Gatineau woman stuck in Greece with rare illness trying new treatment

Nearly two weeks after being diagnosed with a rare neurological disease, doctors and officials at the Canadian embassy in Greece are working on a plan to get Mélanie Bergeron Mc Andrew back home.

The 35-year-old Gatineau woman has been bedridden since falling ill while on a cruise around the Mediterranean country. 

Doctors in Greece told her she has Guillain-Barré Syndrome, a condition that causes the immune system to attack the peripheral nerves of the body.

The disease caused her to feel severe pain all over her body and prevented her from flying back home because her lungs were also affected.

But now she seems to be on the mend and a medical team will try a new procedure in the hopes it will improve her condition and allow her to fly back to Canada, according to her friend Grace Sills.

"She's still in pain but she's saying that it's less than before. She's not scared to die anymore so that's pretty great," said Sills in an interview in French with Radio-Canada in Montreal.

Plasma exchange therapy

Denis Hallé, a neurologist at the Hull Hospital, said the rare disease can affect people of all ages and there is no known cause.

In serious cases, patients can't walk or they require a respirator.

There have been extreme cases that lead to death. 

There is no cure for the disease.

"On the longer term most people do recover fairly well. There could be some fatigue, some lack of endurance over the long term and … most people do survive," Hallé said.

Usually, the first treatment is an intravenous treatment with immunoglobulins, or antibodies, to destroy the pathogens in the body.

If that fails, the next step would be to try plasma exchange therapies.

That's what doctors in Greece hoped to attempt on Monday, then wait for two days to see if Bergeron Mc Andrew's condition improves, Sills said. 

The treatment involves connecting the patient's blood circulation to a machine in order to exchange the patient's own plasma with an artificial substitute.

'She wants to see her kids'

Sills recently spoke to Bergeron Mc Andrew on the phone and said she is anxious to see her two kids, who have been kept in the dark about what happened to their mother.

"She misses everyone. She feels it's very long to be there without anybody. But she wants to see her kids, that's the most important thing," said Sills.

"She talks about the kids all the time."

Bergeron Mc Andrew's mother, Lucie Bergeron, has been at her daughter's side for the past week.

A crowdfunding campaign Sills started online has helped raise more than $23,000 in the past nine days to help cover the cost of her mother to stay in Greece.

Bergeron Mc Andrew has been overwhelmed by the support from so many people who supported the campaign. 

"She's saying thanks to everyone for the money," Sills said,

"She thinks the people are really, really generous with her. She's really touched about the money that she received and the messages that she received from everyone."