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Health

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elleng

(137,474 posts)
Thu Feb 1, 2024, 06:55 PM Feb 2024

Well waddya know! 'She was headed to a locked psych ward. Then an ER doctor made a startling discovery. [View all]

A physician’s gut instinct about a young woman led to a diagnosis that had been overlooked for years.

The 23-year-old patient arrived in the back of a police car and was in four point restraints — hands and feet strapped to a gurney — when emergency physician Elizabeth Mitchell saw her at a Los Angeles hospital early on March 17.

Chloe R. Kral was being held on a 5150, shorthand in California for an emergency psychiatric order that allows people deemed dangerous to themselves or others to be involuntarily confined for 72 hours.

She had spent the previous six months at a private treatment center receiving care for bipolar disorder and depression. Chloe had improved and was set to move to transitional housing when she suddenly became combative and threatened to harm staff and kill herself. Police had taken her to the emergency room at Cedars-Sinai Marina del Rey Hospital before a planned transfer to a mental hospital. . .

But something indefinable — Mitchell characterized it as “maybe gut instinct” honed by nearly two decades of practice — prompted her to order a CT scan of Chloe’s head to better assess her mental status.

When she pulled up the image, Mitchell gasped. “I had never seen anything like it,” she said. She rounded up her colleagues and “made everyone in the whole ER come look.”

“I was speechless,” she said. “All I could think was ‘How did no one figure this out?’ ”

It was then that Mitchell learned about the stunning oversight that had resulted in years of needless anguish for Chloe and her family.. .

Her mother, who practices yoga, thought it might boost her daughter’s mood. But she noticed that Chloe seemed wobbly, even in basic positions with her hands and knees flat on the floor. Her unsteadiness was the latest of physical changes that had begun in early adolescence. She tended to veer to one side when she walked, bumping into whoever was beside her. Sometimes she tripped climbing stairs. Although Chloe had been a good skier, around age 13 she fell more frequently and ultimately gave up the sport.

“Throughout high school I did have issues of not being able to walk in a straight line,” Chloe recalled. “It became sort of a joke.”

She also fainted periodically. In early 2018 she was taken by ambulance to an ER after fainting; no cause was found. When Alison followed up with the pediatrician, she said the doctor’s response was “Some people faint a lot.” . .

Beginning in the summer of 2020, Alison noticed that Chloe sometimes dragged her right foot when the pair took walks.

By fall, Chloe was spending her days on the living room sofa, inert. She forgot to bathe or brush her teeth. Once she urinated on herself while riding in her mother’s car. Her parents consulted a second psychiatrist who told them she needed to be hospitalized. In September she was admitted to a facility that provided intensive psychotherapy.

Stunning omission
Mitchell’s first call to Alison from the ER was brief. Her daughter was being evaluated, the doctor said, before her transfer to a psychiatric hospital an hour away.

Less than two hours later she phoned again with bombshell news. Chloe had a life-threatening condition that Mitchell characterized as “the most severe case of hydrocephalus I’ve ever seen.” She needed brain surgery as soon as it could be scheduled and was being sent to the neuro-ICU at Cedars-Sinai.

Hydrocephalus, popularly known as “water on the brain,” is caused by the accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid in cavities known as ventricles. Spinal fluid, which cushions the brain, is critically important to a wide variety of brain functions. Excess fluid was compressing the brain’s frontal lobes — responsible for memory, decision-making and emotion — against the inside of Chloe’s skull because it could not be reabsorbed. Without treatment, hydrocephalus, which can be present at birth or occur later in life, can cause brain damage, coma or death.

Alison had never heard of hydrocephalus. And Chloe, she told Mitchell, had never undergone brain imaging.'>>>

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/02/12/medical-mystery-mental-facility-ct-scan/

WOW! How awful for her! How lucky for ME! Another C.T. scan next week, so Doc can determine if rate of drain into my shunt is good, and Physical Therapy will follow.






33 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Good news stories,so important. Get well soon Chloe. n/t SheilaAnn Feb 2024 #1
Thank you for posting this LetMyPeopleVote Feb 2024 #2
I'm in the mental health field and strongly believe Phoenix61 Feb 2024 #3
Darned if I know! elleng Feb 2024 #6
my youngest mopinko Feb 2024 #13
I was just thinking about this today! When I get manic it feels as if my BODY is speeding Maraya1969 Feb 2024 #21
there's so much we dont know. mopinko Feb 2024 #24
That was absolutely the first question that popped into my mind. Susan Calvin Feb 2024 #25
Excellent point Phoenix. People jump to conclusions and then stick by them no matter what evidence counters that view. Martin68 Feb 2024 #26
I'm glad you're being taken care by compentant doctors, elleng! 70sEraVet Feb 2024 #4
Thanks. Really good folks, it's their specialty, elleng Feb 2024 #8
How awful. Fuc**** doctors just dismissed her. Utter incompetence. 58Sunliner Feb 2024 #5
Thank goodness for Dr. Mitchell. democrank Feb 2024 #7
That's all well and good to find the Hydro, but why did she have hydrocephalus? Stenosis? tumor? why? and mitch96 Feb 2024 #9
'An MRI scan determined that Chloe's hydrocephalus was caused by aqueductal stenosis, elleng Feb 2024 #11
What happened? I cannot read the entire story, I am not a member of the Washington Post. Escurumbele Feb 2024 #10
Diagnosed with hydrocephalus, caused by elleng Feb 2024 #12
Gift link here: spooky3 Feb 2024 #16
Thanks. lamp_shade Feb 2024 #29
Wow. Its amazing how some are not looked at properly Srkdqltr Feb 2024 #14
Oh goodness! elleng Feb 2024 #17
That happened with my mom BittyJenkins Feb 2024 #15
and we ALL thank YOU so much, elleng Feb 2024 #20
Remember, these are the same people that the police are going to ask "Was this a natural miscarriage or an abortion?" ck4829 Feb 2024 #18
When I'm President or dictator for a day ... usonian Feb 2024 #19
I found out at 65 years old that I don't have a right Delmette2.0 Feb 2024 #22
WOW! elleng Feb 2024 #23
I'm so glad this was caught and hope Chloe ends up OK sdfernando Feb 2024 #27
Friend of mine fainting a lot and falling every week. Grins Feb 2024 #31
OMG Grins sdfernando Feb 2024 #33
Assuming she doesn't have health insurance. Nowadays, docs order MRIs for just about any pain. Glad she's getting care. Silent Type Feb 2024 #28
When my youngest son was a teen appleannie1 Feb 2024 #30
What most people don't realize is that there is limited space inside the skull tornado34jh Feb 2024 #32
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