One very unlucky Texas mother spent 12 days in a coma, misdiagnosed with meningitis and brain-swelling before doctors figured out what was wrong.
There’s an old saying that advises doctors to look first to common ailments before diagnosing rare diseases: “When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.” But sometimes it is zebras, and 53-year-old Carment Patin of Henrietta, Texas was one of them. It wasn’t meningitis but West Nile Virus that attacked her body.
She thinks she contracted the rare-in-the-first-world disease while stepping outside for a cigarette and getting bitten by mosquitoes that took up residence in the shrubbery outside her home. Now she’s learning to walk again.
Patin spends much of her time in a wheelchair now. She said she collapsed one day when her legs gave out, and her husband rushed her to the closest hospital. After that, she has no memory for the next eight days. Once released, Patin was left partially paralyzed, a rare outcome from West Nile virus, which can leave patients with the kind of paralysis formerly seen in Polio.
Now she has to be assisted to get dressed, use the bathroom, and get in and out of bed. All she can do with the swimming pool in her backyard is look at it. The activity she misses the most, though, is playing with her seven grandchildren. It’s not that there’s no hope for Patin; she is enduring grueling physical therapy to regain her mobility, but it’s going to take time. But she has progressed from being stuck in a seated position to now being able to stand on her own.
Like anyone else in the U.S., Patin was shocked to be diagnosed with a disease more commonly seen in the third world, and surprised that she was apparently infected on her own doorstep. But though the disease is rare, it is not unheard of, and Texas has the highest number of West Nile cases annually. So far this year there have been 18 other infections.
She wants people to know how important it is to keep your skin covered if you’re in an area known to be infested with mosquitos.
In total, there have been just over 100 West Nile cases in the U.S. in 2024.
