A recent high school graduate in Missouri was left paralyzed and placed on a ventilator in an ICU after contracting West Nile virus.
John Procter VI, known as “BB” to family and friends, has been hospitalized for more than two weeks with severe symptoms that started as a headache and dizziness on Aug. 8, St. Louis 11 reported.
The 18-year-old went to urgent care and was told he had a tension headache and was sent home.
But his symptoms got worse with violent vomiting and a high-grade fever, putting him in and out of the hospital over the next few days.
“They thought he had meningitis, so they did some tests for that. It came back negative. Sent him home and said to give him over-the-counter medicine,” the teen’s father John Procter V told the local news station.
The medicine didn’t work, and then things got scary.
“The following day, he had stroke-like symptoms,” the older Procter said. “Unable to move and speech was real slurred.”
They rushed him back to the hospital, where he was admitted to the ICU and placed on a ventilator, he told the station.
After 16 days in the ICU — at the fourth hospital the teen went to — Procter VI was diagnosed with West Nile virus, which is commonly spread through mosquitoes.
It took more than 20 doctors scratching their heads over the quick deterioration of the otherwise healthy teen to figure out what was causing the shocking effects.
“He has limited mobility, especially on his left side,” his father said. “He can’t support his weight; he can’t support his own head.”
But the teenager — who hopes to become a diesel mechanic — is making “small but vast” improvements, the dad wrote on a fundraising page set up to help cover medical expenses.
Doctors removed the breathing tube from his mouth and gave him a trach to start breathing rehab and physical therapy.
“Doctors say this will be a marathon to try and get him back to what he was before this virus almost killed him,” he wrote.
While 8 out of 10 people infected with West Nile virus will develop zero symptoms, there are rare cases where the person can get severely ill like BB, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About 1 in 150 people infected develop serious illnesses affecting the central nervous system such as meningitis or encephalitis. Symptoms include high fever, headache, neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, coma, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness, vision loss, numbness and paralysis, according to the CDC.
It can take several weeks or even months to recover from a severe case of the virus.
There have been 289 reported cases of West Nile across 33 states so far this year and 18 deaths.
