By Sarah Lake
Editor
Jim Alderson
As a media representative, it is my duty to keep my personal life out of this publication and its content, remaining completely objective on all issues researched and reported by our staff.
However, a recent spike in West Nile Virus cases compels me to ensure that our readers understand how devastating exposure to this disease can be. Nine years ago this month, my family watched my strong, active 66-year-old grandfather die of West Nile Virus, which he contracted from a mosquito bite.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, as of Sept. 11, 48 states have reported WNV infections in people, birds, or mosquitoes. A total of 2,636 cases have been reported in people, including 118 deaths. This is the highest number of cases reported through the second week of September since 2003, when my grandfather died.
In Maryland, 25 human cases and two deaths have been reported to the CDC. A 65-year-old Wicomico County man contracted the disease in mid-July.
The virus is still spreading, and we’re not quite out of mosquito season yet.
The summer of 2003 was an usually wet season for Maryland. According to the National Climatic Data Center, by the end of 2003 Maryland had broken its previous record for precipitation. The constant rain was good for the area, especially since it had undergone a major drought the year before. However, this heavy wetness provided the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes.
My grandparents, Jim and Maryanne Alderson, lived in a heavily-wooded area in Chestertown. In the summer of 2003, they decided to remove about 10 trees from their yard. They hired a company to come in and clear out the trees and the underbrush. Jim – also affectionately known as Big Jim, Mr. Jim, The Boss, and Archie – couldn’t help remove the trees due to his rheumatoid arthritis. That did not stop him, however, from overseeing the process.
Jim liked to supervise. He sometimes watched me wash my car to make sure I was doing it correctly, which was really annoying. But that’s beside the point.
Throughout that process of tree removal, he spent a great deal of time outside with no bug spray.
“He always said he grew up on a farm all his life and he didn’t need bug spray,” Maryanne said. “He said that bugs didn’t bother him.”
Maryanne also said she remembers that summer’s influx of mosquitoes.
“I remember when I would go outside to clean the windows, the mosquitoes would just swarm around me,” she said.
Somewhere between the tree removal, and Jim’s nightly ritual of enjoying a good cigar and a glass of scotch in his yard, he was bitten by an infected mosquito.
When he contracted the virus, Jim was on two immunosuppressant medications for his RA. Just four months earlier, he’d been on a third medication. He stood no chance against the virus, which was still a somewhat new phenomenon at the time.
On Aug. 24, 2003, Jim began to complain that he didn’t feel good. He had a temperature of 102. The next day, he went to his doctor, who sent him to the emergency room. The doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with him and ruled it to be a bad case of the flu. Jim went home, but by Tuesday at 6 a.m., his temperature was 105 and he was delirious. Maryanne called a neighbor to help dress him and get him to the hospital. She later said the thought that he would not be returning home never crossed her mind.
Jim was not immediately diagnosed. In fact, his first WNV test came back negative; but he just kept getting worse and the doctors were dumbfounded. Maryanne had him transported to the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore on Aug. 27.
A second WNV test was conducted, and it would take four weeks for it to come back positive. Jim was on a downward spiral. He had meningoencephalitis, or severe swelling of the brain, and acute flaccid paralysis. His brain began to slowly shut itself down. He could not talk because of respirator tubes in his nose and throat, and communicated with doctors and family members by blinking his eyes. The doctors told Maryanne he’d sustained too much brain damage and the most she could ever hope for was that Jim would one day sit up on his own. He would never walk, talk, eat on his own, or go to the bathroom on his own ever again.
Jim had a living will that very specifically stated this was not the way he wanted to live. Maryanne had a difficult decision to make. She could either have the doctors put in a feeding tube and check Jim into a nursing home, or she could pull his tubes and let him die. She decided to ask him directly what he wanted and, although he was still communicating by blinking, he clearly wanted to go home. The hospital made Maryanne go before an ethics committee, which is basically a board of lawyers who examined the living will and decided whether this was a situation in which to enforce it. They ruled in Maryanne’s favor, and on Sept. 23, Jim was checked into a hospice in Centreville, just 15 minutes from the couple’s Chestertown home. His family and their pastor remained at his side.
On the morning of Sept. 26, 33 days after Jim got sick, the family stepped outside for a break at the insistence of Jim’s nurse. By the time they returned, he was gone. It was almost as if he was waiting for them to leave the room; and if that’s the case, he died just as stubbornly as he had lived.
He left behind his wife of 45 years, five grown children, nine grandchildren, and his dog, PJ, who died soon thereafter.
Absolutely nothing could have helped my grandfather. There are still no vaccines or treatment for WNV. About 80 percent of people who are infected with WNV do not know it and never will. Less than 1 percent develops inflammation of the brain similar to what killed my grandfather. Permanent brain damage and death caused by WNV is rare; but just like anything else, it can happen. Children and the elderly are especially susceptible to serious complications due to un-developed or weak immune systems, respectively.
WNV is not something that simply happens to other people. Protect yourselves and your family members. Wear bug spray, get rid of standing water, and have your yard sprayed. You have the opportunity to be cautious and informed – Jim Alderson did not.
