Reader\'s Digest Canada - 05.2020

THE PATIENT: Jeff*, a 36-year-old high

school teacher

THE SYMPTOMS: Recurring fevers and

delirium

THE DOCTOR: Dr. Volodko Bakowsky,

rheumatologist at QEII Health Sciences

Centre, Halifax

I

N HIS LATE 20S, Jeff, a Halifax high

school teacher, began catching nasty

flus or lung infections several times

a year, and often ran high fevers. “I just

didn’t seem to have my usual immune

response, and I wasn’t bouncing back,”

he says. By his mid-30s, he had lost

muscle mass and most mornings felt

so tired that he had difficulty getting

out of bed. He also couldn’t concen-

trate at work. “Somebody would say

something to me, and two minutes

later I couldn’t remember it.”

These episodes were manageable

until June 2007, when one of Jeff ’s

fevers was accompanied by hallucina-

tions. “I was seeing bees, and water

poured out of the ceiling,” he recalls.

He stumbled into his physician’s office,

leaning on his wife for support, and

was advised to go to the hospital.

Tests in the ICU didn’t reveal much.

The doctors suggested Jeff had a brain

*IDENTIFYING DETAILS HAVE BEEN CHANGED. infection from an unknown source.

BY Lisa Bendall

illustration by victor wong

reader’s digest

26 may 2020

HEALTH

WHAT’S WRONG

WITH ME?