Steve Heye - Back from Mayo Clinic

[Richard]

Many of you know Steve Heye. He is an engineer working for the Highway Dept in LR. He is active in the Sierra Club and Ozark Society. He has paddled with us on the Buffalo.
He became ill in Nov. and was unable to swallow. He was hospitalized in Little Rock and they were unable to determine what was going on so he went to the Mayo Clinic.
This is from Steve:

Friends -

I'm back from a week at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Mn.

They put through a round of tests and as far as a pin point cause, I stumped them.

No one thing was pointing to a cause of my symptoms, but when everything was taken together, they decided that I had swelling on the nerve endings in my brain stem, Cerebral Encephalitis.

There's no "magic" pill to fix this condition. It looks like time is the path to healing with rehab and training to get me back up to speed.

As of today, I still can not swallow anything. All food is still by tube. One of the rehab prongs is to get me eating again to gain body mass and strength. I'm all for it!!!!! Just wish it would happen soon.

I have a case of double vision that should clear up as time goes on. This makes it impossible for me to drive anywhere. To type or watch TV, I have to close one eye.

And I have very sensitive skin on my face. Anything, even a light breeze, can at times cause a severe tickle and it becomes impossible to do some things like wear reading glasses.

I'm feeling positive that we now have a handle on where my efforts need to go, and if I can get some cooperation and help from local Doctors, I can recover from this.

Meribeth has just been the best mate any one could ever ask for through all of this. Give her some encouragement as well when you can. She's got a back operation on hold till I'm over this. Then we get to switch roles.

At least we know how to fix her problem!

I will continue to fight on and hope to be back out and among my friends as soon as can.

Steve.