Woman still in pain but slowly improving

STOCKTON – West Nile virus stole a year of Gloria Torres’ life.

The 62-year-old Stockton great-grandmother has spent the past 12 months in a hospital bed, gaining strength and undergoing therapy, then facing setbacks and having to start all over again.

Torres remains in constant pain, can’t move her left leg and can’t stand on her right leg. she can’t walk to the bathroom, can’t brush her hair or teeth, and doesn’t sleep well, often waking up from a nightmare in the middle of the night crying for no explainable reason.

All this from a little mosquito bite she doesn’t even remember getting. And speaking of memory, that’s been a problem for her ever since she got sick.

She spent the first four months on a ventilator – any longer, the doctors told her family, and it would have been the only way she could have breathed for the remainder of her life.

“I just kept thinking, ‘This can’t be me. why is this happening to me?’ ” said Torres, while propped up in a wheelchair next to the bed she’s called home at north Stockton’s Windsor Elmhaven Care Center since early this year. She’s slowly improving, but it’s been a long, rocky road.

Torres came forward to tell her story because people can take precautions to avoid West Nile virus, and she doesn’t want anyone to go through what she has experienced.

She admitted the south Stockton home she is desperate to return to includes a backyard “like a jungle,” and during that summer of 2010 there were buckets of stagnant rainwater scattered about – perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

She knew then it wasn’t a good idea, but she never got around to draining the buckets. after her illness was confirmed, bug traps placed on her property by the San Joaquin County Mosquito and Vector Control District did not capture any infected mosquitoes, her family said. So it remains a mystery when she acquired the disease last September that has a three-to-14-day incubation period.

In addition to limiting breeding areas in standing water, the mother of four is adamant that her eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild be protected from mosquitoes outside during the most vulnerable hours around dawn and dusk, either with DEET-containing repellent or pants and long-sleeve shirts.

Adding to the stress of being sick for so long, Torres, a lifelong Stocktonian, has been frustrated in her attempts to make her caregivers understand her unique disease.

Her daughters, Andrea Myles and Sylvia Wong, both of Stockton, take turns caring for their mom at Windsor Elmhaven.

“My sister and I have been her advocate, her nurse,” said Myles, critical of Elmhaven because its staff is unfamiliar with a patient in Torres’ condition.

“It’s horrible. she wants to get up and use the restroom, they say go in your diaper. She’s not mobile at all, she has bed sores and drop foot. they don’t monitor her,” Myles said.

“The sad part about it is we’ve given the facility write-ups on West Nile and no one ever reads them, no one ever reads the long-term effects. it might become more and more cases in the future, so people should know about this,” she said.

Windsor Elmhaven administrator Chad Hardcastle said he was limited in what he could comment about Torres because of patient privacy, but he did say the staff has had training in dealing with someone in Torres’ condition.

“We try to meet the residents’ needs as best as we can,” Hardcastle said.

Torres and her daughters also said she has suffered setbacks in her recovery because Medi-Cal – which is covering her medical expenses – only pays for a limited number of physical-therapy sessions a month, and then Torres has to reapply through her physician for a new round of therapy. That takes from 30 to 60 days to get reinstated, during which time she does not receive therapy.

“I was doing very well with my sessions until they stopped. I’m starting right at the bottom again. I can’t put any weight on my legs. I still have muscle weakness,” Torres said.

Eighty percent of people who get bit by a mosquito infected by West Nile virus never show symptoms of the disease. About 20 percent may develop what’s called West Nile fever, a mild infection that includes fever, headache, achy body, tiredness and sometimes a skin rash, swollen glands or eye pain.

Unfortunately for Torres, she is among the 1 percent of infected people who develop serious symptoms. In many of those cases, brain swelling or inflammation known as encephalitis results, but that was not the case for Torres. she also avoided inflammation of the spinal cord. It’s possible the symptoms she has now, especially muscle weakness, could be permanent.

Torres was never a healthy person, although she was independent and able to drive and take care of herself.

“Since 7 years old, I had problems with my kidneys. after my last child was born, they told me my kidneys were gone. I had underdeveloped kidneys; they never matured,” Torres said. she started kidney dialysis three days a week in the early 1990s until a suitable donor kidney became available in June 2007. The transplant was successful, Torres no longer required dialysis and she was getting healthier and stronger.

While an organ transplant is another way to acquire West Nile virus, experts familiar with transplants say it is extremely rare and symptoms appear within the first month. Torres’ transplant was more than three years before her first virus symptoms appeared.

Contact reporter Joe Goldeen at (209) 546-8278 or jgoldeen@recordnet.com. Visit his blog at recordnet.com/goldeenblog.

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