A North Carolina doctor is working to rebuild his life and help other patients, just two years after he was paralyzed by a rare syndrome after contracting COVID.
Dr. William Dugal, now 34, contracted the virus after attending a wedding with his wife and young daughter over Labor Day weekend in 2022. NBC News Reports.
He soon learned that he suffered from a rare post-viral condition known as Guillain-Barré syndrome and within days he lost all ability to move, swallow or breathe without assistance.
Dugal was unsure if he would survive and said he “made peace by saying he was probably going to die.”
But Dugal persisted and after several months he was able to start moving again.
Dr. William Dugal, now 34, was paralyzed shortly after contracting COVID in 2022.
Dugal’s problems began in September 2022, just when everything was going well for him and his wife, Rebecca.
She had just given birth to a beautiful baby girl named Caroline, and he had just finished his surgical residency and accepted a position as a private practice general surgeon. according to WFMY.
But after attending a wedding over Labor Day weekend, Dugal began to notice some worrying signs.
“She said her toes felt a little numb, and we thought it was from chasing all the cousins because she was wearing boots and everything (at the wedding), but she progressed quickly,” Rebecca told the local news station.
‘I remember we were going through the airport and he was really struggling. He continued to decline, his back pain was really intense.’
Within a few days, Dugal said he could no longer walk.
“I knew something was very wrong,” he said.
His wife had recently given birth to a baby girl and he was about to start a new job when he was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome.
Dugal then went to Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Hospital, where he was told he had Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare condition in which the immune system attacks the layer surrounding nerves, called myelin, causing nerve damage. .
Most people recover or have minor symptoms, but the condition can also be fatal, especially if paralysis extends to the muscles used for breathing.
There is no cure or definitive treatment, so doctors usually offer supportive measures.
“You don’t know how bad it will be and you don’t know how long it will last,” Dugal explained. “It was two types of anxiety for me.”
But as a doctor, Dugal said he was “well aware” of how serious his situation was.
“It was a humbling feeling when you realize that you are at the mercy of the process and you have to accept whatever comes.”
Dugal’s symptoms worsened over the course of a month in the hospital.
Unfortunately, Dugal said, his symptoms worsened over the course of a month in the hospital “with complication after complication.”
He soon became completely paralyzed and could not swallow or breathe without assistance.
‘I couldn’t move my eyes and blink. And while that’s happening, I can’t express enough the fear and uncertainty I had,” she said.
They then had to put Dugal on a ventilator and he wasn’t sure if he would ever recover.
“I made peace by saying I was probably going to die,” he told NBC News.
“I looked at (my wife) and told her to take care of our daughter.”
After he was put on a ventilator, Dugal said he made peace with “that he was probably going to die.”
He would spend two weeks on the ventilator, after which he developed pneumonia and both lungs collapsed.
As a result, his oxygen levels became dangerously low and he was not receiving enough oxygen to his brain, which could be fatal.
One night he started coding and doctors put him on an ECMO machine, which takes over heart and lung functions.
Dugal was on the machine for about nine days before he was put back on the ventilator, but he still couldn’t speak, move his toes or blink.
“I was completely trapped in my own body and sitting there, staring at the same spot on the wall.”
Things got worse when he lost contact with a surgical consultation because he couldn’t start on time.
Dugal lost 60 pounds and was still being fed through a feeding tube when he began inpatient rehabilitation.
Doctors eventually recommended he be sent to an inpatient rehab facility, but the only one that would accept him on a ventilator was in Houston, Texas.
So Dugal took an air ambulance to TIRR Memorial Hermann in Houston.
The first days turned out to be even harder.
Dugal lost 60 pounds and was still being fed through a tube because he was too weak to swallow.
He still couldn’t sit up on his own or get out of bed, but he soon made some small progress.
“I remember the first time I could move my big toe,” he said. “It was the most boring thing you’ve ever seen.”
Dugal spent another two months in the hospital, but still needed physical, occupational and speech therapy at home to relearn daily tasks.
“I was trying to get my life skills back: being able to dress myself, feed myself… tie my shoes, pick up objects.”
Finally, nine months after his shock diagnosis, Dugal was able to walk again.
And when he regained his mobility, Rebecca got him a virtual reality headset to practice his surgical skills.
In July 2023, Dugal returned to work, at the same hospital where he recovered.
In July 2023, Dugal returned to work, at the same hospital where he recovered.
He started in a lab where surgical studies were performed, then began an ECMO fellowship where, for almost a year, he has been “giving patients the same treatment that saved me in the same hospital,” he said.
“It was great to be able to work with the same people who saved me: therapists and surgeons,” he told NBC News.
In the end, he said, the experience has made him a more caring doctor.
“I have more empathy and a better understanding of the patient experience,” Dugal said.
“I hope to provide the same compassion and support to others in similar situations.”
