Swift outruns childhood paralysis

HuskerfaninOkieland · August 22, 2008

I did not know about this....

Swift outruns childhood paralysis

BY RICH KAIPUST

WORLD-HERALD BUREAU

LINCOLN — Nate Swift will be darting around on fall Saturdays again before long, catching passes and eluding tacklers with the ease and gracefulness that have made him a favorite of Nebraska football fans.

What he's done the last three seasons is enough to make him the No. 4 receiver on the Huskers' all-time chart. It's not inconceivable to think he could make a run at Johnny Rodgers' 36-year-old school record.

Where he stands now is quite amazing. At least after that March morning 12 years ago in Hutchinson, Minn., when he couldn't stand at all.

Swift was face down on his bedroom floor, unable to move his arms and legs. Trying to get up, only to fall back down. Trusting the legs that were always beneath him but this time were going to let him down.

His little brother, Jason, called mom. Panicking. Something's wrong with Nate.

"Once we got him standing up, he was kind of like a scarecrow," said Lori Swift. "He just shrinks and his legs give way."

Swift would be that way for almost three weeks, without explanation, an IV always attached to his arm as doctors tried to rebuild his immune system.

"My biggest worry was sports," Swift said. "I was always running around, playing something, and I just kept asking my dad, 'Am I ever going to be able to play sports again? Am I ever going to run again?' But they just wanted me to walk again and be a normal kid again."

University of Nebraska medical personnel knew about Swift's adolescent illness when he joined the Huskers in 2004. The fifth-year senior just never shared much about it until recently in a position meeting and two interviews.

"I knew he was in the hospital when he was younger," said NU senior receiver Todd Peterson. "I didn't know the extent of it, like being paralyzed."

Swift's play as a Husker never left any hint of past setbacks.

The 6-foot, 200-pounder has caught 45, 22 and 36 passes since a redshirt season, averaging 14.9 yards per reception with 12 touchdowns. His 103 catches overall trail only Rodgers (143), Terrence Nunn (136) and Marlon Lucky (109) in NU history.

"We know there are other people with similar things who weren't having as good of outcomes as Nathan," Lori Swift said. "We don't know how severe it was, because we don't have a baseline, but I think he came back 100 percent.

"It's not a good memory, but he knows how lucky he is."

Guillain-Barré is a condition that can lay dormant, usually triggered by an acute infection. Neither hereditary nor contagious, it can come after such things as recovery from a viral infection or following an inoculation.

It's never been clear why Nate was stricken, and the night before he had only mildly complained to Jeff and Lori Swift of his arm hurting.

The next morning, Swift just figured his leg was asleep. He slid from his top bunk as he did all the time. Thud.

Numbness had started in his left leg and made its way to his left arm. Then the same thing happened on his right side.

Nothing was broken or fractured. Because Nate hadn't traveled abroad or had any recent shots, Guillain-Barré wasn't one of the first things to come to mind.

But a relative who was a pediatric neurologist suggested a spinal tap. The diagnosis at least allowed doctors to begin treating him.

"There was no rhyme or reason why it hit him," Lori Swift said.

Nate Swift recalls the hardest time being the day or two he was sent home from the hospital in Hutchinson before traveling to Minneapolis. He lay in his sister's bed, helpless.

"I didn't know what was going to happen," he said. "They tried explaining it to me, but I was frantic and didn't know what was going on, and didn't really want to listen to anybody. It was horrible. Always asking my parents: 'Make me better.' 'Fix this.' 'What's going on?'"

Once doctors treated him, he slowly regained use of his arms and legs, along with hand-eye coordination. Physical therapy started at the hospital and continued at home because Swift came back walking flat-footed, needing to regain the sense of balance to go up on his toes.

After two or three months he was doing some normal things again. Later that summer he was able to run in a track meet, although he wasn't yet the lightning-fast kid he had been.

The family watched for symptoms because Guillain-Barré can return.

"For the first year, it was always right there — if something happened or he got really tired or he said he had a headache," Lori Swift said. "But it was like a little light went on, and he said he wasn't going to worry about it, and we weren't going to worry about it. He said it wasn't going to haunt him."

It changed Nate Swift. Made him better appreciate his health and ability, which would allow him to become a high school star and to land at Nebraska. But he would slowly think about it less and less.

"Whenever I'd go back to the doctors for whatever, they had to go back and check my records and they'd be like, 'Geez, you had that? That's really rare,'" Swift said. "The doctors couldn't believe it sometimes."

Dr. Paul Larsen, a pediatric neurologist with the Nebraska Medical Center and Children's Hospital, said recent research shows that 90 to 95 percent of children afflicted have total recovery. But others can be left with permanent disability or some residual weakness.

"It depends on the severity of the illness," said Larsen, who also estimated that recovery time can range from three to 12 months.

Swift is still advised to avoid certain things such as the flu vaccine. It is believed that his immune system has developed to the point Guillain-Barré won't reappear. Lori Swift said her son could undergo another spinal tap to check his progress, but they see no reason as long as Nate is healthy.

The family doesn't reminisce much about the fifth-grader stuck in a hospital bed, unable to do any of the things he seems to do so effortlessly years later. Maybe because the boy did his best to leave it behind.

"He never once did a, 'Woe is me,' but I also don't think he grasped, at the time, what Guillain-Barré was," Lori Swift said. "I'm sitting here and just thinking back — and trust me, I try not to do it because it's so difficult — but I think he just knew it would be OK."

• Contact the writer: 444-1042, rich.kaipust@owh.com

huskered17 · August 22, 2008

That's scary stuff. Glad to see he has not had a recurrence since then. Had to be as hard on the parents as him. Tough to see one of your kids hurt or sick. Wish him the best of luck this year, as I think he will have a great year. Being my favorite player on this team the last couple of years, he only seems to get better each year.

GBR!!!