Many of you that live in Central Texas have probably seen reports of the 12 year old boy that died 3 weeks ago from amebic meningitis and of the 22 year old that recently died from the same condition this last week. I’m the 12 year olds father or should I say was his father. Jack participated in 3 kids tri’s a few years back and I’ve been involved off and on for the last 10 years. Both my son and the young man from Lubbock, Texas died after swimming in Lake LBJ, however local and State officials are doing little if anything to prevent another death. My post is not for sympathy, but rather to beg you not to swim in that lake or at least take simple precautions such as using a nose clip. I dropped my son off at camp on a beautiful Sunday morning and buried him 4 weeks later. I watched my vibrant son become brain dead in the span of 5 days. Florida has had similar cases but they are very proactive the use of warning signs, etc.
This is very sad. My condolences to you and your family.
I’m very sorry to hear that. I heard this story on the news… small world I guess.
Perhaps you can educate us a bit about amebic meningitis? Symptoms, ways to contract, treatments - if any…
I read this as well. I can not imagine your grief right now - I am so sorry.
Thank you for taking the time to post/warn others. I sense this is what you want to come out of this trajedy.
So sorry to hear about your son. Sending (((hugs)))
Thank you to those that have responded. Simply put, I would not wish what I saw my son go through on my worst enemy. At one time he had 17 different types of drugs, fluids, etc going into his body through a main line, IV’s, Art lines, ventilater, catheter, etc.
Amebic Meningitis can only be contracted in the following way: freshwater above 80 degrees, inhaled through the nose, typically in stagnent or slow moving water. It is extremely rare, only 200 reported cases in the last 40 years in the US. Reported is the key word because it has probably killed many others, but not diagnosed correctly because it is so rare. The doctor on duty at Dell Childrens Hospital had seen two cases, which is rarety in itself, most MDs will go a lifetime without seeing a case. Anywhere between 4-10 have lived, but the data on that is hard to come by. The few that made it were diagnosed very early on. The fact that 2 young men have lost their lives after swimming Lake LBJ in the last month with virtually no action by local and/or State authorities is criminal. I have to think that the powers that be are more interested in renting jet ski’s and selling beer than keeping the water safe, but maybe I’m just a little more cynical that I was only weeks ago.
Lastly, my son donated his organs, so that other might live. His mother and I walked away from our clinically dead son while they kept him techically alive for 22 hours until they could harvest his lungs, pancreas, liver and kidneys.
Please, I beg you all, keep out of water that meet the criteria above.
A couple of more items: the symptoms are the same for all types of Meningitis: fever, head ache, nausea/vomiting, lathargic behavior and most importantly a stiff or sore neck.
I have to tell you that my son was not a great triathlete, maybe the worst swimmer I’ve ever seen, but he loved being a part of it and training with me. He was a very good basketball player and a fantastic lacrosse player. I was lucky enough to coach him in lacrosse and football.
Wow, a dad’s worst nightmare…outliving a child. Thank you for passing on the warning to the community. We hope that you and your wife are coping as best as you can. All the best.
sincerely
Dev
I’m actually moving downstream from Lake LBJ to Lake Travis, so this is particularly concerning… it’s disturbing to hear that local authorities haven’t done anything to address this.
Thanks for educating us. Your family is in my thoughts.
My most heartfelt condolences to you and your family
We have had 2 cases in Florida this summer
I came across this column in sports illustrated last week. I promise the gifts from your son will have as much meaning as expressed in this piece. As an MD, I have seen it, but never have seen it as well expressed as in this column. I imagine Reilly is still wiping the tears from his keyboard, as I am from mine.
Peace
Getting a Second Wind
Posted: Thursday September 6, 2007 11:02AM; Updated: Thursday September 6, 2007 11:02AM
One day five years ago bubbly, gorgeous soccer goalie Korinne Shroyer came home from eighth grade, found her father’s revolver in his closet and fired a bullet into her skull.
This is about the lives she saved doing it.
Out of a million kids you’d pick Korinne last to commit suicide. She was a popular kid in her class in Lynchburg, Va. But then she started feeling sad for no reason. Her parents took her to a therapist, who recommended Paxil. But one worry with Paxil is that it can give teenagers suicidal thoughts when they first start taking it. Korinne made it through 10 days.
That bullet tore a hole in her father, Kevin, that you could drive an 18-wheeler through. Korinne was Kevin’s best friend, the kid who would Rollerblade with him as he ran for hours, the kid who’d come with him to Orioles games and chat with him until his ears hurt. “I used to run all the time,” says Kevin Shroyer, 46. “I loved it because it gave me time to think. But , thinking was the last thing I wanted to do.”
