According to the mother of an Ohio mother of two, when her daughter went into a long coma following a seizure, doctors told the woman’s mother that her daughter was “brain dead” and she should “pull the plug.” But seven months after slipping into a coma, the daughter awakened, making a full recovery.
Kertisha Brabson’s mother, Kertease Williams, told WBNS that in September 2018, after Kertisha went to the hospital, she got a call from the hospital about her daughter, hearing that Kertisha was reaching out for things that weren’t there, speaking weirdly and dancing as if she were at a concert. Then Kertisha had a seizure, putting her into a coma.
Kertisha Brabson was in a coma for seven months due to a mysterious illness — but her and her mother's fight for her survival led to a second chance at life. https://t.co/oW1cSFQfq0 #10TV
— 10TV.com (@10TV) December 29, 2019
Williams stated, “I don’t have no doctor’s background … never been to school for anything, but when it’s your child, you’re going to do everything in your power to bring your daughter back.”
Williams had Kertisha moved from hospital to hospital; she told WBNS, “We were going to keep moving her because once I saw the doctors scratching their heads that clearly let me know they gave up and they don’t know what’s going on with her. They told me she was brain-dead and pull the plug and all those things.” She added, “Every decision that I made was because she got two little people that was depending on their mother to come home and that was her kids.”
Kertisha, who was suffering from anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, eventually wound up at Ohio State’s Brain and Spinal Hospital at the beginning of 2019, where she was having up to 20 seizures a day. Doctor Shraddha Mainali at the Brain and Spine Hospital, admitted later, “In someone like her condition there is mortality above 60 percent.” He said he took an aggressive stance toward the disease.
When Kertisha awakened on April 7, 2019, she thought it was still back in September. Mainali said, “One of my residents who was on-call at night texted me in the morning and says you won’t believe what I saw today. I was like, what happened? [I was told] Tisha is opening her eyes and she’s following simple commands.”
Kertisha recalled, “[The nurse] was like ‘Yeah, Ms. Brabson, you’ve been asleep for seven months.’ I was like, ‘Do my mom know?’”
Williams added, “’He said, well, she’s woke up. Oh, my goodness, we just jumped up and down and screamed and nobody slept that morning.” Mainali offered, “I am quite hopeful in her case that she’s going to continue to do well and hopefully live a normal life.”
The Daily Mail explains:
Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis is a type of brain inflammation caused by the body’s antibodies. The disease often sees the body’s antibodies attack its own brain cells, causing swelling in the brain. Early symptoms can include a fever, a headache and tiredness, that develop into delusions and psychosis. Patients can become agitated and confused and suffer variable blood pressure, with seizures eventually developing. Diagnosis often relies on finding specific antibodies in the patient’s cerebral spinal fluid and misdiagnosis is common. Around half of cases are caused by tumors, most commonly in the ovaries.