Rabies girl in miracle recovery
Published: January 4, 2005
An American teenager who became the first person known to survive rabies without a vaccination went home yesterday after nearly 11 weeks in hospital.
Athletic and mentally tough, Jeanna Giese, 15, started her new year by leaving a Milwaukee hospital a month early and going home to a celebrate.
A bat bit Jeanna’s hand on September 12 as she picked up the animal by the wings to remove it from a church service.
She washed the 5mm wound thinking it was only a scratch.
Rabies, a usually fatal viral disease, can be prevented with a vaccine before symptoms appear.
But Jeanna did not seek treatment until October 15, with symptoms of unconsciousness, double vision, slurred speech and weakness in her left arm, making it too late to administer a vaccine.
Doctors are amazed by Jeanna’s recovery. Her body is undergoing a rebirth, physicians said yesterday. Nerves ravaged by the disease are reconnecting to muscles and organs including her heart, a phenomena the medical community will monitor for years to come.
The physician who led her treatment team during almost 80 days of hospitalisation said he had never seen an “evolution of healing” like this.
“She’s one of a kind,” said Rodney Willoughby, the pediatric infectious disease physician at the Wisconsin Children’s Hospital.
The new growth is forcing the resilient girl to again learn the use of her arms and legs, to speak and to swallow.
“She wants to get up and get active,” said her father, John Giese.
The disease did not affect her intellect, Dr Willoughby said.
Jeanna’s battle for her life caught the attention of the international media and offers of prayer poured in.
Physicians were not optimistic when Jeanna was diagnosed with rabies on October 19.
“Rabies starts with a lot of dysfunction to the brain and then a second phase to the illness . . . is the complete loss of nerves to the body,” Dr Willoughby said.
“Some of the motions she came back with were that she literally was reconnecting nerves to muscles, reconnecting nerves to her heart. She’s just been fixing all sorts of things as we sit back and marvel.
“It’s really almost like watching a rebirth.”
If you enjoyed this good news Subscribe to Good News Blog
Share this
To share this simply copy and paste one of the below URL's: