6A the university daily kansan
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thursday,may 6,2004
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MENINGITIS: Recovery can be long and painful
Emily Robb, 4th year medical resident at The University of Kansas Hospital, lived through bacterial meningitis. Doctors diagnosed meningitis in Robb in 1993. Robb is now studying pediatrics and internal medicine.
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Sickness and Recovery
For six days, Robb struggled for her life in intensive care, still disoriented and battling infections.
Her kidneys shut down. Pneumonia infected both of her lungs. The doctors working on her said amongst themselves that she wouldn't live through the week.
"I didn't know what was going on," Robb said. "All I knew is that I felt like someone beat the crap out of me."
Robb couldn't eat, only taking fluids through IVs. In six days, she lost 20 pounds.
Recovery from meningitis requires antibiotics. The quicker patients receive the antibiotic treatment, the better the chance of survival, said Daniel Hinthorn, director of infectious diseases at the Hospital.
"Without it would be devastating." he said.
Treatment of the most common types of bacterial meningitis should increase the chance of surviving to more than 85 percent, according the Centers for Disease Control.
Hinthorn said without the antibiotics a person could sometimes die within 12 hours of contracting the disease.
But the antibiotics are an instant cure for patients such as Robb. Hinthorn the toxins released by the bacteria stayed in the body for days and sometimes weeks.
"It doesn't mean after you're treated you'll get back to full steam ahead," he said.
"We don't understand why, but it depends on actual organisms and the person's immune system," Hinthorn said.
The time meningitis spreads inside the body varies from person to person and case to case depending on the meningitis strain. Hinthorn said the same bacteria could take over a person's body in hours and be prolonged for a day or two in another person.
During those weeks, the toxins in her body slowly started to disappear. Antibiotics battled her infections and pneumonia until her body was well enough to go back to her parents' house to finish recovery.
For Robb, the antibiotics worked immediately. But the bacteria had spread so much, that after she was taken from intensive care, she still needed two weeks at the hospital before doctors would release her.
But even then, the disease had depleted Robb's strength. For weeks, she needed a walker to move around the house, her muscles so weakened by her rapid weight loss.
weight loss.
She went to rehabilitation every day for two months, where doctors would soak her in a hot tub and then, with tweezers, remove skin deadened by her blood rash.
"Recovery is grueling," Robb said. "I was in pain the entire time."
The pain intruded on her rehabilitation so much that she took morphine every day during the two months.
She didn't feel she had completely recovered until she returned to Carleton College in Minnesota nearly four months after she first contracted the disease, and even then her scaring made her battle with meningitis apparent.
Two years later, looking at her own medical records after she entered medical school at the University, she finally realized how sick she had been.
She knew if she hadn't been staying at her parents' house where her mom often checked in on her, she probably wouldn't have treated the disease in time.
"I didn't know about a lot of it," she said. "The kidney failure, the pneumonia. I was really close to death."
"If I was at school, I'd probably be dead," she said.
Prevention and Detection
Steve White's head hurt so much he couldn't walk.
He had a fever and nausea all signs of the flu. Except just a month earlier, the teaching and leadership professor got a flu shot.
Doctors immediately suspected bacterial meningitis. After a spinal tap showing the presence of the disease, doctors placed White on a full 24-hours of antibiotics.
"Iwould have just thought I had a really bad case of the flu," he said. "But when it didn't get better, I knew I had to go to the hospital."
of antibodies.
After a short hospital stay, White went home. A month later, he was back at the University, picking up where he left off in his classes.
"After a few days, I was bored.
I knew I was better." White said.
Luckily, White caught the first symptoms early. But for people who haven't received a flu shot or don't go to the doctor immediately after getting sick, deciding how quickly to go to the doctor can mean the difference between a mild meningitis case such as White's and a potentially life-threatening situation.
"If things aren't changing, if you're getting rapidly worse, go to the doctor," Robb said.
The bacteria spreads so quickly, most people get sick within a few hours of the disease becoming active, Robb said.
There is also a vaccine to prevent the disease. But, Robb said even if one had received the vaccine, it protects against only two of the three main strains of the bacteria, and often not the worst kind.
Before she got sick, Robb said, finals and a grueling school schedule had exhausted her. She wasn't sleeping or eating much, if at all.
sleeping or running The best way to prevent the disease, Robb said, was to not let this happen. When lack of sleep or nutrition weakens the immune system, a person can be susceptible to many diseases, not just bacterial meningitis.
justice in a way to make healthy." Robb said. "If not, something will happen to you. It might not be meningitis, but it will be something."
- Edited by Nikki Nugent
BIKE RIDE Bikers ride for philanthropy
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before traveling to Charleston, S.C., for Pi Kappa Phi's centennial celebration.
that celebration.
"It's such a big challenge, physically and mentally for the cyclists and the crew members," Zimmerman said. "But it also has the biggest rewards."
biggest rewards.
After completing an application process, participants were also required to help raise money for the project. As crew members, Zimmerman and Relph, Wichita sophomore, were each responsible for fundraising $2,500.
Albers and Thurston, Minneapolis, Kan., senior, who will both be cyclists, each had to commit to raising $5,000. Albers and Thurston both said that they raised the majority of their money through letter writing campaigns.
through letters.
"A lot of times you'll receive a letter in the mail, and you'll be surprised at who sent it and how much they donated," said Thurston, who also works for The University Daily Kansan. "It's been inspiring that so many people care about what we're doing."
The money raised from the Journey of Hope benefits Pi Kappa Phi's national philanthropy, Push America, Albers said. It will be used for various grants as well as to fund Give a Push weekends and week-long Push Camps. Both projects are similar to Alternative Breaks, Albers said, where chapter members either work at a camp for children with disabilities or help to construct facilities such as wheelchair-accessible fishing docks and playground equipment.
playground equipment
In addition to the visits and activities with people with disabilities on the Journey, the teams will also meet with non-disabled children to help them realize that people with disabilities are not unlike themselves, said Adam Heasley, Overland Park senior.
Heasley is a cyclist on the Journey of Hope in 2002 and said that the fraternity members often put on interactive puppet shows for the kids to clear up some of their misconceptions about disabilities.
"You'd be surprised how many kids think they can catch disabilities like a cold at the kindergarten or first grade level," Heasley said.
For more information on making a donation for the Journey of Hope, contact Jake Albers at 218- 9870 or albersmar@hotmail.com.
Edited by Kevin Flaherty
DRAFT: Current draft rules better for students
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According to the system's Web site the government is prepared to conduct a draft but is not getting ready to do so.
One change made during the Vietnam War would affect male students at colleges or universities. Before 1971, full-time students were automatically deferred from service.
They could continue to go to school and defer service until they were 26, the age that was considered too old to be drafted.
College students in the middle of a semester may now finish the semester and graduating seniors may complete the entire year before reporting to duty.
Philip Schroedt, professor of political science, teaches a class on U.S. defense policy. He said that if Bush were to support reinstating the draft, it would not come until after the 2004 election.
2004 election
But he said he thought the push would come from Congress, particularly World War II and Vietnam veterans such as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
"The army is not representative of the nation as a whole," he said.
Those who support Bush's policy in Iraq would be inclined to favor the draft because of personnel shortfalls in the military, he said.
There are no shortages now, but if the United States is still involved in Iraq in six months, the decline in enlistment and re-
The issue could also gain bipartisan support, Schroedt said. Democrats who support a draft would probably do so for the sake of class equality, he said.
Presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry has not explicitly commented on either foreign policy or the military, Schroedt said, but it is something he would have to address at some point.
For more information, visit the Selective Service System Web site at www.sss.gov.
Hot Nights. Cool Trips. Advisors with Piercings.
"The military is stretched absolutely thin between Iraq, Afghanistan and Korea," he said.
Edited by Abby Mills
Why Grandpa doesn't book his Summer Trip with us.
enlistment will become a problem. Schroedt said.
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