A week ago Saturday, a good friend of mine had a headache and numbness on his right side, so he went to the doctor. 10 hours and numerous tests later, he was released from the hospital with the assurance that he wasn’t having a stroke. It was probably a miagrane, they said. Two days later, he began acting strangely at work. He was sleepy and incoherant enough for his co-workers to take him to the emergency room. At the ER, he became paranoid, even more incoherent, and combative. They restrained him, pumped him full of thorazine, put him in the ICU, and ran every test they could think of. They discovered he was encephalitic but had no signs of meningitis. Three days later, his anxious friends were told that the official diagnosis was “Unknown Viral Encephalititis.” He was put on an intensive program of antivirals and antibiotics, which began to have an effect in about a day and half. He’s doing much better, sitting up, walking, talking, eating on his own, totally coherent, and a little grumpy from being poked, prodded, restrained, and generally screwed with for a week. He’s expected to be home by the end of the week, barring any other unexpected awfulness.
I know these details are too vague for a diagnosis (especially since all of this information is second hand) and apparently even the people with all the info don’t know exactly what caused this, but what could “unknown viral encephaliitis” mean? What are the possibilites? How could it have been contracted? Is there any danger of infection to people who have been in casual or intimate contact with him? Do any of the possibilities carry the chance of lasting damage?
