Local resident endures sudden paralysis with rare disorder

Gainesville resident Karl Thaning started his day Dec. 14 like any other, totally unaware that by the end of the night he would be unable to move any part of his body from the neck down. The temporary paralysis is a result of a rare neurological disorder, Guillain-Barre syndrome, which Karl contracted while recovering from another illness in early December. 

The mysterious disorder, which affects one in 100,000 people, caused Karl to be admitted to Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis for 10 days to undergo extensive treatment, followed by more than month at the Rehabili-tation Institute of St. Louis. He was released from the rehab center Feb. 1, and he is now recovering at home with his wife, Sonya, by his side. 

Karl has regained feeling and mobility in some parts of his body; however, he is still paralyzed from his knees to his toes and from his elbows through his fingers. It’s unclear when he might regain the feeling in his extremities or be able to walk. Medical personnel have told him it might be as long as six months to a year from now.

Without medical insurance and unable to operate the couple’s food truck, Fried & Frozen, the financial burden of the past two months has weighed heavily on the Thanings. Now the community is rallying around the couple to help raise money to offset the expenses. 

‘I knew right then something was wrong’

It was early December when Karl started feeling sick. 

“He came down with the stomach bug,” Sonya told the Times. “He was in bed, not feeling well, for a few days. He doesn’t willingly go to the doctor. You just about have to drag him there.”

So it wasn’t unusual for Karl to stay home, rest and try to get over the illness on his own. But when Karl’s hands went numb one day, the Thanings began to worry.

 “He tried to squeeze my hand – and couldn’t,” Sonya said. “He had lost all the feeling in his hands. I thought he was probably dehydrated from being sick and he needed fluids.”

Sonya took Karl to an urgent care clinic, where he was given anti-nausea medicine and sent home to rest and recover. Three days after visiting the urgent care clinic, Karl walked to the family’s pantry to get something for Sonya – and fell flat on the floor.

“I knew right then something was wrong. In 28 years of marriage, I’d never seen the man fall,” Sonya said. “I got him up and into a chair, then into the car and down to Baxter [Regional Medical Center in Mountain Home, Arkansas].”

By the time they got to the hospital’s emergency room, Karl could barely walk. The Thanings recounted to a doctor the details of the stomach illness, the hand numbness and the unexplained fall. Karl was given IV fluids to help with dehydration, and the doctor told the Thanings that he would prescribe a different anti-nausea medication that might be better suited for his upset stomach. He said they should go home and return if things got worse.

Sonya, whose gut instinct told her there was more to the story than just a virus, wasn’t satisfied with that recommendation and pressed the doctor to keep digging. 

“We weren’t going home… maybe to another emergency room in Springfield, but we weren’t going home. I mean, how much worse did it need to be? He could barely walk,” she said. 

Sonya didn’t have to press the issue for very long, because Karl’s temperature soon spiked to over 105 degrees.

“Everyone started flipping out. They all covered their faces in masks and put on gloves,” Sonya said. “They thought he had viral meningitis.”

Karl was given a spinal tap, and the staff told the Thanings they had called in a special doctor to see him.

The spinal tap results showed more protein and white blood cells than normal in Karl’s spinal fluid, a condition that can relate to viral meningitis, among other diseases and disorders. But Sonya still wasn’t convinced Karl had viral meningitis. 

 “I knew that wasn’t what it was. I’d been living with him, in the same house, sleeping in the same bed. If he had it, wouldn’t I have it too?” she said.

Soon after the test results came back, the new physician, Dr. Daniel Valach, arrived. Clad in camouflage scrubs, with a thick Czechoslovakian accent and notably missing the face mask all the other healthcare professionals had on, Sonya said she wondered just who they were dealing with. 

“I’m like, really? Is this really our doctor?” she said, laughing. “He’s an interesting guy, and we owe him so much. He asked us if we thought he would have been in the room without a face mask if he thought it was viral meningitis. Obviously not, so he had already ruled that out.”

Dr. Valach suspected Guillain-Barré syndrome and told the Thanings that temporary paralysis was likely. 

“He said if the paralysis got to Karl’s lungs, it might be the end for him,” Sonya said. 

