A Renewed Focus: Wake Forest golfer suffered a rare disorder that gave him time to look hard at his goals

Chances are good that Lee Bedford won't take life for granted any time soon, not after his harrowing six-day stay in a Raleigh hospital over Christmas break.

Bedford, a sophomore golfer at Wake Forest University, had been fighting a cough and a cold for nearly a month when he contracted Guillain-Barre syndrome, a disorder in which the body's immune system attacks part of the nervous system.

Guillain-Barre syndrome is rare, affecting about one in 100,000 people, but it can lead to paralysis and even death. Bedford, a 19-year-old from Cary, experienced tingling in his arms and legs first. The tingling spread to his face, where he couldn't move a muscle for six days.

"I could talk, but I couldn't smile or move anything on my face, and it was just kind of frozen," he said recently. "I had five nights of treatment, and they were really worried it was going to spread to my respiratory system."

College students fight to stay healthy, but colds and coughs are as common as going to classes. Bedford thought that his cold would eventually go away.

"I had a cough for about a month," he said. "And I was trying to get over this cold I had for the longest time. They think that it attacked my nervous system, and it usually starts with a virus."

Guillain-Barre also is one of the leading causes of nontrauma-induced paralysis.

"It was really scary because we didn't know what was wrong with him," said Bedford's mother, Sue. "He was complaining about his hands and legs kind of tingling, and then we took him to the hospital. It was really just a matter of timing, and the Lord blessed us with that because he could have wound up on a ventilator for six months or even longer."

Doctors quickly figured out what was wrong, Sue Bedford said, and started the process to reverse the paralysis. Slowly but surely, Bedford started to regain feeling and movement in his face.

Sue Bedford says she can see a difference in her son, on and off the golf course.

"He's just a lot more introspective," she said. "And he never complained about it like ‘Why me' or ‘What's going on?' But I can tell after all of that, he's a little more serious about what he wants to accomplish."

Bedford still has numbness in his lips but says there are no other side effects. He says doctors expect the numbness to go away in another three to four months.

During his time in the hospital, Bedford said, he did a lot of thinking about what he wanted to accomplish at Wake Forest. He didn't have a great freshman year, in the classroom or on the golf course, but decided that he was going to work hard when he returned.

"When I got back over the Christmas break, I just really started working more on my game and kind of appreciate what I have," Bedford said. "I can play golf a little bit, and if I can work at it, I can maybe get to the next level after college. Who knows down the road what happens, so I want to work and continue to improve."

As Wake Forest heads to this weekend's ACC golf championships at Old North State Club at Uwharrie Point, Bedford is second to Brendan Gielow in stroke average, at 73 for 18 holes. He had a second-place finish in The Hootie at Bulls Bay Tournament in Awandaw, S.C., with a low round of 63, and has ties for fifth, seventh and 16th in other spring tournaments.

Bedford, who has improved his game with a few swing changes, admits that his stay in the hospital gave him some perspective.

"I definitely think you can take things for granted," he said. "I mean, what happened to me just started with a cold, and I could have been on a ventilator for six months. I was told some people who get this can stay completely paralyzed for up to a year, so I was one of the lucky ones."

In fact, Bedford said, he didn't get down on himself during the hospital stay.

"I tried to keep a good attitude," he said. "I was lying there in the hospital bed for so long so I tried to show some humor. We used to play poker a lot when I was in high school, and I texted some of my friends saying ‘let's play' because I had the perfect poker face."

jdell@wsjournal.com


727-4081