Unusual rabies survivor off to college

FOND DU LAC, Wis. – Jeanna Giese admits to being nervous about classes and meeting new friends as she starts college.
But Giese, a medical marvel who has been studied and chronicled for nearly three years as a one-of-a-kind case, has handled worse: She survived rabies without vaccination.
New acquaintances will be hard-pressed to tell that she had to relearn how to talk, walk and function.
Giese doesn’t dwell on her past.
“I’m going to school just like anyone else,” the ebullient 18-year-old said Tuesday, the first day of classes. She lives at home and commutes two miles to the private Catholic college of about 3,000 students.
Doctors report on her progress in today’s New England Journal of Medicine. She has recovered remarkably well and should continue to improve, said Dr. Kenneth Mack, a Mayo Clinic neurologist.
Rabies, a viral disease spread by the bite of an infected animal, attacks the nervous system and is usually fatal once symptoms develop. The other five people known to have survived it after symptoms appeared either were vaccinated in advance or received vaccine soon afterward. All but one ended up with persistent movement difficulties.
But Giese was not hospitalized until a month after she was bitten by a bat that had flown into her church. She had picked it up to take it outside.
Wisconsin doctors intentionally put her in a coma and gave her a slew of antiviral drugs and other medications to prevent a cascade of events that causes nerve cells to die. She spent two months in intensive care before returning home on New Year’s Day, 2005.
A tutor helped Giese finish her sophomore year of high school. Physical therapy helped her overcome speech problems, weakness in her left hand and foot, and abnormal movements in her arms and hands.
Giese’s plan is to study zoology, of all things, and eventually work as an animal conservationist. She has 12 pets – a dog, a rabbit and 10 pheasants.
Instead of developing a fear of animals since being bitten, the incident appears to have only solidified her passion. After giving a speech about her case at the Milwaukee zoo on Sunday she was allowed to hold and pet the nonrabid bats on display. “It’s the first time I’ve actually touched a bat where it wasn’t hanging onto my finger by its fang,” Giese said.