Kevin, an investigator in the public defender’s office, and his wife, Kristie, a hairstylist, were able to think one clear and brave and terrifying thought during the six days Korinne survived after the shooting. They decided to send out her organs like gifts.
Her green eyes would go in one direction, her glad heart another, her kidneys still another. Her liver and her pancreas went somewhere else, and her two good lungs – the ones that played the saxophone – went to a Gainesville, Ga., man named Len Geiger, who was so close to dying that he was practically pricing caskets.
A runner and swimmer and nonsmoker, Geiger suddenly found one day that he only had enough breath for walking or talking, not both. Turns out he had genetic emphysema, also known as Alpha-1, and a lung transplant was his only hope for survival.
He was on his fifth year on the waiting list and “life wasn’t worth living,” he says, when Korinne pulled the trigger. Geiger received those two young lungs six days later in an operation at the University of Virginia Medical Center.
And that’s where this story gets good.
Geiger, now 48, went from 15% lung function to way above average for his age. He got his second wind and his second life. He was so grateful, he wrote Korinne’s parents to say thank you. And that letter changed everybody’s lives.
Korinne’s parents wrote back, and Geiger asked to meet, and next thing you knew Geiger was at a bittersweet gathering that became soaked with every kind of tears.
The Shroyers and their other daughter, Kolby, now 16, gave Geiger a photo album of the girl whose life was now inside him. “She starts out as this beautiful baby,” Geiger says. “Then she’s a little girl in a Halloween costume. Then a gorgeous teenager. And then the pictures just stop. It was the saddest thing I’ve ever experienced.”
Hours later the group was parting when Kristie said, “Len? Can I ask you a favor?” She walked over and stood before him.
“Anything,” Geiger said.
“Can I put my hands on your chest for just a second?”
And she stood there, crying, as she felt her dead daughter breathe.
Kevin started to run again. And someone had a great idea. Why didn’t he and Len run together? So they did. They ran an 8K together, step for step, next to each other. One man’s overflowing joy coming straight from the other’s bottomless sorrow.
That whole run, Kevin never shut up. It was so unlike him that, at the end, Geiger asked him, “Why?”
“I had to,” Kevin admitted, “because every time there was silence, I could hear Korinne breathing.”
Next they ran a half marathon, then a full one. By then, though, the steroids that Geiger had taken for years just to stay alive had damaged most of his joints, and he was running on two artificial hips. The best he could do was race-walk. At the 17-mile mark his hips were screaming. But he refused to quit.
It took them six hours and 25 minutes – with Shroyer matching him step by agonizing step – but they finished, hands clasped together, the three of them.
Kevin and Kristie aren’t whole yet, but they’re getting on with their lives. Geiger, meanwhile, is relishing his. He met a woman, Christina, married her, and they named their first baby after Korinne – Ava Corinne. Sometimes he stares at her, awed. “I know that without Korinne, I’m not here today and neither is Ava Corinne.”
Sometimes life just takes your breath away, doesn’t it?
Thank you for the story from SI, I had not seen it before. As you would expect I cried again, but thats become the norm for me, the guy that never cries. Sorry for all the posts, but it feels like the thing to do at this time. I’m so lucky that we spent 5 days together in Washington DC where he was born, just a couple of days before we drove him to summer camp. Just the two of us. We went to an Orioles and Nationals game. Toured the Capital and had a private tour of the West Wing of the White House. But mostly we just walked around and talked. Funny thing; he often would hold my hand as we walked around. Not typical of a 12 year old boy, but maybe…I don’t know, he knew his time was limited?
My condolences to you and your family. I can not begin to imagine your pain.
Sorry to hear this. My prayers are with you and your family.
my deepest condolences to you and yours.
God speed Jack.
My families prayers go out to your family.
Dave
My thoughts and prayers go out to you and your family. I just became a father for the first time yesterday afternoon and can’t imagine what you must be going through. Another little reminder to all of us of how precious life is and that we can’t afford to not live it to the fullest.
No words except thanks for the warning, the girlfriend and I just this morning made the decision to stay out of the lake where we had been doing long swims. I’d read about the Florida cases, but had not run across the particular description that you quoted of the bodies of water most at risk. Thanks again for thinking of others.
Wow. I can not even begin to image what you and your family are going through right now. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Our most heartfelt condolences to you and your family.
I cannot begin to imagine your pain. May God give you and your family strength.
My prayers are with you and your family.