2-Year-Old Becomes a Quadruple Amputee After a Mystery Illness
A 2-year-old boy is now a quadruple amputee after a mystery illness took over his body and cut off circulation to his limbs.
Indiana toddler Jeremiah Thompson used to love jumping and playing with his sister, his parents told Fox 59 in Indianapolis. But just days after running around the local park in September, he got sick.
At first he just had a fever, but when his temperature continued to rise, his mom Ashley Cox knew she had to take action.
“It was the fever of 104, that’s when I knew something was wrong,” she said. “And my son’s covered now from head to toe in these purple…and it wasn’t little dots now it was big ol’ blotches that was just taking over. It was scary.”
Cox and Jeremiah’s dad, Nicholas Thompson, brought Jeremiah into Riley Hospital for Children, where doctors immediately gave him antibiotics to kill the bacteria. But the unknown disease had already cut off circulation to his limbs, requiring amputation.
“That was necessary, because you can’t continue to have portions of your body attached to you that are no longer alive,” Dr. Alyson Baker, from the hospital’s pediatric ward, said. “That’s just a huge risk for infection.”
Thompson said that he was overwhelmed when he heard Jeremiah would need a quadruple amputation.
“At that moment in time, I fell to the floor and let God take the wheel,” he said.
Cox, who gave birth to the couple’s fourth child while Jeremiah was in the hospital, said they came to understand that amputation was the only option.
“We had to realize that this was going to save our son, and it was hard,” Cox said.
Jeremiah is now safely out of the intensive care unit and into the rehabilitation ward, where he’ll have to relearn how to move and crawl. Because of where doctors amputated his limbs, the toddler will eventually be able to get prosthetics, but they may never know which bacteria caused his near-death health crisis, because the antibiotics quickly wiped it out.
RELATED VIDEO: Mom Has Hands and Feet Amputated After Contracting Flesh-Eating Bacteria After Giving Birth
Cox and Thompson set up a GoFundMe page to help with Jeremiah’s medical costs and to cover some of their other bills while they care for him.
Thompson said it was their faith that got them through the difficult experience.
“Letting the Lord in my life, in her life and our kid’s life now; that made us stronger, to fight this battle, it made us so much stronger. And I’m thankful,” he said. “One day my son could be the top designer of prosthetic legs and arms because he went through this. You know, he could do anything in his lifetime. We don’t know yet. This might stop him now, but I think the future will be bright for him.”
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