Christopher Dew: From Immobility to Independence

For Christopher Dew, life–as he knew it–changed on December 6, 2022. The 48-year-old Vichy resident vividly remembers waking up one morning and being unable to move his legs.

“My left foot was tingling, like it had been asleep,” Christopher said. “Throughout the day, this feeling moved into my hands and legs. Within 8 hours, I was unable to bear weight on my legs and came to the Emergency Department at Phelps Health.”

After running tests and consulting with a neurologist, Christopher was eventually diagnosed with Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS). GBS is a condition in which the body’s immune system attacks the nerves, which can cause weakness, numbness or paralysis. The syndrome is rare, and the exact cause is unknown. However, two-thirds of people have symptoms of an infection in the 6 weeks before GBS symptoms begin.

“[My care team] believes that it [GBS] was due to a pretty severe gastrointestinal infection that I'd had that lasted about a month,” Christopher said. “No other major triggers around that time would've caused it.”

On December 9, Christopher’s condition worsened, and he was airlifted to a hospital in the St. Louis area. While there, he was intubated and treated with plasmapheresis (a process to obtain plasma from blood) and given intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) treatments, to help to replace items in the blood that can trigger GBS.

The Long Road to Recovery

Following a long month in the hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU), Christopher was moved to a long-term acute care facility, also in St. Louis. On February 28, he celebrated his birthday and was transferred to an inpatient rehabilitation facility.

Other recovery milestones would follow. March 15 marked his 100th day as a medical patient, fighting against an incredibly painful and crippling diagnosis. March 28 was a banner day of sorts, when he took his first real shower and could go outside in his wheelchair and enjoy the early spring sun.

Christopher finally came home on April 6, 2023, and Phelps Health Home Health continued his inpatient therapy.

“Home Health was fantastic,” he said. “Jesse was my primary physical therapist, and he was great. He helped me to move from the wheelchair to our sofa for the first time at home. That was a pretty amazing milestone.”

When Home Health had taken Christopher as far as they could, they transitioned him to Phelps Health Outpatient Therapy.

“At the time, I was still confined to a motorized wheelchair that I steered with my head,” he said. “I could barely use my arms and legs. I had to be transferred with a lift from the bed to the chair and back again. That’s when I encountered Outpatient Therapy.”

The Outpatient Therapy team worked with Christopher to increase his range of motion and strength. Specifically, they helped him use a slide board to move from the chair to the bed, to shower and more eventually.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

During his recovery, Christopher faced an additional setback.

“I had been walking for about 2 months,” he remembered. “I went to a doctor's appointment, and apparently, the bones were not strong enough. My ankle popped and down I went. We had a bit of a setback there, but everybody was great about it.”

Phelps Health Orthopedic Surgeon Sylvester Youlo, MD, FAAOS, FAAHKS, operated on Christopher’s ankle and reinforced it with a metal framework.

Today, his ankle is better than new.

“It's good,” said Christopher of his broken ankle. “The broken and repaired ankle is even stronger than the ankle I never broke. Go figure, right? And my therapist helped me quickly get back to where I had been before.”

Now, after months of outpatient therapy, he has regained his independence and is grateful for the compassionate care he received from Phelps Health.

“I apologize for getting emotional, but to say that they [Home Health and Outpatient Therapy] made an impact is an understatement,” Christopher said. “They took me from a point of being dependent and immobile to a place where I could start to walk again. In a period of about 3 months, I was walking, and they were encouraging me on the stairs. I couldn't have imagined going from being a complete invalid to this outcome. I'm very grateful.”