She said he was sleeping too much and stumbled when he walked.
To be safe, Desiree took him to the emergency room, thinking that he might be having a reaction to medication.
Instead, testing found that somehow the flu had caused an infection in his brain, which was attacking the part of the brain that controls movement.
Witten now cannot walk, sit, stand or talk, Desiree told KXAS.
A healthy 8-year-old boy was diagnosed with the flu. The next day, his mother says, doctors discovered the flu caused a life-changing infection in the boy's brain: https://t.co/SOPbsMF8VU
— NBC DFW (@NBCDFW) January 19, 2018
Neurologists said the infection is called cerebellitis, an inflammatory process that can be a complication from the flu in rare cases with no risk factors.
"You can have otherwise seemingly healthy individuals whose bodies handle flu in such a way to lead to a neurologic complication, which is why we spend so much time focusing on prevention," Dr. Benjamin Greenberg told KXAS.
Prevention, Greenberg said, is the flu vaccine.
Witten’s mother said her son didn’t get a flu shot this year as he had in previous years.
Children can recover from cerebellitis, but doing so will involve rehabilitation, which is already planned for Witten, KXAS reported.
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