Reported personal story
Emilee Williams — two years of "anxiety" while her body was failing
What happened
Emilee Williams of Springfield, Missouri, was 19 and in counselling for anxiety and depression in 2011. Her primary-care labs that year showed elevated liver enzymes, attributed at the time to mononucleosis. She was treated with antidepressants — Prozac, then Celexa, with Klonopin added — while her symptoms steadily worsened. Her internal-medicine physician examined her in December 2012, concluded there was no neurological issue, and maintained the anxiety/depression diagnosis.
What it looked like
A hand tremor from December 2012; loss of balance, insomnia, difficulty concentrating, crying spells, panic attacks. By May 2013 her tremors were worse, her voice was elevated, her fifth finger extended outward involuntarily, and her lip curled on its own. By late June 2013 she had trouble standing, could no longer write properly, and weeks later her hands and feet were clawing and she had to leave physical therapy school.
What the labs found
Emilee and her mother pushed for testing — at trial, the family said they repeatedly requested an MRI and a neurology referral from December 2012 onward and were refused, a claim the jury's verdict favoured. An MRI in early August 2013 showed major brain changes appearing to be Wilson's disease, the genetic condition in which copper builds up in the liver and brain, and she was seen at the Wilson's Disease Center for Excellence at the University of Michigan. No copper or ceruloplasmin values for her appear in the public record; the diagnosis rests on the imaging and the specialist centre's evaluation.
What changed
She was prescribed trientine, a copper-binding drug, then ordered to stop it as her health continued to decline — and one honest complication belongs in this entry: at trial, the defence argued that the trientine itself caused her catastrophic decline, so how much of the worst phase was the disease and how much the drug was contested in court, and is not settled here. She was essentially paralysed for about two and a half years — unable to walk, talk, or move, communicating by blinking, with months in hospital including intensive care and a feeding tube for a time. By 2016 she had regained speech and some movement; she walks with a limp, takes daily zinc acetate with ongoing therapy, and lives with dysarthria, dystonia, swallowing problems, tremors, and a changed personality. A jury awarded $28,911,000 in March 2017, and the Supreme Court of Missouri affirmed the amount.
The test that told the story
Brain MRI — the scan her family had been requesting — read at a specialist Wilson's disease centre.
Sources: Supreme Court of Missouri opinion (Emilee Williams v. Mercy Clinic Springfield Communities, No. 1531-CC00861-01); VerdictSearch trial report (court documents and both counsels); AboutLawsuits / Springfield News-Leader trial reporting.