When 30-year-old Guadalajara driving instructor Edgar Gonzalez inexplicably became paralyzed three days after Christmas, “doctors initially told me it was due to diabetes,” he said. His legs were affected first.
Gonzalez’s family embarked on a panic-stricken search for information. Paralysis quickly spread so completely that Gonzalez was breathing with a ventilator and being fed through a tube.
“He was in the neurological unit of the IMSS Medical Center,” said Gonzalez’s older brother Enrique, a bank executive. “They detected Guillain-Barre syndrome immediately.”
“We talked with the unit’s director. They were going to treat Edgar with intravenous hemoglobin and the director said it was difficult to get this expensive medication for all 17 patients at the hospital who were suffering this syndrome. He said it was strange that so many people had such a rare disease at the same time as Edgar.”
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“I heard that in a small town in Veracruz, 15 people had bad reactions,” Castaneda said. “The most important thing is that people be informed of the consequences of vaccines. If I’m informed, it’s okay to take the risk, but not otherwise.”
Edgar Gonzalez, who had partially recovered but still goes to physical therapy one week out of every month, has a simpler desire. “I want people to know it’s a terrible sickness. It’s ugly. I don’t wish it on anyone. At times, I felt so desperate. I was lucky because of the encouragement of my family.”
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