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T
he expedition
began in
confused
seas with a
37-hour-long
crossing that
should have taken 10 hours.
Following that delightful opening
act, during my safety stop at the
end of our first dive I watched
an expedition member ascend so fast from 80 feet that the
upper half of his body launched out of the water.
I surfaced and signaled for help. By the time we got
the diver aboard the boat, he was showing signs of
decompression sickness (DCS). The divemasters tended
to him, and I contacted DAN® to arrange an evacuation.
That event, which took place in the early 1990s, was the
first time DAN’s emergency medical support team was
there for me. To ensure I was prepared for that sort of
scenario is exactly why I became a DAN member in 1988.
I never imagined how DAN would help me the
most recent time I called on them. I was at a party one
evening during the Diving Equipment and Marketing
Association (DEMA) annual trade show. One minute I
felt fine, and the next I felt really strange. I was spatially
disoriented and had difficulty keeping my balance.
I fought the symptoms for a few minutes, but I
couldn’t will them away. I needed help getting back to
my hotel room, and that journey took several hours,
during which I had to sit down, put my head on a table
and close my eyes. When I tried to walk I was told I
was walking in a straight line, but I couldn’t tell. My
world felt surreal.
I went straight to bed and felt much better when I
got up the next morning. After eating breakfast, I went
to the convention center. I felt normal for a couple
of hours, but then my body betrayed me again. Once
again I needed help.
I flew home to see my doctor as soon as I could.
Based on my report and his exam, he sent me to a
neurologist, an audiologist, a seizure specialist and an
ophthalmologist. All were looking for tumors or other
significant problems in my brain and my auditory and
visual systems. This was serious stuff.
As I went from specialist to specialist several times a
week for almost two months, I heard statements such as,
“If we see things we don’t like today, we will take away
your driver’s license” and “This could end your diving
career.” I was scared — about my health and my future.
I was also frustrated. When I tried to describe my
symptoms, I felt there was a serious disconnect between
what I was saying and what the doctors were willing
to hear. I am not suggesting that the tests I had were
unnecessary — of course we had to consider the possibility
of a tumor or similar problem. But long before that night
at the DEMA show I had experienced some things while
diving that I thought might be relevant, and I wanted the
doctors to listen. Every time I tried to discuss the issue
with the specialists, however, I was told that my diving
history was not relevant. I wasn’t so sure about that.
So I called DAN and spoke with Jim Chimiak, M.D.,
who advised me to continue with the medical tests and
keep him posted.
Nothing notable showed up on any of the tests, but
I experienced a few more minor episodes that were
similar to what I experienced at the DEMA show.
During a long and thorough follow-up call a few
weeks later, I told Dr. Chimiak that the sensations I
experienced at DEMA reminded me of how I felt when I
had a very serious bout of ciguatera. I had the foodborne
illness almost 20 years earlier after I ate some grouper
or snapper in the Bahamas. The symptoms also were
reminiscent of how I felt after experiencing carbon
monoxide poisoning during a dive four years earlier.
42
|
SPRING 2016
RESEARCH, EDUCATION & MEDICINE
DAN WAS THERE FOR ME
An Unusual
Diagnosis
By Marty Snyderman
KAREN VAN HOESEN