An Ohio mother-of-two has told how she woke up from a coma seven months after doctors told her family to turn off her life support following a seizure.
Kertisha Brabson was pronounced "brain dead" by doctors who were unable to diagnose her condition.
But she has made a full recovery after her determined mother sought out a specialist who was able to diagnose and treat her Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis - a disease where the body's antibodies attack its own brain cells.
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Brabson, 31, fell into a coma in September 2018 after her mother noticed she was acting funny.
“Something has taken over and ruined my daughter,” Kertease Williams told CBS affiliate WBNS. “I just don’t know what.”
At the hospital, Kertisha was doing strange things like reaching out for things that were not there, talking out of her head, and dancing as if she was at a concert. Then a seizure put Kertisha in a coma that would last seven months.
The doctors “told me she was brain-dead and pull the plug and all those things,” said Kertease Williams, who said she was determined to save her daughter, who has two small children of her own.
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“I don’t have no doctor’s background,” Kertease said. “[I’ve] 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.”
Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis is a type of brain inflammation that can truly be scary. It's mainly caused by...
...antibodies. Early symptoms may include fever, headache, and feeling tired. This is then typically followed by psychosis which presents false beliefs (delusions) and seeing or hearing things that others do not see or hear (hallucinations).
Kertisha eventually ended up at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, where Dr. Shraddha Mainali and her team treated Kertisha’s condition and seizures aggressively. After months, she woke up.
“Oh, my goodness, we just jumped up and down and screamed and nobody slept that morning,” Kertease said.
Even though she woke up in 2018, Kertisha thought it was still September 2018.
“[The nurse] was like ‘Yeah, Ms. Brabson, you’ve been asleep for seven months’,” Kertisha said. “I was like ‘do my mom know?” she laughed.
This year, unlike last year, Kertisha was able to celebrate the holiday season at home with her mother, her daughter, Diamonique and her son, Perez.
“I am quite hopeful in her case that she’s going to continue to do well and hopefully live a normal life,” Dr. Mainali said.
