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ST. LOUIS (KMOV.com) – Brian Noblitt said it had only taken a week for the health of his son Brandon to deteriorate in 2016. "On a Saturday we played baseball everything was normal, "he told correspondent Adriana Diaz. "Tuesday to Wednesday, pseudo-cold symptoms.And as the week went on, I had a headache and neck pain."
A few days later, Brandon could no longer use his legs to get up from bed. "I knew then that something was really wrong," Brian said.
"What did you think?" Diaz asked.
"Your mind is not going to paralysis."
A doctor diagnosed Brandon with acute flaccid myelitis, or AFM. Brandon, now 8 years old, was in a wheelchair.
Little is known about the rare, polio-like disease that is most commonly found in children. Symptoms include sudden weakness of the arm or leg and loss of reflex.
When asked what was the hardest part for him, Brandon replied, "Although all your friends run and play, it's hard to sit in bed and do nothing all the time."
His family eventually turned to Dr. Amy Moore from Washington University in St. Louis. "My goal with the AFM children was to restore hip stability, then the movement of the thighs," she said.
Brandon would receive what the doctors say was a first surgery that allowed him to walk again.
Moore says she is the only American doctor to perform nerve transfers on the lower limbs of children. "I used what they had." They were wagging their toes, and so I was able to move a nerve that stirred the toes to the hips. "
Surgeons at the Los Angeles Children's Hospital are also seeing some success with nerve transfer surgery to help children after an episode of MFA.
14 months ago, Moore operated the nerve transfer on Brandon's leg at the St. Louis Children's Hospital. According to Dr. Moore, children generally respond better to this type of operation because their nerves regenerate faster. She said that nerve transfers are more effective in the nine months following diagnosis.
At last week's checkup, Brandon was walking again. "It's incredible," he said. "Thanks to Miss Doctor Moore, I can go out, play with my brothers, play football." He added that he only used his wheelchair to play basketball.
The cause of AFM is still unknown, but it seems to develop after a viral illness. According to the CDC, nearly 400 people have been diagnosed since 2014.
Cases rose in August after a lull in 2017. The CDC confirmed 72 cases in 24 states this year.
In a recent interview for "CBS This Morning," CDC director Robert Redfield told co-host John Dickerson that he was calling for the creation of a special task force tasked to investigate the AFM. "It's a very rare disease: about one in a million," he said. "It does not seem to be transferable from man to man, we do not see family reunification."
As the CDC tries to determine the cause, Dr. Moore works to help those affected.
"My intention is to give these families the hope that there are options if they get this horrible diagnosis," she said.
Brandon says this horrible diagnosis has earned him new friends in basketball and inspired him to pursue a career in medicine. He told "CBS This Morning" that he wanted to become a surgeon, like Dr. Moore.
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