New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
From Gaylord to the Gauntlet for COVID survivor
WALLINGORD — Greg Whitehouse, 61, was paralyzed in November by a rare autoimmune disorder likely triggered by COVID-19, and had to learn to walk all over again.
What a difference six months has made.
These days Whitehouse is training for a 5K run and obstacle course after being named Featured Adaptive Athlete for the 2021 Gaylord Gauntlet 5K & Obstacle Race at Gaylord Specialty Healthcare, the Walling
ford facility where he was rehabilitated.
Whitehouse, who returned to work two weeks ago, and still has some loss of sensation in his lower legs and feet, as well as a weak left leg, ran a practice 5K last week, albeit “very slowly,” he said with a chuckle.
“It’s a huge honor to represent Gaylord,” he said. “They were so good. Anything I can do to give back.”
Whitehouse’s ordeal began in November, 10 days after seemingly breezing through a case of COVID-19.
After his first day back at work, Whitehouse was struck by Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare, paralyzing autoimmune disorder that doctors said likely was triggered by his body’s response to the coronavirus, although it could have been from a flu shot 24 days before he developed GBS, he said. They will never know for sure.
He was paralyzed and in pain from his head to his toes — even his eyes were affected — and he couldn’t walk, although he could talk and move his head and neck.
The first two to three weeks of the illness, Whitehouse said, he felt, “very discouraged.”
“It’s hard to have to depend on someone for every function of your body,” he said.
In addition to the physical problems — the paralysis, the pain — the ordeal was “emotionally overwhelming,” he said. But Gaylord emphasized hope at every turn and encouraged him to focus on all he could do, rather than the limitations, he said.
“They address everything here,” Whitehouse said. “It’s wonderful to know you’re going to return to some normalcy.”
Leigh Riley, and outpatient occupational therapist, said she nominated Whitehouse because he is the “perfect candidate” to be a Gauntlet featured athlete.
Riley said Whitehouse is a “perfect example of past and present Gaylord,” as he battled GBS, which Gaylord is experienced at treating, as well as the more recent COVID-19.
“He is very outgoing and motivated to recover — he is game for anything,” Riley said. “He’s genuinely interested in the process of his own recovery and is always enthusiastic.”
Kaitlin Donohue, another outpatient physical therapist, said Whitehouse inspires all of them at Gaylord with how motivated and determined he is and that he never says “no” to anything they ask him to do in therapy.
“He had said to me a few weeks ago, ‘If I wasn’t doing the Gauntlet I would not be pushing this hard — it gave me something to push for,”’ Donohue said. “It is definitely inspiring him to work hard to meet this goal.”
After two months of therapy at Gaylord, Whitehouse was released Jan. 21 using a walker and continued with outpatient occupational and physical therapy twice per week.
“In mid-March I started getting better in leaps and bounds,” he said.
In addition to formal therapy, Whitehouse, a manufacturing process engineer and estimator at Quality Engineering Services, has incorporated his own exercise regimen. He exercises twice per day for 45 minutes and tries to walk 10,000 steps per day. “Six out of seven I succeed,” he said.
Although it would be a rare occurrence for the GBS to return, Whitehouse said he has to be careful not to push himself to exhaustion.
“You always have to leave a little gas in the tank,” he said.
GBS is so rare there are fewer than 20,000 cases per year, he said.
While the exact cause of
Guillain-Barre syndrome is unknown, two-thirds of patients report symptoms of a respiratory or gastrointestinal infection in the preceding six weeks, according to the Mayo Clinic.
About 10 days before the Gauntlet, Whitehouse will get a “sneak peek” at the obstacle course, and during the event he will have five therapists as a support team and to guide him safely through the obstacles.
While hasn’t been a runner in recent years, Whitehouse has a feel for the activity as he completed a Hartford Marathon in his 30s, and also ran various legs of a 240-mile family run in 2019.
Whitehouse said he was “surprised” to have been named adaptive athlete of the year.
“It seemed like a good challenge for me because GBS was so negative,” he said. “Now that I’ve made it through GBS, it’s a challenge I’m not afraid of.”
His oldest son, youngest son and nephew also will participate in the race.
The annual Gaylord Gauntlet 5k & Obstacle Race event on Gaylord’s wooded campus benefits programs for patients and the community as well as the Gaylord Sports Association, which provides adaptive sports for people with physical disabilities.
Last year the race was canceled because of the pandemic, and this year it will be held in accordance with Department of Public Health guidelines, including decreasing each wave of athletes by 50 percent.
Whitehouse said his wife of 40 years, Sharon, did an “outstanding job” caring for both him and her elderly mother once he got home.
The couple also gained perspective after the sudden illness in a man so healthy he took only a few sick days in some 40 years of working.
“We definitely both learned there’s so many things you take for granted: getting up, walking to the bathroom, dressing yourself, feeding yourself,” he said.