GETTING BETTER: Carlos Del la Varis and his mother Gaye at their Welcome Bay home. Carlos is staggering his schooling for now.PHOTO/RUTH KEBER
Three months ago Carlos Del la Varis was paralysed waist down and unable to raise his arms.
A rare illness that strikes one in 100,000 people tore through his body in one week and left him bedridden in hospital - and one day away from a ventilator.
It was a sickness he describes as "horrible".
But today the Tauranga teenager is making a recovery so fast it has defied the predictions of doctors.
Carlos woke up one morning last December after his grandmother's 80th birthday in Auckland with pins and needles in his legs.
"I thought it was the way I slept so I dismissed it but as the day went on the pins and needles went up my legs, they got to my thighs by the afternoon and I had numbness in my feet," he told the Bay of Plenty Times Weekend.
By the end of the weekend the sensation had reached the top of his legs.
"When we got back to Tauranga I was falling over and I couldn't walk."
His doctor knew he had Guillain-Barre syndrome straight away after seeing it 20 years ago.
"He hadn't seen it since. It's quite uncommon, only one in 100,000 people get it."
Guillain-Barre syndrome is a disorder in which the body's immune system attacks part of the peripheral nervous system.
It is more common in people aged between 30 and 40 so doctors were surprised when he was diagnosed.
Carlos was admitted to Tauranga Hospital, given a lumber puncture and other tests which confirmed his doctor's initial thoughts and was transferred to Waikato Hospital December 23.
Two hours after being admitted he was in the High Dependency Unit and put on treatment to stop it.
But within a few days of being diagnosed he was almost completely paralysed waist down.
"It got up to my shoulders and towards my lungs. If it gets to your lungs they have to put you on ventilation as it can shut down all your organs. I was one day off being put on a ventilator."
Carlos' mother, Gaye Del la Varis, said a neurologist commented they had never seen anyone so young with the syndrome and for it to progress so rapidly.
"It was only a matter of days from when he first got the symptoms to his worst point, about a week. Normally it would be two plus weeks. He went downhill very quickly but once he got through that the progress has been great through the other side. He couldn't pick up his phone and put it to his ear. The first couple of weeks were quite surreal," she said.
He improved after a week and eventually was transferred back to Tauranga Hospital.
Doctors estimated it would be about six months before he could leave hospital, but he was discharged March 16.
"They think [my recovery had been so quick] because of my age, they expected it would be at least three months before I would start walking again too."
At the lowest point of his illness he had lost 15kg and could not lift small objects.
"I couldn't even scratch my head I had to get my mum to do it. If I was going to lift my water bottle, which was only to be a quarter full in the first place, I would have to use two hands."
People with Guillain-Barre syndrome are given a rating from one to five for their paralysis - five being fine with full body movement and one as almost fully paralysed. Carlos was rated as a one in his lower limbs and a three for his upper limbs.
He lost all movement in his legs for several days and the first time he tried to stand after his lowest point he was only able to get up for about five seconds before needing to sit down again.
"It was frustrating, a lot of people asked if it was scary. It wasn't scary as such because I knew I was in good hands and got into hospital quite quickly. But it was strange losing the movement and strength, it was definitely frustrating from going a fully active healthy teenage boy to bedridden unable to do anything for myself. It was horrible."
One of the lasting symptoms of the syndrome is chronic fatigue which his doctors have said will take about a year and half to recover from.
For now, he is staggering schooling at Tauranga Boy's College and keeping up physio and medication to keep on top of the condition.
Sister Reina and friend Lee Dawson have set up a Givealittle page to help buy him a tri-cat Bazooka to motivate him during his recovery. Carlos started sailing about three years ago and could not think of anywhere better than to be out on the open water. To help get Carlos his boat please visit: givealittle.co.nz/cause/sealegsforcarlos