Brain Swelling Medical Mystery Solved

Author Dr. Lisa Sanders Tells How Hospital Intern Helped Bring Woman Back from Two-Month Coma

(CBS)  "The Early Show"'s kicked off its "Medical Mysteries" series Thursday. It's based on the book, "Every Patient Tells a Story: Medical Mysteries and the Art of Diagnosis," by Dr. Lisa Sanders.

Sanders, the inspiration for the television drama "House M.D." shared on the broadcast the story of one woman's mysterious brain illness.

Amanda Bolstridge, who works 80 hour weeks during harvest time at a broccoli farm in northern Maine, looks like the picture of health now. But just two years ago, she was near death.

Vicky Bolstridge, Amanda's mother, told CBS News, "She kept saying there's something wrong, my head feels funny. There's something wrong in my head."

Amanda was having terrible migraines and mood swings so violent her mother had to take her to the emergency room. After being sent to hospital after hospital Amanda was diagnosed with encephalitis, a swelling of her brain.

Amanda eventually slipped into a coma.

Vicky said, "Just thinking about it I want to cry. Because we came so close."

Amanda was transferred to the neurology intensive care unit at world-renowned Massachusetts General Hospital.

First year OB-GYN resident Dr. Rachel Clark was assigned to her case.

"She was a mystery," Clark said. "Nothing exactly pointed to anything until they had this scan."

A computerized axial tomography (CAT) scan revealed a small cyst on Amanda's left ovary. Clark showed the results to attending OB-GYN Dr. Rebecca Kolp.

Kolp diagnosed Amanda's cyst as a teratoma. Teratomas can form virtually any tissue or organ in the body -- often growing teeth and hair. But was there a connection between this cyst and the swelling in Amanda's brain?

Kolp said, "We think we know everything in medicine and we think we've figured so many things out and yet there's still a lot of mysteries out there."

In Amanda's case, doctors believed her teratoma might actually be making brain cells which her immune system recognized as foreign. Could the antibodies in Amanda's system be attacking not only the growing brain cells in her cyst, but also her brain?

Clark recommended the cyst be removed.

Clark said, "I was kind of embarrassed actually to bring it up to the team because I was like, "Oh God, I'm the new intern, and they're going to think I'm insane that I want to take this girl to the OR(operating room)."

Kolp agreed surgery was the only option -- her left ovary was removed that day.

"The odds I was right were terrible," Kolp said.

The next morning Amanda was still in a coma. Clark was disappointed until Kolp gave her a call.

Rachel said, "She was like, 'Rachel you're not going to believe this. You need to get up here now.'"

Amanda's mother said, "When I walked in she was sitting on the edge of the bed, one leg over the railing and she was going home."

After two months in a coma, Amanda was back.

Kolp said, "It was really one of the greatest moments of my career, because it's really like bringing somebody back, and something I never ever would have dreamed that I would have been involved in."

Rachel added, "Yeah it was a cool day."

Sanders said on "The Early Show" the medical field is always learning, often through these mystery cases.

"When I went to medical school, my very first day on medical school, the dean said toll of us, 50 percent of what we're going to teach you in the next four years is wrong," she said. "Unfortunately, we don't know which half. Because we don't know it yet. The doctor is right. Mysteries are happening all the time. We think that medicine is this set body of knowledge. But we're adding to it all the time. New diseases, new treatments."

Amanda's story and her new book, Sanders said, are reminders to the medical community to listen to their patients. Also, Sanders said, patients need to feel free to speak to their doctors about their health.

"I think that patients are afraid to tell their stories. Doctors don't give them any indication that their story is important," she said. "And yet it's clear that up to 80 percent, sometimes 90 percent of cases are diagnosed based on the patient's history, the story they have to tell and what's happened to them before."

Sanders said you should tell the story you've been telling to your family members and friends about your health.

"In (that story) is important information," she said.

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Read an excerpt of "Every Patient Tells a Story"

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Sanders originally reported Amanda Bowlstridge's story for her monthly "Diagnosis" column in the New York Times Magazine. Bowlstridge's story is not included in Sanders' new book.

[dawndance]

I just got out of the hospital today. The left side of my brain was trying to go to sleep several days ago and I had, and still do at times, have tingling on the left side of my body. They did all kinds of tests for stroke, heart, etc. I told them it had something to do with the vaginal or bowel area. They didn't think it could be from that. Even when the internist finally did check, and they have now found a benign tumor on my left ovary, they said it couldn't be causing my memory loss and brain wipeouts, even when I came home today, tumor still on. I was still mentally wiping out when they sent me home. I thought I was going to die. I can't move around much and I start getting memory loss, etc. and I feel like I am going to have a stroke or something. The tumor is also pressing on my bowels. I didn't hear this story of the woman with the cyst and coma till after... this has happened to me and the doctors should of known about it before me? I will not be able to see a gynescologist till the end of next month, Oct. and don't know how long after that it will take before she removes it. Will I die or go into a coma? Will I be lucky and make it till they get around to it. I have told my family to read this article so if anything does happen...THEY...can tell the doctors what's wrong with me if I am unable to speak. For right now I just have to keep praying I will make it.

