Relatives of a Red Deer woman are waiting to find out if she died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in a Red Deer hospital bed on Aug. 25.

Bradley Clayton said it was the funeral director who told him it was possible that his mother Dianne Clayton, 50, had the human equivalent of BSE. The director got a call from a Calgary coroner saying he should not embalm the body or allow a viewing.

“(The coroner) suspected, due to what they had seen, she had this. It’s a highly transmittable disease so of course they don’t want anyone to come in contact with tissues or anything like that,” Clayton said on Thursday, exactly one month after his mother’s death.

Clayton, 24, was told it could take up to three months for an autopsy. But he doesn’t want the wait to drag on.

“Everyone’s wondering what happened and we have to find out. She was too young. If it’s Mad Cow, somebody’s responsible for that.

“I want a full report. I don’t want anything to get lost.”

Clayton said his mother was in Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre for seven months prior to her death, in and out of intensive care. She went to the emergency room on Feb. 5. with kidney failure.

“She went to the emergency room. She had a big swollen leg. All of a sudden all her fingers and toes were purple.”

She was put on dialysis and suffered from inflammation of the blood vessels.

He said doctors never did find out what was making her so sick.

“We heard everything, lupus, MS, this and that. But there was no definitive answer. Basically the doctor signed the death certificate with heart complications due to pneumonia.”

About three years ago, his mother started suffering from dizziness, depression and anxiety and those can be symptoms of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, he said.

“It does fit kind of perfect. It makes sense to me with what I’ve heard, what I’ve read, what they’ve told me, what I’ve seen.”

She was on government assistance due to her health problems, but tried to be active by visiting friends and volunteering.

“She volunteered at Bargain Treasures for, I think, 12 years. It was kind of like her day job, three times a week.”

Clayton said a preliminary autopsy report has been released to her doctor and he hopes it will have some answers. He is expecting a call.

“I want to find out because this disease, 15 per cent can be hereditary, another 10 per cent is sporadic. And then of course you can get it from eating things.”

The only way to diagnose any variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is by examining brain tissue after death.

Bob Pearce, communications officer with David Thompson Health Region, said he couldn’t talk about specific cases. But when it comes to the possibility of certain diseases, precautions are taken when dealing with a body, like at a funeral home.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean the patient had the diagnosis. But procedures are in place and that’s normal, standard operating procedure,” Pearce said.

Cases of the disease are reported to the Public Health Agency of Canada.

“We do get a few cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in Alberta every year,” Pearce said.

In 2007, there were 16 definite and probable cases in Canada. A total of 38 cases were reported in 2006.

Contact Susan Zielinski at szielinski@reddeeradvocate.com