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My late wife developed Acute transverse myelitis in 1985. I witnessed the onset which in about two hours time she became an incomplete C-5/C-6 level quadriplegic. She had no other health issues except she was very run down and wasn't taking good care of herself because of some personal reasons including being deserted with two daughters to raise on a CNA's income.

This was two months before we married. It was actually Labor Day 1985 I met her and her teenage daughters at the mall to catch a movie and she collapsed in the Food Court.

She was hospitalized for a total of 6 months during which going into the third month we married. Three months was a regular hospital stay and another three months in a spinal rehab unit in Tennessee.

During her therapy sessions they began measuring her limbs and discovered her arms were shorter than normal and saw some deformities consistent with Polio. She was about 4' 10" and at onset weighed less then 90 lbs. She was 35 yrs old at onset so Polio was quite possible at a very young age as she was born in 1950.

The Neurologist gave her 5 years life expectancy. Over the course of a year she gained back her arms and hands enough to feed herself, read a book, etc. She lived 29 and a half years with it confined to a motorized wheelchair. She passed in March 2015. Not much was known about Acute transverse myelitis then and I imagine not that much has been learned as the Neurologist said it was rare. I saw him in the hospital about a month after she passed wand I was visiting a relative. We talked a few minutes in the hallway and I said you gave her 5 years and she lived over 29. He said that if it happened today it would still be the same prognoses.

She had taken no shots nor vaccines. That was one of the first questions they asked because at first they were thinking Gulian Barre Syndrome but her repertory system wasn't causing any problems. They finally got MRI technology and saw the narrowing at C5/C-6 level and made the diagnoses about a year later.