By KEN CARLSON
BEE STAFF WRITER
MODESTO BEE
Original Article

Last Updated: August 5, 2005, 08:31:55 AM PDT

People showing symptoms of the West Nile illness might have to face an anxious wait for lab results.

Mike Wooley spent two weeks at Doctors Medical Center in Modesto with a serious illness last month. According to Wooley and his girlfriend, Maxine Owen, his doctor told him it was the West Nile virus the day after he was discharged.

Other than a fever, Wooley said, he didn't have the flulike symptoms of one strain of the potentially deadly virus.

He had the neuroinvasive form, which can sap a person's strength and result in paralysis. On the morning of July 11, he said, he had trouble standing after rising from bed. He lost the use of his limbs soon after being admitted to the hospital, he said.

"Both of my arms felt like I had a 10-pound weight in them," said Wooley, 62. "I had no control over my hands and arms. And, of course, I couldn't walk."

Wooley is one of nine people in the Northern San Joaquin Valley to have been infected with West Nile virus. All live in Modesto and other locations north of the Tuolumne River and east of the San Joaquin River, an official said Thursday.

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