Youth recovering from Lyme disease in Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital
By Amanda Garrett, The Plain Dealer
March 03, 2010, 9:17PM
Thomas Ondrey, The Plain DealerLucille Ashford,10, sits with her mother, Geizel Canady-Ashford, on Wednesdayin her Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital room, recovering from a near-death experience with Lyme disease.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- As Lucille Ashford's mom raced the 10-year-old toward a Cleveland emergency room last month, the girl lost consciousness. Lucille's heart was struggling to keep her alive.
Doctors quickly intervened and saved the child's life. Then it took a team at Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital a couple of days, a slew of tests and even more cooperation from the exceptionally brave child to figure out what was wrong.
Lucille had Lyme disease, and it nearly killed her.
The disease is rare in Ohio, and even more rare during winter. Only about 5 percent of children with Lyme disease have heart issues, let alone problems that threaten their lives, said Lucille's doctor, Yasser Al-Khatib.
Lucille had been sick on-and-off for a week. Her mom, Geizel Canady-Ashford, figured it was a flu bug.
But when Lucille fainted on Feb. 22, mom rushed the girl to MetroHealth Medical Center's emergency room.
Doctors there realized Lucille had a heart block. Electrical impulses in her heart were misfiring, causing the heart not to pump, Dr. Mark Feingold said. It's rare in children, and MetroHealth called Rainbow Babies, which has provided MetroHealth with pediatric cardiology services for several years.
View full sizeThomas Ondrey / The PD"This is a brave, mature 10-year-old girl," says Dr. Yasser Al-Khatib of Lucille Ashford, above.Rainbow's Dr. Yasser Al-Khatib was driving toward Akron when he was told a 10-year-old with heart block was coming in. Knowing the child was in trouble, he headed for the hospital.
When she got to Rainbow, Lucille's heart was beating 20 times a minute -- not enough activity to keep her alive. Doctors had to address that immediately.
They hooked Lucille to an external pacemaker. The electric current produced an unreliable heart rhythm. Her shoulder muscles spasmed, but the effort kept Lucille alive until a pacing wire could be put into her heart, Al-Khatib said.
Accomplishing that next step, though, was not easy, and proved extraordinarily painful for the girl. Most patients receive anesthesia during this procedure, as doctors insert the wire through a vein in the neck. Lucille couldn't have any. Anesthesia would slow her heart too much, and Al-Khatib couldn't go in through the neck anyway because the girl's shoulders were twitching.
The team moved to Plan B. Anesthesiologists talked Lucille through this procedure with nothing but a topical numbing agent. Al-Khatib inserted the pacing wire through her groin.
View full sizeOnce the external pacemaker was off and the wire inserted into her heart, Lucille's body quit twitching. Her pulse and blood pressure returned.
Then, Al-Khatib went ahead with the standard procedure, removing the wire from Lucille's groin and reinserting it into the heart through her jugular -- again without anesthesia.
He said Lucille's heart stopped beating for about 10 seconds when the wire was moved.
"This is a brave, mature 10-year-old girl," Al-Khatib said.
Doctors suspected Lyme disease as a possible reason for Lucille's heart problems. After completing the procedure to keep her alive, they started Lucille on antibiotics.
She didn't display the tell-tale symptom of the disease -- a bull's-eye rash. A heart tissue bioposy later would confirm its presence. Al-Khatib said she was probably bitten by a tick in late summer or fall, possibly during family trips to Florida or Hawaii.
When an infected tick bites a person, it can unleash a bacteria that produces a toxinlike material in the body, Al-Khatib said. Some people never get sick. But toxins can cause inflammation that can take months to lead to heart block.
On Wednesday, Lucille, a fifth-grader at Cleveland Heights' Noble Elementary School, moved out of intensive care and into a regular room at Rainbow Babies.
Canady-Ashford is not surprised by interest Lucille has shown in her own treatment. With good reason. Lucille has wanted to be a doctor since she was in kindergarten.
It started with questions about why her grandmother died. And when Lucille's father, Dennis Ashford, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2005, Lucille stayed at his side.
While Canady-Ashford worked, Lucille accompanied her dad to doctor appointments, reporting the details when they returned home.
Mom was so impressed she made a sign that still hangs on her daughter's bedroom door. It reads: Dr. Lucille Ashford.
Dennis Ashford died in 2008. Canady-Ashford said his spirit and others' prayers helped her and Lucille through this.
When she's well, Lucille -- who studies violin at the Cleveland Music School Settlement -- intends to return to the hospital to play for her doctor.
And Al-Khatib said he plans to sit with Lucille and go over every detail of how the team at Rainbow saved the aspiring doctor's life.
Posts: 7306 | From Martinsville,VA,USA | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged |
Were all the other tests negative? I'd love to know. Not everyone gets the benefit of a biopsy.
Posts: 207 | From NH | Registered: Jul 2009
| IP: Logged |
gwb
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 7273
posted
Two things:
1. I'm thrilled she got well and they figured out she had Lyme disease.
2. I'm thrilled to know that Lyme disease is rare in Ohio. <sarcasm> Seems to be rare all over the US if you believe what the doctors tell you.
The Lyme Disease Network is a non-profit organization funded by individual donations. If you would like to support the Network and the LymeNet system of Web services, please send your donations to:
The
Lyme Disease Network of New Jersey 907 Pebble Creek Court,
Pennington,
NJ08534USA http://www.lymenet.org/
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[loco]](graemlins/loco.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic