was no break-in period," he said. "We went from zero to 100 mph."
[ back ]
