Student in year long fight against brain virus

A Keynsham student has returned to school after fighting a brain virus for 12 months.

Sam Lloyd was a confident, intelligent teenager when a mystery brain injury robbed him of a year of his life.

Brain experts at Frenchay Hospital were baffled by his condition and ran up to a thousand tests in an attempt to determine the cause of the illness that has left him unable to write.

Sam, who turned 18 yesterday, became unrecognisable to his parents. His speech became slurred, he couldn't walk properly, he became withdrawn and shaky.

The keen cricketer and footballer had just received great results in his GCSEs and was preparing for his A-levels when his parents were advised to take him to hospital for tests.

He was referred to neurological specialists at Frenchay Hospital – and did not leave for four months.

Once he was discharged Sam's mum took eight months off work because he required complete care.

Sam, of Whitchurch, has now returned to the sixth form at Wellsway School, where he is taking A-levels in business and drama.

His mum Kathryn, a nurse practitioner at Southmead Hospital, said: "Sam didn't feel himself. My initial reaction was maybe it was diabetes or something like that. Over the course of a couple of weeks he started showing some unusual symptoms. He had a tremor in his hands and really shuffled walking."

Mrs Lloyd, her husband Pete, Sam and siblings Ben and Alice went on holiday to Zante at the end of August 2008, which gave the family the chance to monitor his behaviour.

She said: "He wanted to be on his own. Normally on holiday he would have been having fun in the pool with his brother and sister but we really had to engage him to do anything.

"Then when we got back he was doing some preparation work for his A-levels with his friends when he called to ask us to pick him up because he was shaking and could not write. And that is something that has never come back.

"He said he was stuttering his words and his friends couldn't understand him."

Sam was taken straight to the doctor where tests were carried out and it was thought that he might have been suffering anxiety due to starting sixth form.

Mrs Lloyd, 42, said her son had always been confident and enjoyed acting.

Sam said: "I started feeling paranoid. I wasn't really aware what was going on. I have never been anxious in my life and that was what was so weird."

A psychiatrist carried out some basic neurological tests and felt he should be referred to Bristol Royal Infirmary for medical assessment.

They were unable to explain Sam's condition and he was taken to the neurological experts at Frenchay by ambulance. He was given MRI scans and a CT scan and samples of his skin, saliva, muscle and hair to send to other departments across the country in an attempt to explain it.

It was discovered that there was damage to the basal ganglia area of his brain, which helps control movement and learning, and can be associated with Parkinson's disease, Huntingdon's disease and Tourettes syndrome.

Mrs Lloyd said: "They were trying everything. His consultant spoke to colleagues around the country to see if he had missed something.

"Tests for a degenerative condition came back negative and by November Sam's condition had stabilised.

"We have now been told that it was possibly a virus that caused a toxic episode but we don't know what it was, because everything came back negative."

Sam still has trouble with his speech and can be a little uneasy on his feet but it is hoped that much of the damage will repair.

He is celebrating his 18th birthday with a party tomorrow, which his parents believe will also be a way of marking how far he has come in the last year.

And Mrs Lloyd is preparing to run the Bristol Half Marathon in support of Frenchay Hospital in acknowledgment of their efforts looking after her son.

Consultant neurologist at Frenchay Hospital, Alan Whone, who was in charge of Sam's case, said he was displaying Parkinsonism characteristics, those which are present in people with Parkinson's Disease without being a result of it.

Having seen his brain was abnormal from the scan, Dr Whone had to consider diseases that could have caused such damage.

Sam tested positive for Epstein Barr virus, or glandular fever, which tends to affect teenagers, and has been known to cause similar problems in the brain as he experienced.

Dr Whone said: "It is incredibly rare and there have only been a couple of cases in the world recorded."

The neurologist said the tests and treatment carried out on Sam would not have been possible without the expertise of so many people at Frenchay.