In November 2016, my happy go lucky, fit and healthy Brother-In-Law Glenn Brown was struck down with a bad case of the flu, unfortunately as the days and a few weeks passed, he clearly was not improving but getting much worse, he started to notice his foot was dragging and his legs were losing their strength and eventually not being able to walk he was admitted to the QA Hospital in Portsmouth. He was then later transferred to the Wessex Neurological centre at Southampton, where he underwent an emergency MRI, lumbar puncture and other tests to see what the cause of this debilitating illness was. The diagnosis was Transverse Myalitis, this is a very rare neurological disorder where the bodies own immune system attacks the spinal cord.
Glenn is 47yrs old, married to a very loving wife Karen, with two young energetic boys, George 6yrs & Henry 8yrs. Glenn only lost his dear mother Rita 4 months earlier to Alzheimers, it has not been an easy time for the family.
Glenn was informed that he would need 5 days of very strong steroid treatment and if this did not work he would need a course of plasma exchange.The steroid treatment was introduced and this seemed to slow the progress of the infection. It was decided to carry on with the Plasma Exchange which was carried out on the Day of his 47th Birthday December 22nd. This was the first of 5 treatments which removed the infected plasma and introduced super clean plasma to replace the anti-bodies in his system. So over the course of Christmas and New Year he is still in hospital having this treatment.
Glenn has a very loving and strong family, with his friends and family visiting constantly to keep his, happy go lucky attitude to life in place.
Glenn's profession is an architectual profiler and is self-employed he has finished his current course of treatment and is now reliant on physio to build his strength back. We are still unsure of the full outcome of this illness and what the future will bring.