Helping Hannah Grubb Fight Medical Issues

Dear friends and supporters,

It breaks my heart to be writing this post on behalf of Hannah Grubb. As many of you know, Hannah (miraculously) survived mutiple heart attacks and open heart surgery three years ago. Since then, everything seemed to be going well and she was able to resume normal life.

Last week, she was having trouble with one of her eyes and went to the walk-in. Fast forward a few days, and she is currently admitted to the hospital with a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). As many of you may know, MS is a chronic and often debilitating disease that affects the central nervous system. While there is no cure for MS, there are treatments available that can help manage the symptoms and slow the progression of the disease.

Hannah's vision has been greatly impacted. She has undergone multiple tests and treatments this week to try to bring her vision back to normal. The rapid onset and progression of symptoms lead to Hannah receiving treatment 'out of network' with insurance.

The Grubbs have been more than friends to me, they are like family. Anyone who knows Brennen and Hannah, know they are some of the most generous and caring people around. They are always willing to lend a helping hand, even when it means sacrificing their own time and resources.

At this time, we don't know the full extent of the diagnosis or what the future holds. All donations will go towards medical expenses and helping to replace income while Hannah is unable to work. Please consider donating, sharing this post, and praying for Hannah and her family.

Thank you all for your generosity and support during this difficult time.

**UPDATE**

Friday morning:

We saw the neurology team this morning and he examined Hannah’s eyes. He told us that he is a MS specialist so that is his wheelhouse specialty. He thinks that this is NOT MS!! He said MS usually has MULTIPLE lesions and she only has 1. He said that he has a few calls out to Mayo to consult with some of their experts as well. They are going to do some CT scans to see if there is any other causes for the inflammation.

Friday afternoon:

The CTs came back negative. (Yay!)

The neuro PA came and and talked to us and said the Neurologist spoke with the Mayo doctors and the mayo doctors were thinking it could be viral. In order to test and determine if it is viral , she would need to see a retina specialist which Sanford does not have, so they are planning on transferring her down to Mayo in Rochester at some point. They were wanting to do some biopsies and more tests to determine if it is viral. We don’t know when the transfer will happen but that is the plan.

Friday evening:

The nurse came in this evening with acyclovir (which is an anti viral medication). He told us that the dr just ordered it because the results came back on her Lumbar puncture (LP) CSF labs.

They found out that she has the shingles virus (varicella zoster virus) present in her spinal fluid!! They said that it explains everything!!!

The doctors are so thrilled to have a diagnosis!!!

But the shingles virus in the cerebral spinal fluid is still scary and serious and needs aggressive treatment but now we know what we are dealing with. We are hoping that this course of treatment will help with her vision but there are no guarantees.

So the great news is they are no longer thinking she has MS!!!! They now know what this is. It is the shingles virus that was present in her CSF that caused the blindness in her eye and the pain in her head and eye and neck area.

The doctors were explaining that the way she presented was very similar to MS. Hannah didn’t have any other symptoms of shingles or any infections so they didn’t even know to look for it. They are now treating it with anti viral infusions.

SATURDAY:

Mayo is full and is on divert so we are in a waiting period for a bed to open up.

There is also question about if we even need to go now that we have a diagnosis and treatment. But fargo still does not have a retina specialist that can see her while she is an inpatient.

They stopped her plasmapheresis because they know it isn’t auto immune. So Hannah is happy they are going to take out her big central line they were using for that.

Hannah continues to have pain in the base of her head, her neck and and her eye area that hasn’t improved. She is taking medications to help with the pain. The anti viral infusions she has to take makes her nauseated so that isn’t fun either so they started her on anti nausea medications to help with those infusions. She still cannot see out of her right eye. It remains very blurry and she has a hard time trying to see out if it so she has been wearing an eye patch for comfort so she isn’t trying to look through it.

Thank you for all your thoughts prayers and texts. Hannah loves to see them and is overwhelmed by the prayers and the love that she feels from all of you.