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After surviving her own medical mystery, Arnold School researcher fully appreciates her life’s mission
June 11, 2013
The Williams’ family portrait, from top to bottom,
left to right: Brennora Cameron, Brenda Williams,
Edith Williams, Theda Cameron, and Reason Williams-Settles.
An evening out at a murder mystery production in January for Dr. Edith Williams and her mother was the last event that they would enjoy for months.
While they were piecing together the clues of the whodunit, Williams was unaware of the medical mystery taking hold of her own body – a mystery that nearly led to her death and that has renewed her own commitment to understanding the mysteries surrounding lupus, which she studies at the Arnold School of Public Health.
At the time of her illness, Williams had just been notified of a grant award for lupus research and career development from the National Institutes of Health to support her research career at the Institute for Partnerships to Eliminate Health Disparities. Her life as a mother was busy and rewarding. Williams juggled many responsibilities, but she was enjoying life.
Then the unimaginable happened.
Williams had been at the gym the day before. So, when she experienced some pain in her right leg during the dinner, she dismissed it as a small injury from working out. But by the time she and her mother, Brenda Williams, started home, the 32-year-old mother of three girls was limping. The throbbing pain kept her awake that night and was so excruciating the next day that she couldn’t walk.
Williams was taken by ambulance to the emergency room and was sent home with pain medication and crutches.
“The meds didn’t ease the pain, but they did make me loopy,” says Williams, who thought that “the injury” would improve with rest.
But after the weekend, Williams’ mother insisted her daughter see a physician. “She said that I just didn’t look right. But I didn’t want to go to the doctor. My mother insisted. I gave in.”
Her mother’s determination probably saved her daughter’s life.
By the time she began receiving medical care, Williams was near death. She stopped breathing. Her kidneys began to shut down. Her blood pressure dropped to such a low point that she was barely alive. She was rushed to the intensive care unit at Lexington Medical Center, where doctors induced a coma that lasted for two weeks.
Williams didn’t regain consciousness until the middle of February. She underwent tests and medical procedures that she doesn’t remember.
But her doctors found the culprit: a bacterial infection called MSSA, methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus, often found on the skin. MSSA can be the cause of minor problems, such as skin infections, to more serious illnesses, including pneumonia which Williams contracted during her hospitalization. The doctors told Williams that the infection may have entered her body through a cut on her hand and settled in her hip area.
Williams was treated aggressively with antibiotics and responded well to the treatment. Nevertheless, she suffered some serious setbacks along the way -- fluid surrounded the pericardial sac of her heart and abscesses formed on her legs.
She left the hospital in March and within weeks was back to her regular schedule. The outcome of her illness could have been much different, doctors told Williams, if she had not been a healthy, fit young adult without chronic diseases.
“I was clueless much of the time about what was going on,” she says. “I do know that so many people stepped in to help my mother and my daughters. The support from my friends at the institute and USC and colleagues from the Medical University of South Carolina where I collaborate on my lupus research and my friends at the gym helped us through a very difficult time.
“They gave us so much care. We had meals for days on end, and I am just overwhelmed by all of the things that were done for us.”
Throughout the ordeal, Williams’ mother was at her daughter’s side, but also worked to maintain a normal routine for her granddaughters, ages 4, 9 and 13. “The girls didn’t miss school. They kept up with the activities that they enjoy,” Williams says. “Thanks to my mother and my friends and colleagues, they were able to get through everything pretty well.”
Now that Williams has returned to her work at the Institute, she says her recovery is well under way, and she is returning to the routine of her life.
But the illness did help her more fully understand why she is committed to research on lupus, which still is not well understood by physicians and other health care providers. “I’m still here for a reason, to fulfill the purpose of my life – my children and my research,” she says. “I’m meant to do something meaningful.”
