She woke up in Thailand paralysed but Caroline Bradner will be heading home after family raises US$76,000 online
- Guillain-Barre Syndrome affects an estimated one in 100,000 people and can cause widespread paralysis
- Bradner’s family started a GoFundMe account to raise funds to cover her medical care in Thailand, transportation home and rehabilitation in the US
A friend staying with Bradner helped her reach the local hospital, where she was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), an inflammatory autoimmune disorder which affects an estimated one in 100,000 people and can cause widespread paralysis. It can take months or years to recover.
Bradner, a recent graduate of University of Mississippi, had been living in Surat Thani on the east coast of Thailand’s southern peninsula teaching primary school English for two months when she started feeling weak. She visited the local hospital, where she had blood taken. She was given medication and sent home. When she woke the next morning, she was paralysed from the neck down.
“The problem with GBS is there are no definite markers that indicate what it is,” James Bradner, Caroline’s father, told the South China Morning Post. “You get symptoms that could be other things too. We’ve got to give them credit, the doctor pretty quickly had a good idea that was what the problem was.”
