A 20-month-old boy who was sickened with the very rare disease Baylisascaris, a microscopic parasite spread by raccoon droppings, is making a recovery.
When you meet Reed Hall, you'd never know that just a little more than a month ago, he was in the fight of his young life.
“We didn’t know if we were going to leave the hospital with him at that point,” his mother Mandy Hall said. “And that was really, really scary.”
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In April, Mandy noticed Reed was sleeping more than usual. Concerned, she called her doctor who attributed it to a growth spurt.
Something in me just kind of had that mom instinct of this isn't right,” Mandy said. “So when he woke up, I set him down. He was all wobbly.”
She called her husband, Andrew.
“By the time Andrew got home, his vision had lost tracking,” she said.
The couple rushed Reed to the hospital where his health continued to rapidly decline.
“He was in the hospital bed with me, I was holding him,” Mandy said. “His eyes didn’t move. He was kind of staring off.”
The illness impacted Reed in that it seemed almost as if he were going back in time, reverting back to being an infant rather than moving forward.
“[He wasn't] able to walk, to sleep, sit up on his own,” Andrew Hall said.
Doctors initially didn't know what was wrong with Reed. After a litany of tests, they suspected it could be the rare disease Baylisascaris Procyonis, also known as raccoon roundworm, which is associated with raccoon droppings.
The CDC confirmed the findings after the Halls left the hospital.
The culprit is a tree in their backyard at the edge of Fauntleroy Park, where Reed has spent hours swinging and playing. It is also a raccoon latrine. Raccoon droppings can carry a microscopic parasite and once it enters a human, serious symptoms can emerge within days. Young children, like Reed, are at the highest risk of infection because they are more likely to put contaminated objects or fingers in their mouths.
“We just want people to be aware this exists so that they know how to react or prevent it if possible,” Andrew said.
Reed is first person in Washington state to contract it, and he's the 30th reported case in the U.S. since 1978. The potentially fatal infection can also leave survivors with long-term neurological issues.
After almost a week in the hospital, the Halls went home -- broken, and unsure of their little boy's fate.
Throughout their ordeal with Reed, Mandy was 40 weeks pregnant with their baby daughter who was born the day after they left the hospital.
Miraculously, Reed is now is almost at 100 percent and his parents want to share their story as a warning to others.
“It truly would break my heart to know if someone else went through this as well,” Mandy said. “It's so important for me to share this story for that reason. So that hopefully everyone can avoid what we have had to go through.”
Mandy and Andrew don’t know if Reed will have any long term neurological effects. They’re monitoring him every day. For now, they're just grateful their little boy is alive, but they also don’t know if there are any long-term neurological effects as there have been with other survivors of the disease.