Battling Zombies From Her Hospital Bed: Mental Health Meets Molecular Biology

Lauren Kane graduated college in 2016 and moved in with her mother while she applied to grad school. She enjoyed the relaxed pace of days at home, enjoying her mother’s company and binge-watching The Walking Dead. Until one day something went very wrong in her brain.

Lauren woke up, enjoyed a leisurely breakfast with her mother, and then went back to her room and fell asleep. An hour later she awoke and couldn’t remember what had happened that morning. She fell asleep again and once more awoke confused and missing pieces of her memory.

By evening she had a fever, barely made it down the stairs, and stumbled as she walked. Her mother rushed her to the hospital. Once there, Lauren was confused, thinking they had come for her mother. “I’m losing time” she kept repeating every few moments.

A doctor walked in and began asking her questions. Suddenly, Lauren leaned forward and grabbed the doctor, pushing him across the room. She dug her fingernails into a nurse’s arm, and pushed her mother to the ground. Security guards rushed to the room. 

As they struggled to contain her, Lauren called out “Don’t you see it, she’s a walker!” One of the security guards asked if she was on PCP, while another guard realized—“Oh my God! She thinks she’s in the Walking Dead!” Lauren was eventually sedated and admitted to the hospital.

Lauren had become a different person. Sometimes calm and lucid, sometimes sad and confused, and often unpredictable and aggressive. She believed staff, family, and friends were monsters out to get her. Days turned into weeks while Lauren battled zombies from her hospital bed.

Brain scans, blood work, and tests all came back normal. Doctors struggled to find a cause. Frustrated with the lack of answers, Lauren’s mother turned to the internet. One day she stumbled on a study about diseases in which the body creates proteins that attack the brain.

When the hospital refused to test for this, her mother had her transferred. The new hospital quickly confirmed her mother’s fears—Lauren had a recently discovered autoimmune disease called Anti-NMDA Receptor Encephalitis, which affected the brain like a steady stream of PCP. 

The disease was triggered by an undiagnosed ovarian tumor, which caused Lauren’s body to attack itself. A long treatment process began. Three months after she entered the hospital, she was transferred to a rehab center to learn to walk, improve her memory, and rebuild her life.

Ten years earlier doctors would have had no idea what was wrong with Lauren, and she would’ve been classified as psychotic and sent home with medications that wouldn’t have worked. Her tumor might never have been discovered as her zombies stole away her life.