Kitsap mom whose son has AFM is fighting for CDC to do more to follow him

KITSAP COUNTY, Wash. – Acute flaccid myeltis (AFM) may cause sudden paralysis. It hits hundreds of children in our country and continues to increase.

Doctors have no idea what causes it.

A Kitsap County mother who has been helping her son fight the disease for four years hopes the federal medical authorities will begin to give AFM the attention it deserves.

Hayden Werdal is 17, but he got AFM when he was 13 years old.

"It makes you realize that it was so random and that it was impossible to get ready," said her mother, Heather, at Q13.

It all started four years ago with a cold.

"It was a nasty cold, he was sick," she said. "I kept him at home for a few days, we did not want him to transmit the cold. When he improved, nothing could happen, in my opinion. "

She says doctors did not know what to do in the beginning, and that disease control and prevention centers should do more to study the disease.

"Those of us who have been in the trenches for four years are asking what you have been doing for four years?" She said.

In Washington, the Ministry of Health is investigating at least six possible cases. The signs may be discordant and may resemble a falling or weakened polio-facial, difficulty in moving the eyes, drooping eyelids and difficulty swallowing or speech problems.

The disease affects the nervous system and up to now, the cause of individual cases can be difficult to determine or sometimes no cause is found.

But Werdal says some doctors still do not know how to suspect the AFM, so she wants the CDC to do more to track the disease.

"The only way to say 'that's what our kids have' is through this MRI, so that's where we should start," she said.

Local health officials said they witnessed an outbreak of the AFM two years ago. And today, the causes are just as mysterious.

If doctors had suspected AFM earlier in the Hayden case, his mother thinks his future might have been more promising. She now hopes that the federal authorities will take a closer look at the situation that forced her son to live the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

"I'm not saying that we could have prevented these cases, but we might have been able to treat our children faster so that they had fewer deficits," she said.