it gets better

Hi all,

I don’t visit this site often anymore. I try once a year on the anniversary date of my onset to post a message of hope for those dealing with the more immediate effects of GBS. The date was Nov. 14, 2000. I find it hard to imagine that the date slipped by me without my even noticing, but here it is ten days past and I just now remembered. I don’t recognize but a few of the names I see on the boards so I know that few, if any, remember me so let me tell you about my case. I was 46 yo at the time with a wife and 4 yo boy. On a Tuesday night my toes started tingling while I was doing dishes. Within a week I was almost completely paralysed from the waste down. Couldn’t feed myself or brush my teeth. The symptoms peaked about three weeks in and turned around slowly. Had nine pp treatments. I was back home after fifty days in the hospital, back to full-time work as a cabinet-maker in just over six months from onset. Dealt with fatigue for another couple years.

I know others have had it much worse than I. And I know for some the injuries are permanent. For those I can only offer my sympathy and encouragement. However for the fortunate majority I can offer the hope that cases like mine mean that you too will recover most if not all function. It may be slow and frustrating, but improvement will happen even if not total recovery. Understand this: About a month ago I realized that I had finally recovered complete feeling in my toes–no tingling, no numbness, no nothing.
While I was frequenting this wonderful website an older gentleman who suffered from foot-drop, I forget his name, had a sudden recovery of feeling in his feet, also about six years after. You must understand: As terrible as this disease is, as gruesome as the devastation of one’s body and life, as frustrating and fatiguing as this all is, there is hope as long as you don’t give up.

I offer you this mantra, this prayer, this hope: Never give up, never give in.

My best to all of you,

Tom Kurth