After recovering from a life-threatening illness, Assistant Principal Jerry Berkson is back at Paly. He speeds across the quad in his golf cart during the day. – Marc HavlikPalo Alto High School students and faculty often see Assistant Principal Jerry Berkson riding around campus on a golf cart, monitoring the glass blowing fence in the morning for students who attempt to lock their bicycles there and completing various errands during lunch. His magnetic personality and pointed humor make it hard to find him without another person by his side, engaging in an animated conversation.

But five months ago, Berkson couldn’t be found anywhere on campus. Instead, he was in the emergency room of Kaiser Hospital in Redwood City, facing a life-threatening illness. His immune system had overreacted to a virus, attacking his own brain and spinal cord. For about a week, Berkson couldn’t feel anything in his lower body. He suffered from double vision and numbness to his chest.

Physically, Berkson has emerged victorious. But mentally, he continues to live with anxiety. This has allowed him to empathize more with students who have anxiety issues.

“I see kids all the time who tell me about their anxiety and depression issues — usually because it affects their school performance — and even though I felt bad for them, I never really knew what they were going through,” Berkson says. “But now I understand it a lot better. The anxiety isn’t something you can turn on and off.”

Berkson’s anxiety is a recurring problem caused by the traumatic experience.

“A lot of times, I have so many things going on that my muscles get tense and I start to get anxious,” Berkson says. “It mostly happens when I can’t do anything but think, and then all these thoughts about what I have to do makes me anxious.”

“The attacks happen every day – sometimes all day,” he continues. “Ironically, the busier I am, the better I am. It most often occurs at times like the middle of the night, or while I’m driving to work, when my brain starts thinking about what I have to do.”

When his anxieties strike, Berkson has learned to monitor his breathing.

“I’ve learned to pace my breaths,” he says.

Doctors say that Berkson’s condition is normal and should not last forever.

“Doctors say that my body is just reacting to the trauma because when I was in the hospital and in rehab, I was too busy to think about the severity of the problem,” Berkson says.

Back to the Beginning

Initially, Berkson’s condition was a mystery to doctors.

“It was really the exact same thing as House,” Berkson joked. “Is it this? No. Is it this? No. Is it this? No. Except at the end they don’t just pop you the pill and say you’re fixed.”

On May 16, after eight days of experiencing flu-like symptoms, Berkson woke up with his legs tingling. He headed for the emergency room.

At first, doctors speculated that the tingling in his legs was due to his spinal column impinging on his spinal cord, according to Berkson.

“I got an MRI [magnetic resonance imaging scan] so they could see the inside of my spinal cord,” he says. “They saw inflammation on my spinal cord, but realized that it wasn’t because my spinal column was impinging on it.”

Subsequently, doctors placed Berkson in an intermediate care unit and gave him heavy doses of steroids to reduce the inflammation. They then tested their next diagnostic hypotheses.

“The doctors thought it might’ve been myeloenchephalitis or Guillain-Barré, but they took another MRI on the spinal cord and were sure that it was any of those conditions either,” Berkson continues. “Meanwhile, the steroids stopped working. I stopped being able to feel things in my lower body.”

Finally, doctors took an MRI of Berkson’s brain and noticed several lesions, or damaged brain tissue, so they diagnosed him with ADEM.

What does ADEM stand for? Initially, Berkson didn’t know either.

“Google is your best friend,” he says, laughing. After several moments, Berkson reports that the full name of his condition is acute disseminated encephalomyelitis.

Doctors finally could prescribe him treatment: plasmapheresis, in which plasma is removed from blood cells using a cell separator. The plasma contains the antibodies causing inflammation, according to Berkson.

Soon after the treatment began, Berkson saw first signs of real success during his hospitalization.

“Doctors saw progress in my legs first,” Berkson reports. “My right leg got stronger faster than my left leg despite the fact that my left leg is the dominant one. At one point, I could move them up and down, but I still couldn’t stand up because it risked blood clots.”

Berkson remained hospitalized for 17 days, during which doctors continued to worry about a relapse of the autoimmune attack.

“I would’ve gotten out sooner, but the plasma had to be removed every other day [to prevent a relapse],” he remarks.

Road to Recovery

After the intensive treatment, Berkson was relocated on July 2 to another Kaiser branch in Vallejo, Calif., where he underwent physical therapy in order to regain control of his muscles.

“It’s [Berkson’s condition is] not really a muscle issue; it’s a neurological one,” Berkson says. “Rehab was a way to activate my brain through the nerves. I worked alongside the physical therapist, doing resistance exercises. ”

As Berkson lost most of the functioning in his lower body, his first task was to re-learn how to walk.

“Being immobile for 30 days, you lose a lot of muscle in your legs,” Berkson recalls. “On day one, they put me on parallel bars so I could practice taking baby steps. Day two, they put me on a walker. By day four, I was already walking well with the walker.”

Fortunately, Berkson’s health improved dramatically. He and those around him could breathe a sigh of relief.

“It’s a lot easier to have hope when you see the results happen,” he says. “Within 18 days I went from not being able to stand to walking pretty darn good with a cane. And I’d say a week later I was walking without a cane.”

Despite the progress, Berkson still fears a relapse.

“In the back of my mind, I’m still worried that the condition will come back and strike me,” Berkson confides. “I still talk to a guy on Facebook who had it much worse than I did for support. ADEM is a neurological thing so recovery is gray and inexact, and different for each person. But it’s going to take a long time.”

Berkson saw several silver linings in the whole ordeal. For one, lying in bed allowed him to contemplate and reflect on his life.

“It’s nice to have hope,” Berkson says. “When I was lying in bed, almost paralyzed, I said I’d run a marathon — and I don’t think I’ll ever get around to that —but at the time you think about all the good things you can do.”
Moreover, Berkson says the experience and the support he received from his family, his friends and Paly were incredibly inspiring.

“The support was unbelievable,” Berkson says. “I learned a lot about supportive people and I don’t think I’ve ever gone on a hospital visit for a friends because I don’t like hospitals, but knowing what that means to a person in the hospital keeps people going. I learned a lot how I can be a better person in that situation.”

“The cards I got were great,” Berkson adds with a smile. “Even a card makes a difference.”