He emphasized that time was often a critical factor, and he called for a helicopter to transport Karl immediately to Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. The aircraft declined the call due to weather issues. So Karl was loaded into an ambulance immediately for the rushed trip to St. Louis. Sonya hurried back to the couple’s home in Gainesville to grab clothes and other personal items and then set out to meet Karl in the St. Louis hospital. 

A diagnosis and treatment

By the time Karl got to Barnes Jewish hospital, he was paralyzed from the neck down. A medical team began a flurry of tests, including seven more spinal taps. The results confirmed what Dr. Valach suspected, Karl did have Guiliain-Barre syndrome.

Although experts do not know exactly what causes GBS, it is apparent that the immune system mistakenly attacks part of the nervous system during an illness. The attack in Karl’s body led to nerve inflammation, including damage to the nerve root, which caused paralysis in almost all of his body. Luckily, the paralysis did not affect Karl’s lungs, a common side effect that leads many GBS patients to rely on a ventilator and tracheotomy for survival. 

Sonya slept by Karl’s side, first in a hospital recliner and later in an empty bed in Karl’s room. She needed to be there to help him with everything since he couldn’t move. Things as small as scratching his face when it itched was impossible without help. The disorder soon attacked his muscles, which eroded away at a rapid pace. 

“In a matter of days, his forearms went from looking normal to looking like those of an 80-year-old,” Sonya said. 

His treatment in Barnes Jewish hospital included five sessions of a plasma exchange, which medical personnel referred to as “liquid gold.”

“I bet it’ll be liquid gold when I get the bill too,” said Sonya, who hasn’t lost her sense of humor throughout the stressful ordeal. 

After 10 days of intensive treatment in the hospital, Karl had regained mobility in his midsection and back and was transferred from Barnes Jewish to the Rehabilitation Institute of St. Louis. Sonya came along with him, sleeping on an air mattress next to his bed and helping to care for him the entire time. 

The Thanings spent Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day and Sonya’s birthday in St. Louis at either the hospital or the rehab center. 

“On Christmas Day, we didn’t want to eat hospital food, and there was only one restaurant open. So guess what we had for Christmas dinner: Jack-in-the-box,” Sonya said. “But you know what? That’s OK. We were just taking it one day at a time.” 

Looking to the future

Karl was released from the rehab center on Feb. 1, and Sonya brought him home the same day. Since he can’t move his arms from his elbows through his hands and can’t move  his legs from his  knees through his feet, Sonya is still by his side to help with most everyday tasks including bathing, eating and getting him to the bathroom. Sonya says he still wakes up four or five times a night in pain, despite being on a lot of different medication. 

To move him, Sonya says she sits Karl on the edge of the bed, and they work together to do a transfer to a chair. Although he can’t stand or use his calves or feet, Karl now has enough strength in his thighs to push his body up with those muscles for a fraction of a second, enough time for Sonya to help hold him and spin him into a nearby chair. They can then move the chair to different places in the house. He currently sleeps and spends most of his time lying in a hospital bed in the couple’s living room. Sonya is always right by his side. 

“I spent so many nights on that air mattress, I swore I’d never sleep on it again. But guess where I’m at? On the air mattress next to him,” Sonya said, laughing again. “I just can’t sleep in the bed with him out in the living room.”

Karl is expected to regain complete mobility, although he may never fully recover physically to the state he was in before he contracted GBS. The timeline for recovery is very individualized, but doctors say it will likely be six months to a year before Karl can walk again. 

Sonya said that the medical bills have started to come in, and the bills from Baxter Regional Medical Center and the Rehabilitation Center of St. Louis already exceed $78,000. They have not received the medical bill from Barnes Jewish Hospital yet. 

Currently three fundraisers have been organized to help raise money for the Thanings. The Ozark County Sheriff’s Department is raffling off a crossbow, Gainesville resident Kasey McKee is organizing a taco salad lunch and an online Go Fund Me page has been setup to accept financial donations (see sidebar, above, for details). 

Sonya said the Thanings are overwhelmed by the community support they’ve received, and they say they are looking to the future and relying on their faith. 

“It’s really what’s pulling us through this, our faith in God,” Sonya said. “And the support of all our friends.”