My name is Greg and my wife Lisa age 39 has recently been diagnosed with HE in feb 2006. This is her story as seen though my eyes.

It started on Feb 1, 2006 at 4.00 pm, well I guess now looking back it has going on for sometime, I now realize some of the symptoms of HE have been around with Lisa a while. She was having bouts of short term memory loss, confusion disorientation, hairloss, losing her train of thought, and sort of living in another world psychosis. I thought she was simply experiencing depression. Anyway, I came  home early from work (Thank God) when  I noticed she was extremely confused with tremors and shaking, it, forgive me sort of looked fake. We talked and she wasn't making much sense so I suggested a candy bar or something to eat  for the shaking and a nap. A half hour later she woke and came up to our computer area. She claimed she felt numb and tingly, I asked are you ok hon? she stated she had to vomit so she walked into the bathroom and immediately walked back out, when she passed me I noticed her face looked like it was melting, I asked her Lee what the heck is wrong with your face? She continued dowstairs with no response to my question. I got up to check on her when I heard a large thud in our living room. I ran down the stairs only to realize Lisa was having a seisure. She was vomiting and gaging on it and happened to fall on top of our 6 yr old Noah, who is fine now. I of course called 911. When the
seisure seemed to be complete she stopped breathing momentarilty. After a few seconds without breathing I began to shake her and scream at her "Don't you leave me Lisa" just then she jerked and she began to breath. At this moment I realized something more was wrong. She was showing severe stroke like actions rolling around with curled fingers, wrists, toes and a very "waxed" face. Her eyes were rolling back and she did not respond to her suroundings and she fought us. I also noticed slight foaming at the mouth and cried "Lord what is going on". She was taken by ambulance to Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester NY. She arrived and layed there restrained for hours as test after test kept coming back normal giving us no explanation to what was going on. The doctors even claimed they were baffled. Later about 1:00 am she began to vomit causing her to asperate, forcing doctors to take precaution Intubate her and move her to ICU. We were once again called in only to be told she now had a very high fever and had contracted pnemonia. For three days Cat scans, MRI's, lumbar tap, etc were coming back normal only her EEG was a little abnormal. Neurologists were still baffled and were talking about a diagnosis of unknown etiology meaning of unknown cause. Then... thank God again! a endocrinologist  was called in after a second round of blood tests it revealed extremely low calcium, electrolytes and very high titers, bad antibodies produced by the thyroid. Lisa's mom has had her thyroid removed so I believe it led doctors to test lisa's thyroid levels. They also began calcium and electrolyte replenishment to no avail, this was realized when doctors began to ween her off sedation, I call it the drug induced coma, to see the results of  the calcium and electro replenishment. Once the sedation was brought down she began to again experience stroke like syptoms. It was at this time it was suggested to us that she start her on steriods, they said they had a hunch about a extremely rare thyroid disease and believed it may be the cause of what was going on. One doctor did not believe and even told me it was hogwash so to speak. She was started on and she is still on 60mg of prednisone a day, levoxthyroxine 75 mcg a day, along with dilantin 100mg a day some calcium pills prilosex and citalophram(depression meds?? why ,not sure but we stopped taking them they spaced her out to much we knew this from past experiences) Lisa  responded very well and was released 9 days later with slight aphasia, short term memory loss ,a little clumsiness and disoriention. This early release even baffled doctors. I was told to expect up to a 6 week stay... what a fighter. Lisa has gained much back, in fact I would say about 85 to 90% of things. To everyone else she appears to be fine and to some extent she is, but to our boys and I slight changes are relevent. Some of them are mood swings, lathargic at times, tires very easy after small tasks or prolonged conversation, sleeps and eats more. Her numbness from the encepalitis (infection of the brain) has just subsided as the swelling went down this week 3-3-06. We have also noticed her personality is a little different but don't get me wrong we LOVE every inch of her especially alive!!! PRAISE GOD!!.  We hope by sharing Lisa's story it may help others relate,  compare and maybe even help fight this disease.