Michael Betts, age 22 from Granville, Ohio suddenly was afflicted by a mysterious and severe abdominal condition. Weeks at a local hospital provided no answers and he endured excruciating pain until he was referred to the Cleveland Clinic and immediately emergency transferred to their main campus.
“I started getting severe stomach pains. It felt like I had maybe a little bit of a stomach flu and I just kind of put off like, ‘It will go away, it will go away’,” says Michael Betts.
“You could see the team group up outside the hospital room and talk about, ‘Ok, rheumatology- what’s your opinion? Or gastroenterology- what’s your opinion? Infectious disease…’ I know one thing, they took it personally that they could not figure out what was wrong with this twenty-two year old,” says Michael’s father, Dave Betts.
Eventually the staff at Cleveland Clinic discovered the problem, HSP vasculitis.
“We had no idea the Cleveland Clinic has a center for Vasculitis and also some of the top folks in the country. This facility I feel, saved his life.”
“It’s a very rare disease and it’s hard to diagnose. Your body attacks your blood vessels, inflames them, and really decreases the blood flow to anywhere it can attack,” says Betts.
Once diagnosed, he was prescribed the proper medication and treatments and he and his family began to notice an immediate difference.
“We had no idea the Cleveland Clinic has a Center for Vasculitis and also some of the top folks in the country. This facility I feel, saved his life,” says Dave Betts.
“I just felt like it was such a family environment. The nurses were not only treating me, they were treating my parents and my family as well,” according to Betts.
Betts believes that every aspect of care he received at Cleveland Clinic is responsible for giving him the ability to live his life again, just like before.
“I feel like myself again and I attribute that to the Cleveland Clinic care. I’m just thankful that I can live my normal life, before all this happened. So, I’m very thankful,” Betts says.
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