Parallel Progress
How my mom’s hospitalization with a rare, debilitating virus led to our healing journeys
After virtually graduating from high school in the COVID-19 pandemic, I had my graduate photos taken at the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle, Wash. on May 26, 2020. // photo by Austin Quach
Story by Imogene Eagan
“Hi. I’m sing with watch wrong lingo. How about I’ll king ding and wonder quaint get. Wong dong,” read the text my mom sent to her friend in early October 2018. It was one of many nonsensical text messages she sent during and after the 23 days that she was hospitalized.
My mom, Maribeth Eagan, was a scientist; for 24 years, she worked at various biotech companies conducting lab experiments for the development of disease-identifying machines, the most recent being NanoString Technologies in South Lake Union, Seattle. Her entire career, she worked full time, aside from three “breaks” of maternal leave, but considering the high-maintenance baby I was, these periods were hardly breaks.
My mom constantly supported me and my two younger siblings throughout our childhoods, cheering us on at sporting events and band concerts as well as driving us to weekly youth group meetings. She was extremely involved in our community, and overall definitely qualified as a super mom. However, her job was so demanding and stressful that at times, she would come home in tears. At the peak of the cold season in 2018, she began to feel the effects of long-term stress catching up to her.
During the first week of September, she caught a cold that turned into flu overnight, so she took the day off work. Her symptoms quickly became more strange and severe, seeming less and less like a normal flu. On the third day of being sick, my dad, Peter, watched my mom walk out of our local Fred Meyer unsure of how to use her debit card to pay for groceries. At home later, my mom looked up at our china cabinet and asked what our cat was. Maybe she was delirious from sickness or dehydration… or maybe it was something worse. My dad decided it was time to get her checked out.
My dad took my mom to the Swedish Ballard facility, where they “took one look at her and admitted her immediately'' into emergency care, according to my dad. After a spinal tap and a 2 a.m. ambulance ride to the Swedish Capitol Hill campus, she began emergency procedures, which continued for the entirety of her hospitalization. My mom was ultimately diagnosed with herpes simplex viral encephalitis, HSVE, which attacks the brain, so my mom’s immune system fought back. The resulting inflammation and swelling damaged the neurons in her frontal cerebral cortex. Her memory, speech, personality, reasoning and higher-level thinking processes were hit the hardest.
The Encephalitis Society explains that HSVE results from the common herpes virus (HSV1), which 90% of all adults are infected by at some point in their lifetimes. Most people’s symptoms are limited to cold sores around the lips and nose – a telltale symptom that, ironically, my mom never had. In rare cases, the hidden infection reemerges as HSVE. Doctors still don’t know why the common herpes virus resurfaces as a deadly virus in some people and is never even activated in others. If not diagnosed promptly, HSVE typically becomes fatal. If my dad had waited even a day longer to take my mom to the hospital, she most likely would not be here today.
HSVE is not contagious, so my mom suffered the disease alone, while I watched her slip into an altered state of reality. During her hospitalization, she was hooked up to an IV and put on various medications like acyclovir, as well as antibiotics to jumpstart her body’s healing process. She slept through most days, and when awake, she didn’t know who I was. My mom, the one who brought me everywhere in a carry pouch as a baby; the one who took albums and albums of photos throughout my childhood to document my growth; the one who tried to comfort me as I struggled through late nights of homework; the one who said I was always the best hugger with the brightest smile – was now bedridden. Now saw me as a stranger.
When she was awake, her speech was garbled and any attempt at communicating with us resulted in mutual confusion. She also sometimes got frustrated. My family and I brought her things, like her favorite meal, Bakery Nouveau’s quiche Lorraine, hoping they would spark memories of home. She referred to her phone as her “plate,” and would demand that she have it in the first few days of her hospitalization. For a brief moment, she had her way, until my dad decided that it was not helping her recover. The texts she sent to our family group chat from that hospital bed are infamously hilarious to us now.
People in this condition often think that nothing is wrong with them. In hindsight, my mom is very glad she wasn’t aware of her condition. It was “a wonderful gift that I didn’t know,” she said. She only remembers a few minutes of those few weeks, but one solid memory stands out from her time at Swedish – my brother ripping open boxes of FunkoPop figures as we celebrated his 12th birthday in the hospital room.
