By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor
The start of 2023 hasn't gone as planned for Bassmaster Elite Series competitor Brandon Card. He's spent most of the past week in a North Carolina hospital battling two afflictions – viral meningitis and Bell's palsy.
He expects to be released today and plans to be ready for the start of the new campaign, which gets under way Feb. 16-19 at Florida's Lake Okeechobee.
"I don't know how I ended up with both of them at the same time," he said this week. "They were both caused by the shingles virus. I had chicken pox as a kid and it's been there dormant inside of me."
His hospital stay has been lengthy because his condition is best treated via IV. When he's released, he'll take the same medication in pill form.
His recovery has been delayed because his precise condition went undiagnosed by several medical professionals.
A Grueling Odyssey
The day after Christmas, Card woke up with a severe headache and pain in his neck.
"The headache felt different than normal – like a COVID headache," he said. "I took some Advil and it kind of went away, but then it was the same thing the next day.
"On (Dec. 28) I was scheduled to drive to Tennessee and do a late Christmas with my family and I had to take a bunch of ibuprofen and Tylenol just to get through the drive. When I got there I took an at-home COVID test and that was negative."
The following day he visited an urgent care facility and had a full lab panel run, but that produced no answers. After a couple more rough days in Knoxville, he and wife Kelly were preparing to return home when he woke up and told her that he needed to go to the emergency room.
"I thought sure they could figure it out – at this point it's day 5 or 6," he said. "They did an MRI at the ER and the doctor seemed really rushed. He said my MRI was good and that I was good to go. I told him no, that this was the worst headache of my life. He said it was probably just a migraine and they just let me go.
"It was a brutal drive home to North Carolina and the next day I went to see my family doctor, but they didn't crack the code either. They gave me a test for (mononucleosis) and some other stuff."
That evening he sent a text to his next door neighbor – a doctor who specializes in infectious diseases. She examined him briefly and determined that he likely had meningitis.
"I'd seen four doctors and that was the first time I'd heard that. She literally nailed it in 5 minutes sitting on her couch."
Still More to Come
The symptoms of Bell's palsy showed up the next day after he'd checked into the hospital. It's a condition that paralyzes one side of the face and can last for several weeks.
"It's on the right side of my face and I can't blink or close that eye," he said "I have to tape my eyelid down to sleep. During the day, I'm putting drops in there all the time and I'm manually blinking by pulling down the eyelash."
With the IV medication continuing to do its job, he's looking forward to going home.
"I don't expect to have to miss any of the season," he said. "I'm staying positive and I plan to use the next month to heal up. I've lost a lot of weight (a problem since he doesn't carry any extra on his slender 6-foot-3 frame) because my appetite has just been gone. I'd say I've dropped 10 pounds.
"I have to give a shout out to my wife and my family – my brother and my mom came down from Tennessee. My wife has been telling me a lot of positive things, like I'm being healed through the Lord, and that helps a lot through the tribulations."
