It was March 28, 2018 when then 21 year old Mary Salas woke up with her right hand feeling numb.
As the day progressed, the numbing sensation would not fade. In fact, it only grew worse. The feeling had started to climb up to her elbow. Mary started to panic, so she called 8-1-1 to speak to a nurse, and they advised Mary to go to the emergency room.
As she sat in the waiting room of her local hospital, the numbing sensation spread all the way up to her shoulder. Then it went down to her right leg.
After this moment, Mary doesn’t remember much — an image of a doctor, Mary groggily walking down a hospital hall, a CT scan. Then, another doctor telling her she was being transferred to VGH.
Even though Mary was in and out of consciousness, she vividly remembers the worry in that doctor’s eyes.
Saving Mary with all aspects of VGH’s neurocritical care program
“When Mary first presented on the ward, she started having seizures because of how inflamed her brain was,” says Dr. Myp Sekhon, Neurointensivist at VGH.
It took all aspects of the neurocritical care team at VGH to care for Mary: Neuro-radiologists conducted MRI scans, neurosurgeons implanted the donor-funded Brain Bolt — a cutting-edge brain monitoring device that feeds back vital second-to-second brain health information to the medical teams. The epilepsy team performed brain scans for the neurointensivists in ICU, all while neurologists worked on determining the cause.
A day later, they had their answer — Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis, a rare auto-immune disease. Mary’s immune system was mistakenly attacking healthy nerve coatings in her brain.
Getting Mary’s health back on track
Mary was put on chemotherapy medications to stop her immune system from functioning. The medical team also utilized a PLEX machine that would remove blood from her body, take out any antibodies, then reinfuse it back in.
It worked. And Mary woke up three weeks later, unaware how close she was to the brink of death.
Returning to normal life 
On May 15 — a day after her 22nd birthday — Mary was discharged from hospital, happy and healthy.
“It’s changed me a whole lot,” says Mary. “I am so thankful for the care I received at VGH. And I realized that you really have to cherish the time that you have here.”
Join us in funding vital equipment such as the Brain Bolt and help save lives like Mary’s. Learn more at vghfoundation.ca/brain