[gramto8]

I can fully agree with most, if not all, that has been written in the posts thus far. My health care provider keeps quoting 'statistics' to me when I ask for pain meds for my multiple painful conditions. I have both psoriatic and osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, and a total of seven herniated or bulging spinal discs. They only read the books and then expect everyone to fit the book image. It just doesn't work that way. Every patient should be treated as what they are, an individual.

[narosis]

You have GOT to be kidding me?? You vilify the illness when actually the sloppy **** poor diagnostic practices of the heath WITHHOLDING care system that are actually to blame. Please explain to me why any individual anywhere in the world, especially the self proclaimed greatest country in the world, would have to suffer through multiple visits to doctors to not only be met with the reason malpractice insurance is a requirement, but DISBELIEF as well?? The American Medical Association [AMA] should not only feel shame for allowing those who seem to pale in comparison as less than facsimiles of what the general public has been lead to believe they should be but for allowing their omnipotent complex to be general practice because the aforementioned complex is the very reason people are misdiagnosed. How dare you put these people on pedestals after they've supposedly found some mystery disease when first of all it shouldn't have been a mystery, especially since it was proven the techniques & technology exists to diagnose the issue. How dare you make it seem as doctors are godlike when they lack the imagination it takes to take a person at their word no matter how improbable a situation may seem. How dare you praise those who shame the doctors of days long made history who at least went the extra mile to see that those that sought out their help and guidance, went away knowing their trust was well placed in an individual who had their CARE at heart & in mind rather than their BOTTOM LINE / paycheck(S). you are vilifying the wrong things indeed. you need to vilify the practices of these less than competent "health care wanna be's" as with all their knowledge of the human body, with all their technology, they will never be doctors in the true sense of the word simply because they lack the capacity to utilize their full potential for the true benefit of others.

I speak from experience. I've been to the emergency rooms of some 7 or 8 hospitals across 5 states and 6 counties only to be met with disbelief. So needlessly I die due to statistics. Yes STATISTICS, I have been told, on more than half of my hospital visits, "What you claim only happens in 8% of the population." How dare you glorify doctors and those who govern them when they don't believe the times as statistics change.

[mike007229]

I have a medical mystery of my own, and absolutely no one will take me seriously! It's been 2 years since I have seen a medical doctor. This started 3 years ago, I was told that such a condition does not exist and not even one doctor has taken a look to see whether it does or not. I have lost my job because of this and my insurance of course went with the job. I have sold my house and land which was paid for, not to mention 95% of my personal belongings, all becaue no one will even look to see if there is a real problem. Amazing! I now have the proof I need, this is unequivicably real, but I have no access to a doctor with out a job or insurance. I can absolutely proove what does not exist does! What do I do?

[Jewelia59]

I want to add that a close friend of mine died August 25th from a aortic rupture due to HER EHLERS DANLOS SYNDROME (EDS). She went to Three different emergency rooms complaining of terribly high blood pressures, and all of the doctors were dismissive, and told her she had anxiety.
EDS is very serious, and VERY misunderstood.

[Jewelia59]

I'm diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS) and as a result have cervical/cranial instability and many other health problems as a result. Not even the Cleveland Clinic will take me seriously when I tell MY STORY. I often speak with a friend from California who has the same problems, and we both can't believe more isn't known about EDS, or the many different problems it can cause because doctors won't look outside the box. Dr. Brad Tinkle from Cincinnati Diagnosed the EDS, and when I went to the NIH study on EDS, Dr. Nazli McDonnell confirmed classical EDS last year in April. The cervical/cranial instability can't be seen well on MRIs, therefore it must not exist even though I can feel my head subluxate off my neck. With an enlarged vertebral artery on the right making up for the missing one on the left, the poor vascular tone from EDS, and the instability make a bad combination. Docs won't listen to my story......Were considered to be overly dramatic. One neurologist at the CC has agreed to watch my neuro symptoms, but that's all I have right now. The orthopedic surgeon was dismissive and rude. See www.ndrf.org

[4teamster2]

I wish you would do show on NPH my wife was misdiagnosed by 4 doctors before I heard about a story Readers digest I found DR jeff Chen in Portland OR PS before that I had 3 years of Hell