High school graduate left paralyzed and placed on a ventilator after contracting rare virus
Joe Yates
Featured Image Credit: GoFundMe/ FOX 2
An 18-year-old is on life-support after he contracted a rare disease.
John Proctor VI, nicknamed 'BB' by his friends and family, had just graduated from high school in Missouri, and the healthy teen had plans to become a diesel mechanic.
But on August 8, he started to feel unwell. The teen was suffering from a headache and feeling dizzy, it then lead to him being sick and having a fever.
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Doctors initially sent him home diagnosing him with a tension headache, but the following days would see him make trips to and from the ER.
Speaking to St Louis 11, his dad John Proctor V said: "He said he had a headache, we took him to urgent care because he said it was also accompanied with dizziness and they said that he had a tension headache and was dehydrated, so they sent him home.
"They thought he had meningitis, so they did some tests for that. It came back negative. Sent him home and said to give him over-the-counter medicine.
"And then the the following day, he had stroke-like symptoms. Unable to move and [his] speech was real slurred.
"So we took him to MoBap [Missouri Baptist Hospital] and they admitted him to the ICU and immediately put him on a ventilator."
It took 16 days and 20 doctors before he was correctly diagnosed with West Nile virus.
Although the name of the deadly illness may sound as if the teen contracted it abroad, he was, in fact, at home.
The virus is commonly passed on through mosquito bites and was first discovered in the US in 1999.
Since landing in New York, it has spread to 49 states - while there has been cases in 33 states in 2024.
Of the 289 Americans that contracted it, 18 have died.
Speaking about his son, Proctor's dad added: "He has limited mobility especially on his left side, he can't support his weight - he can't support his own head.
"I didn't even know about it really, but now that my son has it I've kind of been looking on the internet and seeing it popping up in places."
However, having been to four hospitals since it began, the teen is not giving up as his family wrote on a GoFundMe page - set up to help pay for medical bills - that he has made 'vast improvements'.
They confirmed how he was bitten by a mosquito 'right here in North St. Louis County' and how he is recovering slowly.
They wrote: "On Aug 26th they removed the breathing tube from his mouth and gave him a trach to start breathing rehab and physical therapy.
"Our son is very weak at the moment making small but vast improvements with ability to move his right arm and both legs. His left arm is still very weak he can’t move his neck or sit up in his own."