Those 23 days my mom spent recovering at Swedish felt like 23 years, and I lost my entire emotional support system in her absence. My dad lost his wife, his best friend, the best part of himself and a critical part of his future. My siblings lost their primary caregiver. My grandparents, Nana and Pappy, lost their oldest daughter, their pride and joy.
The pain I felt during this period was indescribable. I closed myself off from my friends, who were still the only reason I ever cared to go to school. When my teachers walked over to my desk, squatting down to quietly ask how I was doing, I replied that I was okay. I put on a facade of being the strong, eldest daughter, and I convinced everybody around me. But with every trip up to my mom’s hospital room, the sticky, sterile smell of the long hallways and the repetitive sight of my mom laying in bed, hair unkept and face exhausted, deepened the depression I was living with.
Amid this pain and uncertainty, I found ways to distract, cope and escape. I joined the cross country team, running through drenching rain up the steep slopes of Capitol Hill, less than a few miles away from where my mom lay bedridden. I released anxious energy by photographing my high school’s sports teams for the yearbook. I tried to support myself financially by working closing shifts and weekends at our local boxing club where my family often took fitness boxing classes together, TITLE Boxing Club. I visited my mom whenever I could find a ride to the hospital. By working and driving my siblings to their extracurricular activities, I tried to take some of the load off of my dad in any way that I could.
My dad would sometimes turn on the hospital room’s TV to “Seinfeld” or “The Office,” two of my mom’s favorite shows, hoping that she might recognize a familiar plot point or character. When my dad was at work, my visiting grandparents saw their daughter make one of her first improvements. My mom and Nana were watching a show together, and according to my Nana, “she actually laughed. And that told us that she was actually tracking the show, and was understanding something. And that was the first breakthrough that I remember of her coming back to us.”
On the 23rd day of her hospitalization, my mom was released from the hospital and welcomed home. Two weeks later, while I was on shift at TITLE, I recorded my mom roundhousing a heavy bag with decent form.
My mom survived HSVE because of prompt diagnosis and treatment. She needed a couple of weeks to rest, but retained her physical independence. However, the brain damage she acquired left her with a brand new challenge: having to relearn words, names, and common nouns, as well as trying to rediscover lost memories. She attended speech therapy multiple times a week for months. She spent hours at our kitchen table organizing paper cutouts of words as part of her therapy “homework.” My mom relearned basic driving skills, circling our block with my dad and slowly improving to the point that she was eventually able to drive herself halfway across the state to visit family.
Her recovery has been imperfect. There have been many late-night arguments between her and the rest of my family revolving around her inability to rest. She is still unlearning an unhealthy work ethic, and has slowly begun to realize our good intentions when my family and I stop her from cleaning the house at night or doing other chores. We consistently remind her to prioritize the “big rocks first” things in life, and she is increasingly okay with leaving chores undone to take care of more important tasks.
She will always be working on completing her “10,000 hours” to close the gaps in her knowledge by studying words, navigation routes and punch combos. She continues to find ways to “think outside of the box - even though I still don’t know what all of the shapes are called,” and is learning to genuinely relax, perhaps for the first time in her life. She relies on music to provide her with memory tricks and boost her morale when she gets frustrated. Music grounds her to reality as she grasps around for the right words. My mom’s memory anchors often make me and my family members chuckle as we admire her ability to form unconventional connections. To this day, she is still coming up with new ways to remember.
“To Xfinity, and beyond!” she said once, linking a household favorite Pixar character, Buzz Lightyear, to a company she often sees in commercials. She regularly references old stories, people and places to build foundations for newer, fragile memories. She has learned how to see the “glass half full,” and to enjoy the extra time with her family over the past five years, including during the COVID-19 quarantine. Even though my mom feels like she is still missing parts of herself, everyone in her life sees her presence as a blessing. I have everything because my grandparents get to watch their daughter experience life. I have everything because my siblings have their mom. I have everything because my dad has his wife. I have everything because I have her.
My mom’s story is unique because, as one of the few who survived HVSE and made a near-total recovery, she is in the minority. She has come full circle, and now works a part-time job at the childcare center my siblings and I attended as preschoolers. She has more time to spend with her family in central Washington, and continues to find beauty and joy in being my mom. My mom was given a miracle, and she didn’t waste it. Her recovery from a virus that has claimed many lives is a testament to something greater. Her daily commitment to positivity has strengthened her over the past five years. Her personality is still bright and goofy, and she is the intelligent, kind-hearted, work-to-death mom I love.