April Kay Braker is bright, ambitious, focused, energetic, and a caring young lady. She loves nature and the outdoors, Moses, her standard poodle, and her husband, Paul.

She grew up in the Philippines, earning a bachelor degree in nursing from Central Philippines College of Nursing. She immigrated to the United States in 2011 and married her husband, Paul. She passed the Illinois Registered Nursing exam with an excellent score. She took her citizenship test and became an American citizen.

April landed her first nursing job at Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village. April is well respected by colleagues for her attention to detail, her calm demeanor under pressure, and her can-do attitude. She enrolled in graduate school at Olivet Nazarene University to earn the credentials needed to become a nurse practitioner. As always, she worked hard and earned excellent grades in both her academic courses and her clinicals. She was on target to graduate in August 2018. Her life in America was challenging and rewarding – a dream come true.

In April of 2018 she accepted a nursing position in the ER at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Then a serious debilitating disease struck at the worst possible time. For several days in late April and early May of 2018 April felt ill. She experienced frequent headaches. She delayed going to the emergency room. The weekend of May 5 and 6 April Kay said she thought she had meningitis.

On Sunday, May 6, with Paul’s encouragement, April agreed to go to the ER. She looked bad and couldn’t stop shaking. They examined her and did a CT scan. The ER doctor asked several questions. April had mentioned “meningitis” so the doctor said they could do a spinal tap, but did not encourage it. So April and Paul went home. Her behavior continued to be aggressive, confused, and erratic, not like April at all.

On Monday, May 7, April was admitted into the hospital. Throughout the day on Tuesday, May 8, she kept getting worse. MRI results came back negative.

Finally on May 9 a spinal tap was ordered and showed something wrong. April was having trouble breathing and crashed in front of her husband. She was intubated and transferred to the ICU.

The ICU physician explained what he thought was going on. He said April has encephalitis, a viral infection of the brain itself. Every culture came back negative for a virus. It was three days until Paul called Kandy Sandhu (an Indian educated doctor and friend of theirs) for a second opinion. She immediately recognized something was wrong and said she would reach out to a colleague. She came back in less than 24 hours with her opinion that April had Autoimmune Encephalitis.

Kandy told Paul what to ask for and what tests needed to be done. He listened and followed her advice. Approximately two weeks later they had the official diagnosis. April had Anti-NMDA

Receptors Encephalitis a rare autoimmune illness. Paul transferred his wife that day to Northwestern Memorial where she is still currently being treated.