MIRACLES HAPPEN

March 21, 2005, interview transcript

KING: Wouldn't it be ironic, Michael, if it were pulled and suddenly something happened and they found something that cures or aids people in this condition, and they can live at least a partial life again? Wouldn't you feel terrible?

SCHIAVO: There's nothing out there that's going to do that, Larry. Let's be realistic, Larry. You can't regrow a brain.
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WRONG!!!!!!!!!

Rabies Survivor Leaves Hospital

Remarkable recovery allows teen to return home a month early
By DARRYL ENRIQUEZ
Posted: Jan. 1, 2005




An athletic and mentally tough Jeanna Giese, who defeated the deadly rabies virus, started her new year Saturday by leaving Children's Hospital of Wisconsin a month early and going home to a waiting holiday celebration.

The 15-year-old Fond du Lac girl is said to be the first person in medical history to have survived the disease without having received a vaccination after becoming infected through a bat bite.

Equally as impressive is Jeanna Giese's recovery. Her body is undergoing a "rebirth," physicians said Saturday. Nerves ravaged by the disease are reconnecting to muscles and organs including her heart, a phenomenon that the medical community will monitor for years to come.

The physician who led her treatment team during almost 80 days of hospitalization said he had never seen an "evolution of healing" like this, nor had his colleagues at other national and international medical institutions.

"She's one of a kind," said Rodney E. Willoughby, the pediatric infectious disease physician.

The new growth is forcing the resilient girl to again learn the use of her arms and legs, to speak and to swallow.

Physicians expressed amazement Saturday that she can mostly dress herself, walk from a wheelchair to bed and send e-mail to high school school friends.

"She wants to get up and get active," said her father, John Giese. "I'm surprised she isn't down here now."

The disease did not affect her intellect, Willoughby said, and Jeanna can return to school when physically able, although that will not be any time soon....

Optimism scarce at onset

Physicians admittedly were not optimistic when the Gieses brought their daughter to Children's Hospital, where she was diagnosed with rabies on Oct. 19.

"Rabies starts with a lot of dysfunction to the brain and then a second phase to the illness . . . is the complete loss of nerves to the body," Willoughby said. "Some of the motions she came back with were that she literally was reconnecting nerves to muscles, reconnecting nerves to her heart. She's just been fixing all sorts of things as we sit back and marvel.

"She's had a variety of involuntary movements that have come and gone, really almost looking like the rewiring of the brain. It's really almost like watching a rebirth."

"We are really proud of our daughter," John Giese said at the news conference. "She could have given up the fight, but she didn't. Every day that we see her, something new is going on."
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Listen to the phone call from John Giese, the father of Jeanna Giese.

Mr. Giese called Charlie Sykes’ radio show on 620 WTMJ, making a plea to save Terry Schiavo's life.