Robin Williams"s widow reveals how dying actor fought "chemical warfare in his brain"

The widow of Robin Williams has lifted the lid on the actor’s struggle with a debilitating neurological disease in the months before he took his own life, likening it to “chemical warfare in his brain”.

Writing in the journal of the American Academy of Neurology, Williams’ wife Susan Schneider Williams has detailed the final months of her husband’s life as the couple struggled to respond to his devastating decline in health.

Williams took his own life in August 2014.

Three months before his death Williams was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, but Schneider Williams has previously revealed the autopsy identified that he had suffered from Lewy body disease (LBD).

In her essay, “the terrorist inside my husband’s brain”, she said doctors would later discover it was instead one of the worst cases they had ever seen.

LBD is an incurable form of neurodegenerative disease. It is the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer’s, with which it shares many symptoms, and can be misdiagnosed as Parkinson’s disease.

In October 2013, on the couple’s second wedding anniversary, Williams experienced gut discomfort, and fear and anxiety which “skyrocketed to a point that was alarming”, Schneider Williams wrote.

He had already been experiencing various physical ailments, which had been intermittent and which the couple and doctors had believed were unrelated. By December he would suffer from increasing levels of “paranoia, delusions and looping, insomnia, memory, and high cortisol levels”.

After his death doctors found that a high concentration of Lewy bodies in his brain’s amygdala had caused the acute paranoia and “out-of-character emotional responses”.

Schneider Williams described it as “chemical warfare in his brain”.

“How I wish he could have known why he was struggling, that it was not a weakness in his heart, spirit, or character,” she said.

Over the following months Williams suffered from panic attacks and memory loss, struggling to remember lines during the shooting of Night at the Museum 3.

He kept saying, ‘I just want to reboot my brain’.

His mental state declined, and Schneider Williams found herself increasingly unable to reassure his anxieties and insecurities.

“Robin was losing his mind and he was aware of it. Can you imagine the pain he felt as he experienced himself disintegrating? And not from something he would ever know the name of, or understand? Neither he, nor anyone could stop it – no amount of intelligence or love could hold it back,” she said.

“He kept saying, ‘I just want to reboot my brain’.”

While had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, Schneider Williams wrote that after his death it became apparent that, pathologically, he suffered from diffuse LBD.

“One neuropathologist described LBD and [Parkinson’s disease] as being at opposite ends of a disease spectrum. That spectrum is based on something they share in common: the presence of Lewy bodies – the unnatural clumping of the normal protein, a-synuclein, within brain neurons,” she said.

Schneider Williams said four doctors examined her husband’s autopsy report and final two years of medical records and they “indicated his was one of the worst pathologies they had seen”.

“He had about 40% loss of dopamine neurons and almost no neurons were free of Lewy bodies throughout the entire brain and brainstem.”

She said the medical team had been on the right track in diagnosing and treating Williams before he died, but she would never know if that would have made a difference.

“I am not convinced that the knowledge would have done much more than prolong Robin’s agony while he would surely become one of the most famous test subjects of new medicines and ongoing medical trials,” she said.

“Even if we experienced some level of comfort in knowing the name, and fleeting hope from temporary comfort with medications, the terrorist was still going to kill him.”

Schneider Williams, who was last week appointed to the American Brain Foundation’s board of directors, said she wrote the essay to increase neurologists’ understanding of patients and caregivers and to “add a few more faces” to the reasons they conduct research.

• In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here.

Robin Williams"s widow reveals how dying actor fought "chemical warfare in his brain"

Widow of Falklands war veteran wins legal battle to save frozen embryos

The widow of a Falklands war veteran has won a high court declaration giving her a “last chance” to have her late husband’s child.

Samantha Jefferies, 42, from East Sussex, was forced to go to court after the shock discovery that the 10-year period for storing the frozen embryos the couple had created had been inexplicably amended to two years and had since expired.

Jefferies and her husband, Clive, had been undergoing fertility treatment when he died suddenly, aged 51, of a brain haemorrhage.

A judge has now declared that the amendment to the storage period was not valid and the embryos, instead of being allowed to perish, can still lawfully be stored and used.

The declaration was made by Sir James Munby, president of the family division of the high court, who said he would give his reasons later in writing.

Jefferies said the judge’s decision was “overwhelmingly fantastic – just brilliant, amazing”.

Jefferies, an occupational therapist, said she did not have a plan for using the embryos soon but added: “I would love to be a mum.”

She thanked the judge for Googling the history of her husband, who served in the Royal Army Medical Corps and was onboard the transport ship Sir Galahad when it was bombed in the Falklands in 1982, killing 48 men.

She told the court her husband was “a wonderful man”, adding: “I want my husband’s child.”

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority supported her application on the grounds that the amendment to the MT form – used to record consent for embryo storage – had not been signed by Clive Jefferies.

BMI Healthcare Ltd, which runs the Sussex Downs Fertility Centre where the couple received treatment, also supported her and funded her legal costs.

The judge said BMI seemed to have acted “with sensitivity and compassion”.

Jefferies paid tribute to all those who had supported her “commonsense” application and said: “It has given me faith in the law.”

In court, Jenni Richards QC told the judge: “Samantha has brought this case because the embryos she is seeking to preserve represent her last chance of having the child of her husband they had both so dearly wanted.”

Three embryos were created from Jefferies’ eggs and her late husband’s sperm, with consent for them to be stored for 10 years from August 11 2013. Her husband also consented to their posthumous use.

The couple met in 1999 and married in December 2006 and always wanted to have children, the court heard.

After trying naturally for many years, they were referred in 2013 for NHS-funded IVF treatment, said Richards.

