Beth Primrose Fights Her Way to Health:Muscle Stripping Works

by Dr. John Thomas in Muscle Stripping, Non-Surgical Treatments on June 9th, 2010

Beth Primrose fights her way to health

Fayette Woman.

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Beth Primrose

It had been an aneurysm, most likely congenital. Beth was lucky to be alive. 30% of people who have an aneurysm burst die in the first 30 minutes.

Chris drove the four and a half hours it should have take to get to the hospital in three. Beth was taken into the Emory University Hospital's new neuroscience department, with progressive care and rooms. While the care was excellent, everything that could go wrong did. Chris said,

"Everything they did was a disaster. The first three things they asked me to sign for were a port in her head to relieve the pressure, a picc line under her collarbone for medicine, and another hole they drilled in her head to monitor her."

"They told me with the picc line there was a small chance they would puncture the lung. They did. And the lung collapsed. They had to put a hole into the lung to repressurize. It takes three or four days to get the lung reinflated."

"The first three or four days she was on the brink of not making it. There was one male nurse who was constantly monitoring her. And he was very honest with me,"

said Chris, fighting tears.

The nurse was right. The enormous brain trauma from the aneurysm had caused something called Tako-Tsubo, or broken heart syndrome. Beth was young and strong, in her forties. With a glass half-full, Chris said,

"The good news with Tako-Tsubo was that the heart will return to normal with time,"

Beth arrives home from rehab. The neurologist told Chris that the ruptured aneurysm was in the worst possible place, in the dead middle backside of Beth's brain. Two week's after that episode of American Idol, Beth was stable enough for surgery. One of the surgeons came out and told Chris that the aneurysm looked like Mickey Mouse. There was a question of how much brain damage might have been done. For two more weeks, Beth was in intensive care at Emory.

Providence United Methodist Church, the Primroses' church family, organized a prayer vigil. It was tough for Beth's kids. When they visited the hospital, she couldn't respond. But Anna's mommy did get better, although recovery was slow. Beth moved to a rehabilitation center near Emory, Wesley Woods.

The trauma of the aneurysm had damaged Beth's eyes, slightly rupturing her retina and giving her cross-eyes and severe motion sickness. Beth started physical therapy. With a complete lack of control over her swallowing, Beth could have nothing by mouth, not even ice chips, because of the risk of pneumonia--especially since her lung had been punctured. Chris said her brain started refiring. But mostly it misfired. Beth is a naturally vivacious person with a good sense of humor. Beth got up unaided in an attempt to go to the bathroom. In Chris's own words,

"Every time we walked in the room, she would want some water or some ice. I would tell her I couldn't give it to her, and she would get MAD. One time she gave me the finger,"

Beth had met Chris their first year at the University of Georgia. It was Drink and Drown Night at O'Malley's Bar toward the end of their freshman year. Before UGA, Beth was a self-described "band nerd."

"I had bushy hair and was slightly pudgy. My older brother took me to a nice salon to get a haircut and from then on it was good hair."

Chris and Beth dated through college and married a year after, moving around a bit until they settled in Peachtree City in 2001. Chris and Beth had been married for 22 years when this trauma started.

By the time Beth left Wesley Woods, she was taking a few steps with assistance. Beth told it like this:

"Swallow therapy. Occupational therapy. Physical therapy. I was still unable to swallow--I couldn't eat for four months. They began to get me using a walker. I still had a picc line in my arm. For ten weeks I couldn't move my arm."

"In the blink of an eye I went from being pretty active to an invalid."

Within a few weeks, Beth was at home, in a downstairs room. Throughout this time, Beth relied on a few things. Beth continued,

"The second thing I relied on was finding joy in whatever situation I found myself. In the beginning, this was finding something funny about situations that otherwise could be humiliating or horrible."

"I pretended to be a pirate when a child was taken aback by the patch I wore on my eye. I laughed about trying to escape from my bed only to realize I couldn't walk. I gave my feeding tube a cute nickname, Mr[.] Tubie."

Beth became an expert in brain injury jokes, something that upset her son Radford at first. Beth also found tremendous encouragement in the love and support of her husband, kids, mother, neighbors, friends and church groups. Beth got a scan and a surgery to expand her esophagus. Food had been stopping in the middle of her throat.

She went through a lot of physical therapy with Piedmont Fayette. When Beth would attempt to take a walk, she found herself veering off, unable to walk in a straight line. Beth went on a trip to Chicago with her neighbor Ann, unsure of how she would manage her bags. Ann, an avid triathlete, recommended that Beth go to Allied Healthcare Clinics to see Dr. John Thomas, D.C., known as The Running Doctor.

With deep muscle tissue work, called muscle stripping, he worked on Beth’s injured shoulder, tight from inactivity and injury, and helped . On a special footpad, Beth did hula moves to improve her balance and increase the muscle strength in her core.

Beth’s physical training with Dr. Thomas taught her something about inner strength.

“I really feel like you should never give up. I think that’s the thing that I’ve gotten from it. If there’s something wrong, then I need to focus on it, and maybe I can improve it. I may never have great balance, but the stronger I am, the more active I am, the better it is.”

“I was inspired to do the walking. The more I walked the better I got. Every day and every week I would think, ‘I’m better.’ And it was enough to keep me going.”

Little by little, Beth got her life back. Her left hand still tingles, but she can now pick up a glass. After over a million dollars of medical care, Beth is much better. It's given valuable lessons to Beth's whole family. Kathleen said,

"I've learned how fragile life is, and how far you can come from something like this,"

Beth's husband Chris said,

"You look at the positives and the tremendous support we had, and the community of God that surrounds you and you get through it. Whatever happens in this world--when something major happens to you and you don't have faith, that's a bad thing. When something major happens and you do, you can get through it. Faith gives you hope."

If you met Beth, you would never know. Her voice is a little raspy, but nothing that stands out. Beth wrote,