Luci Baines Johnson remains in a Minnesota hospital recovering from Guillain-Barre Syndrome. We're told doctors there say she's doing well and continues to improve, and there's no doubt she has helped put a face with the rare disease that affects only two people in every 100,000.
One Central Texan knows what Johnson is experiencing.
Every other day, 60-year old Keith Stone exercises in the living room of his Georgetown home. This post rehab regime is necessary as he recovers from a disease he had never heard of until four months ago.
"I had no idea, what Guillain-Barre (was)," said Keith Stone, who is recovering from the disease.
Stone was about to get a crash course in Guillain-Barre Syndrome. He first started experiencing symptoms of the neurological disorder December 12th.
"I woke that morning with tingling and numbness in both hands and both feet," Stone remembered.
Six days later, Stone says he was paralyzed from the waist down and couldn't walk. After a battery of neurological, spinal and cardiac tests did not reveal what was wrong with him, he was fearing the worst as he was admitted to Round Rock Medical Center for a second time that week.
"I didnt know that I was going to leave the hospital alive," said Stone.
That night doctors confirmed he was suffering from Guillain-Barre Syndrome, the same rare disease that Luci Baines Johnson has been diagnosed with.
"It's felt to be auto immune in nature, nobody really knows for sure," said Dr. Steve Berkowitz, the Chief Medical Officer for St. David's HealthCare. "Many time, it's seen after an infectious disease of some sort, but a lot of cases just happen to come on for no apparent reason."
According to Dr. Berkowitz, Guillain-Barre syndrome was associated briefly with swine flu vaccines back in the 1970's.
"Nobody knows for sure how a vaccination or any other infection could cause this, but since it's felt to be an auto immune type of process, there maybe some protein in the bacteria or the virus that can stimulate the immune system in kind of the wrong way and cause this reaction to happen," Berkowitz explained.
Berkowitz says the good news is that most people who are diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome make a full recovery. However, in most cases, recovery is a slow process, taking anywhere from six months to a year.
