On February 12, 2005, Wisconsin Rapids resident Jim McConnell came face-to-face with a little-known condition called Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), a reversible condition that affects the nerves in the body. It is rare; only two in every 100,000 people have it. GBS can result in muscle weakness, pain, and even temporary paralysis of the facial, chest, and leg muscles. One of the most serious consequences of GBS is paralysis of the chest muscles, which can lead to breathing problems. At the time, McConnell knew nothing about GBS. He only knew he wasn't feeling well, and he wasn't getting better. In fact, the pain he felt in his legs was increasing – rapidly.

McConnell had visited his doctor and had been on medication, but had missed three straight days of work (he was formerly an elementary school music teacher). The following Monday, he woke up and noticed his legs had started to ache, and he had trouble focusing. "Water had a weird taste – almost metallic," he added. "I thought, OK, there's something wrong with the water. I hadn't even thought it was me."

He visited his doctor in Wisconsin Rapids, but only received additional medication. "The pain at this point was awful," said McConnell. "Friday was the last day I considered myself able to walk without help. I went out to get the mail, and it was like I was walking on a tightrope. I could have fallen at any time." In order to answer the phone, McConnell needed to roll over onto his front side from a seated position, and push himself up to stand.

The pain in his legs had reached an unbearable point at 2 a.m. on Saturday morning, and he called an ambulance. He was told that his vital signs were fine, but due to the pain, it was suggested he make a visit to Saint Joseph's Hospital in Marshfield. The next day, after being lifted and carried to his car by friends, McConnell's wife Kathleen drove him to Marshfield. He stayed there five weeks.

A neurologist was in the emergency room at Saint Joseph's awaiting his arrival. Upon arriving, McConnell's pain began to change. "Think of a lightening bolt. Shooting pains in my shoulders and in the back of my arms, in my abdomen, in my back," said McConnell. McConnell's white blood cells were essentially eating away at his nerves. "My nerves were sparking, short-circuiting like an extension cord. It was very sudden and hurt a lot," he added.

McConnell was impressed from the start by the health professionals administering his care at Saint Joseph's Hospital. "The doctor was so good. He just walked in immediately, and I described my pain in my legs to him and the weakness, and he started tapping my knees. The first thing to come out of his mouth was, 'Ah, I think we have a mild case of Guillain-Barre here.' If this was mild, I sure didn't want the severe case."

McConnell was put on an analgesic to treat pain. He went through a battery of procedures to test his nerve responses to physical needles and electrodes, he had a lumbar puncture (spinal tap), and was started on an Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) therapy (the infusion of immunoglobulins into a vein), enduring eight treatments.

"On about my fourth day in, the nurse tried to evaluate my pain level between one and ten. Mine was always high, because I have a low tolerance to pain, but also because the pain was always there. This was constant. The pain was always there," said McConnell.

The worst it got, he said, was when he would become numb up to his chest, and half of his face was numb. After spending a day in the ICU because of the pain and a reaction to a medication, he finally began to recover.

After a week, McConnell was able to begin therapy and several methods of rehabilitation – occupational, recreational, and physical. "That's where I started on my regimen for getting better," he said. His routines were closely regimented. He would receive medications in the evening, breakfast was at 7 a.m., and he began therapy at 8 a.m. Then came physical therapy, occupational therapy, recreational therapy, lunch, and rest. McConnell admitted that the rehabilitation was very aggressive. The afternoon therapies would mirror the morning sessions. "They made the very best out of a very bad situation for me," he said.

The therapy helped McConnell discover what he could and could not do. "I was a former music teacher, and played the piano a little bit, but I discovered I was very clumsy. We also worked on more challenging things like gardening. They had built some huge wooden planters on wheels so that you could dump dirt and rock and that sort of thing, and I planted seeds. That was a lot of my recreational therapy," explained McConnell. He said that occupational therapy had dealt with reaching and manipulating small things with his fingers. He also worked on upper body weight training with small weights.

"Physical therapy meant re-learning how to walk again, and that was a real, real challenge at first," he said. "All of those ladies I dealt with up there in the physical therapy were incredible. When I say, 'I couldn't have done it without them,' it's such a cliché, but it's true. Their sense of humor, their confidence in what they do, knowing what you're capable of, even when you're looking at yourself laying in bed, and you can't even lift your foot off the bed a half-inch. They put the responsibility of that on me, saying, 'Look, if you want to get out of here, if you want to get better, this is your responsibility. This is what you need to do and you can't ever forget that.' And they never let me forget it. And it was great."