Toddler Left Fighting for Life After Flu Turns into Rare Brain Infection
The flu is most prevalent during the fall and winter seasons. Even though most cases of the flu resolve on their own, it can be very dangerous.
That is a sad truth a family from St. Louis, Missouri, has experienced firsthand.
The family of 2-year-old Layla Thomas didn’t think anything was necessarily wrong when the bubbly little girl began to fall ill.
“She had just a runny nose, maybe a little cough but nothing out of the ordinary that we hadn’t seen before,” her aunt, Jessica Kile, told KMOV.
However, her symptoms soon escalated. She spiked a raging fever and stopped reacting to the world around her.
When her parents took her temperature, they were shocked to find that she had a 107-degree fever.
They rushed her to the hospital and doctors quickly intervened. Medical professionals intubated her and studded her forehead with electrodes to monitor her brain activity.
“They had her hooked up to everything imaginable,” Kile said. “She’s completely unresponsive and is making small eye movements.”
That doesn’t sound like normal flu symptoms, does it? Well, it turned out that Layla had contracted something associated with influenza, but distinctive from it.
She had necrotic encephalitis, an often fatal complication. Acute necrotizing encephalopathy can actually destroy the brain, according to the National Institutes of Health’s Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Center.
“Acute necrotizing encephalopathy (ANE) is a rare disease characterized by brain damage (encephalopathy) that usually follows an acute febrile disease, mostly viral infections. … The disease is caused by both environmental factors and genetic factors. Usually, ANE develops secondary to viral infections, among which the influenza A, influenza B, and the human herpes virus 6, are the most common,” the site reads.
The medical community doesn’t have a single, agreed-upon best course of treatment for the illness. Layla’s doctors have given her a 50 percent chance of survival.
WebMD has reported that some 200,000 people get hospitalized with the flu annually in the United States. Anywhere from 3,000 to 49,000 die from it.
Even if Layla survives, no one knows if she’ll return to her regular self.
Dr. Rachel Orscheln, an infectious disease specialist, said, “Even with appropriate anti-viral treatments, some of these severe complications can result in permanent disability or even death.”
Kile said that the family truly hopes to have their little girl back hale and whole.
“She’s really loving, just a cuddle bug and we’re just praying that we get that back,” she said.
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