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A 2-year-old girl in Canada has been left paralyzed from the neck down after catching the common cold last month.
According to The Mirror, Ameliya Pellett went from being a happy and healthy toddler to completely paralyzed in just 10 days.
Ameliya’s mom, Miranda, said the troubles began last month, when the little girl was jumping on a trampoline at school.
When she woke up the next morning, Ameliya had already lost all feeling in her right leg. Over the next few days, the paralysis spread to her left leg and all the way up her tiny body.
“I thought perhaps she’d pulled a muscle rolling around on the floor at the gym,” Miranda said. “I put ice on it and thought it would get better.”
“Within a few days the limp travelled to her other leg and she developed paralysis,” she added. “She fell, while playing with her sister, couldn’t lift the spoon to eat her yoghurt and her head was bobbing like a doll’s head.”
After being rushed to a hospital in Ottawa, Ameliya was diagnosed with Guillan-Barre Syndrome, an extremely rare illness of the peripheral nervous system.
The shocking illness typically occurs when the body attacks part of the nervous system after an infection.
In Ameliya’s case, the paralysis was caused by the common cold.
There’s no time limit on how long the effects of Guillan-Barre Syndrome can last, so Ameliya must learn how to walk again from scratch.
For now, the determined toddler is starting to crawl again with her 9-month-old baby sister, according to The Mirror.
“Ameliya has been amazing in her own recovery,” Miranda said. “She’s sassy and stubborn and that will allow her to walk again.”
“She loves dancing and from day one has been asking when she can dance again,” she added.
