Help Dylan Smith Overcome Guillain-Barré Syndrome
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Hi this fundraiser is for Dylan Smith. After about 3 weeks of excruciating pain and numbness and tingling starting in his hands and feet and progressing to his face, he was finally admitted into the dialysis department of Emanuel Hospital where he has been diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS). GBS is a rare autoimmune condition that starts in your spine and attacks your nerves, slowly eating away at them. He will be admitted for at least 7-10 days where he is receiving plasma transfusions to replace the infected plasma, in hopes that it will help his body fight the infection. Any donations are welcome and will be going towards his hospital bills and care as this could be a year long recovery process.
Update: Hi everyone thank you for all of the support. Since being discharged from the hospital May 9th, he has now been readmitted due to significantly worsened symptoms.
He is trying a new treatment (IV-IG). He has been through multiple rounds of his new treatment but it could be up to 6 months to see if it worked. We are working on getting him a room in the rehab center, but it could take months to get him a room. As of now that is the next step to seeing Dylan come home.
(Update). Unfortunately, things have gotten worse, not better. Upon being admitted, Dylan has faced struggle after struggle and is facing a very, very long recovery. He received 5 doses over a three-day period of IVIG, which is an intravenous immunoglobulin treatment which injects antibodies into his system to improve his body’s ability to fight the infection. While we were hoping to see positive effects from this treatment, the effects have been minimal, so far, and Dylan has undergone a few setbacks. The fact that he relapsed from the first treatment is rare and atypical. His pain, numbness and weakness have not improved and if anything gotten worse. It requires his entire effort to simply sit up. He is suffering from intermittent low-grade fevers, as well as puking (which when your entire body is numb, has limited movement, and in enormous pain – this is even more of an unpleasurable experience). On top of that, he was unable to urinate yesterday which required the placement of a catheter and is barely able to consume enough calories and is on the verge of needing a feeding tube. While this all has been very devasting to Dylan, he continues to wake up each day hopeful that he will see improvement. The plan is that he can stabilize to the point where he can be discharged to the Rehab Institute of Oregon (RIO) which is a top-level rehab facility. He will likely stay there for a few weeks while he works on regaining movement in his extremities and be able to self-perform the minimal activities of daily living. We are thankful for your continued support and thoughts. We appreciate you all so much.
Organizer
Smith Family
Organizer
Banks, OR