Vibrant Woman Leaves Behind Grandson With Cerebral Palsy

There is no indication that anything is wrong at Jim and Margaret Hathaway’s white clapboard house in this quiet bedroom community not far from Richmond.

In the living room is a comfortable beige couch and scattered across the floor is an array of brightly colored plastic toys for the Hathaway’s three children: 10-year-old Jessica, 6-year-old Amanda and 3-year-old Christopher.

But beyond the surface normality lie grief, confusion and a host of frightening questions.

“You never in your worst nightmare think, ‘Tomorrow she’s going to be gone,’ ” says Margaret, her voice shaking.

Margaret’s mother died May 9. The official cause on her death certificate is “multiple organ failure caused by liver failure.”

But for the Hathaways, that barely explains what happened to her. Even now, six months later, the family seems slightly dazed, shellshocked, unable to make sense of how she died or who to blame.

A year ago, Margaret’s mother, Edith Ann West, was a healthy 65-year-old widow. Although her diabetes had been diagnosed 14 years before, she managed the illness with twice-daily shots of insulin and a restricted diet.

Tall and strong, Ann stood more than 6 feet and weighed nearly 210 pounds. The native of central Virginia once ran her own Tastee Freeze and then worked in self-serve diners, often as a cashier.

In 1993, when Ann moved in with Jim and Margaret, they had just moved to Spotsylvania with two small children. Jim has two jobs to make ends meet; Margaret works at a local outlet mall to bring in extra income.

Then in 1995 a third child, Christopher, was born with cerebral palsy, a disease that causes a disconnection between the brain and the muscles, making it impossible for Christopher to talk or stand without help. A sweet child with a gentle face, his limbs flop as he struggles to crawl, sit up or play with his sisters.

Ann became indispensable. She was Christopher’s champion, his therapist, his 24-hour caregiver. It was Ann who persuaded the little boy to eat, a project that was all but unbearable for his parents, who found it painful to watch his struggles.

“She called him Grammy’s little man,” Margaret says.

Then last fall, after an unexplained fainting episode for which she was hospitalized, Ann was referred to a diabetes specialist.

“She came home from her first visit excited, very excited,” Margaret recalls. The doctor had given her a new drug called Rezulin.

“This doctor had said, ‘Throw all that other stuff in the trash’ because he had this new miracle drug. ‘The miracle pill,’ he called it. All she had to do was take it once a day,” Jim says.

The doctor even had told Ann that eventually she would not need insulin and would be able to eat anything she wanted, Jim says.

Instead, in January, she began to feel weak and nausea set in.

When Ann went to the doctor a month later, she told him that “she didn’t want to take the medicine anymore,” Jim says.

But the doctor did a blood test and told her to stick with Rezulin for another month.

Over the next several weeks, Ann began to lose weight. Her weakness and exhaustion increased. Unable to carry Christopher, she would sit in a chair, holding him and covering herself with a blue-and-white afghan that now lies folded on the couch. Chills had set in and her skin was turning yellow with jaundice.

When she went back to the doctor after her second month on Rezulin, he took another blood test. After the lab results came back, the doctor pulled her off the drug and referred her to a liver specialist, saying he could no longer do anything for her.

Ann was finally admitted to Virginia Medical College in Richmond on April 22 after she continued to deteriorate. Doctors found extensive liver damage. Specialists told Jim and Margaret that they suspected Rezulin and were going to contact the manufacturer.

With daily blood transfusions, Ann seemed to improve. She was able to sit up and talk. “Then, all of a sudden, it went downhill overnight,” Jim says.

The family tried to arrange a liver transplant, but Ann was too weak to survive the major operation. Less than a week later, she was dead.

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Edith Ann West

Age: 65

Hometown: Spotsylvania, Va.

Occupation: Retired

Rezulin use: 2 1/2 months

Outcome: Died May 9