A number of amendments were made to Clive Jefferies’ consent form, including one specifying a reduction in the storage period from 10 years to two.

Most of the amendments were countersigned by Clive Jefferies, but the change to the storage period was not, said Richards.

Jefferies did not know who made the amendment and it came as a shock when she discovered it.

Richards said it was likely the amendment was made to reflect the clinic’s policy at the time, which was to only offer storage for the period for which the NHS would provide funding.

There was evidence that the clinic had asked couples to amend their forms to two years if they had chosen a longer period of storage.

Granting Jefferies a declaration that storage and use was lawful until August 11 2023, the judge said: “I am just so sorry that people like you should have no idea that this can end up in court because of mistakes made by other people who should have known better.”

Widow of Falklands war veteran wins legal battle to save frozen embryos

Letting a widow maintain her husband"s sperm is a victory for compassion | Ally Fogg

Beth Warren leaves court with her mom Georgina Hyde (right), and her in-laws Kevin and Helen Brewer, after winning the right to preserve her late husband’s sperm. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

There can be couple of selections in daily life a lot more critical than opting to conceive a little one. Even inside the most secure and stable relationship and conditions, it is by no means effortless to be certain you have picked the correct time – emotionally, financially and for one’s future existence trajectory.

Who would not be moved by the story of Beth Warren whose partner of eight years, Warren Brewer, was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour. Just before commencing Brewer’s treatment method, the couple froze his sperm to permit Warren to carry their baby if and when she wished to do so. They married in a hospice six weeks prior to his death, and she took his 1st identify as her married title.

At 28 many years of age, and grieving following her bereavement, Warren needed time to choose what to do subsequent, time the law did not allow her. The Human Embryology and Fertilisation Authority insisted that a donor should frequently renew consent for sperm storage, with no exception for the deceased. This indicates that the permission Brewer granted to his new wife to use his sperm to conceive a baby would have expired in April 2015.

Warren challenged that rule and now the large court has decided in her favour: she will be permitted to continue to store her late husband’s sperm for a time period of up to fifty five many years until finally April 2060.

The verdict is a victory for compassion, justice and typical sense. As a society we have prolonged accepted a mother’s right to make a decision to carry and raise a kid alone it happens fairly frequently for a broad variety of reasons. In interviews, Warren herself has acknowledged that it would be a massive ethical determination to carry a kid into the world in full knowledge that she or he will never ever know a organic father. That she recognises this is enormously to her credit, and just underlines that the choice need to lie in her risk-free hands, not the arbitrary rulings of state authority.

Donors previously had to often renew consent for their sperm to be kept frozen. Photograph: David Levene

We can note that if she decides to proceed, the youngster or youngsters will not be born into the traditional ideal of a household unit, but all issues regarded as extremely handful of of us are. It would seem clear that any child born out of this determination will be brought into the planet with really like, devotion, caution and care, and that is a quite damned good start in existence for anyone.

There may possibly be other individuals who feel this is not in Warren’s very own interests. She is a youthful female with her complete existence ahead of her, who could move on to a new daily life, a new spouse and new prospective customers. That could be correct, but whether or not this kind of advice is excellent or negative is beside the point – it is no one’s business but her own. Conceiving a youngster with her late husband might not be the most rational selection, but because when was enjoy – either to a spouse or to their offspring – a question of rational equations?

There is also the problem of Brewer’s wishes. It looks clear that he desired his wife to have the freedom to choose to carry his infant ought to she wish to do so. Rules that had been drafted as a protection, to enable donors to modify their mind at a future date, had here become a restriction, obstructing the dying wishes of a young man.

Debates on such circumstances invariably turn out to be bogged down in regardless of whether or not conceiving with only a single residing mother or father is the correct or wrong choice. This is profoundly misplaced. The only query must be whose choice it is to make. For me, there can only be one reply. Today’s ruling is the right determination – not simply because it will permit Warren to conceive a youngster with her late husband, but since it does not force her to do so in a rush to judgment at a time of immense anxiety, sadness and upheaval, and with a non-negotiable deadline hanging above her head. Allow her now celebrate her legal victory, grieve and heal as nicely as she can, and make her determination when the time is correct for her. I do not doubt for a minute that she will choose nicely.

Letting a widow maintain her husband"s sperm is a victory for compassion | Ally Fogg

Widow wins battle to preserve dead husband"s sperm - video

Beth Warren speaks outside the large court in London soon after winning her fight to preserve her late husband’s sperm. The ruling will let her to, if she chooses in the long term, have his kid. The 28-yr-outdated widow, a physiotherapist from Birmingham, had challenged a storage time restrict imposed by the United kingdom fertility regulator, which meant she had just more than a year to conceive

Widow wins battle to preserve dead husband"s sperm - video

Widow wins substantial court battle to protect dead husband"s sperm

Beth Warren outside the high court in London. Photograph: Ben Stevens/i-Images

A widow has won a high court battle to protect her late husband’s sperm.

Physiotherapist Beth Warren, 28, from Birmingham, challenged a storage time restrict imposed by the United kingdom fertility regulator.

She mentioned the limit meant she had small in excess of a year to conceive employing sperm her husband Warren Brewer, who had cancer and died aged 32 two many years ago, had placed in storage.

Warren, who utilizes her late husband’s very first title as her surname, asked a large court judge to determine no matter whether the sperm could remain in storage for a longer period.

Mrs Justice Hogg, who heard evidence at a hearing in the family members division of the large court in London in January, ruled in Warren’s favour on Thursday. Warren gasped when the judge announced her selection.

Widow wins substantial court battle to protect dead husband"s sperm