Jeffrey Gertner

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Since birth May 27,1982 Jeffrey has been an extremely healthy individual. Although born with Down Syndrome, he has never experienced any "typical" problems such as congenital heart issues. When he became ill at his job at North Florida Regional Medical Center on December 30, 2019, we were concerned that he had the flu as his brothers all had the flu over the holidays.  Jeffrey was very tired and Rudy noticed that although he wanted to do their daily walks that Jeffrey seemed to be less energetic and lagged behind. After a few more days of lethargy, nausea and  not feeling well, he starting spiking fevers of close to 104 during the weekend of January 10-12 . He had difficulty walking without holding on to someone and  on Tuesday, January 14 Rudy took Jeffrey to his primary care physician.  Strep test, flu test, and blood work was completed. Early Wednesday morning January 15, 2019 we received a phone call from the doctor's office telling us we needed to go to the emergency room ASAP. The results of the blood work were reported to Rudy and he knew immediately that Jeffrey  had a very serious medical issue.  Rudy called several friends in his medical world and we were advised to go straight to the emergency room at UF Health Shands in Gainesville. We arrived at Shands with Jeffrey's blood work results in hand and were taken to begin immediate treatment.  Jeffrey has gone from being a super healthy individual running 2.2 miles in our neighborhood and playing hours of basketball year round in Florida to a very seriously ill young man in what feels like record breaking time. We feel we are living a nightmare.