Gail knows better than anyone how dedicated Brigham and Women’s Hospital doctors and nurses are to healing their patients. She knows because she has gone through two devastating diagnoses – and two incredible recoveries at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Eight years after Gail Demaine was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she thought she might never walk again. But Dr. Howard Weiner, Director of the Multiple Sclerosis Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, thought otherwise.
“I was on vacation on Martha’s Vineyard and felt a ‘ping’ in my right eye,” recalls Gail. “There was a little hole in my vision. When I got home my physician told me it was optic neuritis, a possible sign of MS, but it would probably clear up. It did, but after a time, the symptoms just kept coming. Soon I was losing my balance and coordination. When my local doctor put me in a wheelchair, I was devastated. And I was scared.”
That is when Gail came to Dr. Weiner at Brigham and Women’s. “I can get you back on your feet,” he said. “You’ll have to stay here 10 days for chemotherapy. You’ll lose your hair – but it will grow back. And I’ll get you out of that wheelchair.”
Suspecting that her nerve damage was not permanent, he put Gail on a regimen of Cytoxan, a chemotherapy drug often used to treat breast cancer. In just days, Gail’s vision cleared and she could shuffle a deck of cards. She improved rapidly with each treatment, and was out of her wheelchair within a few weeks.
But in a rare twist, Gail suddenly developed a life-threatening allergy to the very drug that was helping her walk again – and it got worse with each dose she received. Gail feared she would have to discontinue Cytoxan therapy – and with it her amazing recovery. But she found new hope when her physician referred her to Brigham and Women’s allergist-immunologist Dr. Mariana Castells, a national expert on systemic allergic reactions.
“I can help you,” Dr. Castells told Gail. “We can desensitize you by giving you very small doses of the drug over many hours, here in the hospital.” Desensitization worked, and Gail continued to receive her Cytoxan treatments successfully.
“I’m incredibly grateful for the care I received from Drs. Weiner and Castells at Brigham and Women’s,” says Gail.
