“Be grateful that your world has not been flipped upside down in the same way that mine has.”
Parents in Texas are being urged to bring their children to school wearing masks after their 11-year-old son was diagnosed with multisystem inflammatory syndrome a month after testing positive for COVID-19.
Angie Abbott stated that she and her son Cason went to the doctor on Nov. 8, 2020, after he complained of being unwell and experiencing symptoms such as a sore throat. Carson then tested positive for COVID-19, but they were able to discharge him from the hospital due to his condition not necessitating hospitalization. Abbot stated that she kept an eye on him from his house, where he simply “liked to lounge about and watch movies.”
Abbot stated that after losing her fiancé to a stroke, she became “concerned” that his “lethargy” was due to depression and contacted a local physician, who recommended her to take him to the hospital.
“He was constantly drowsy and ill,” Abbott, 53, explained on “Good Morning America.”
Abbott stated in December 2020 that she took her kid to a local hospital in Abilene twice, but the physicians were unable to determine what was wrong. She stated that as Cason’s symptoms deteriorated, she rushed him to Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth.
“They immediately recognized he had MIS-C,” she explained. “With the edema, his inflammatory indicators were significantly elevated. His face, hands, and feet were swelled on the exterior. He was covered with a rash. His eyes were truly bloodshot and crimson, with black circles under them.”
MIS-C is a disease that causes inflammation in many bodily areas, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, and gastrointestinal organs. While the etiology of MIS-C is unknown, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that many children with MIS-C tested positive for COVID-19. Since May 2020, the CDC has identified 4,404 cases of MIS-C.
“The typical age of patients with MIS-C is nine years,” according to Dr. Priscilla Hanudel, an emergency care specialist in Los Angeles and a member of the Medical Unit. “Masking is critical for keeping children from contracting this serious sickness, all the more so because children under the age of 11 are not yet vaccine-eligible.”
Abbott stated that Cason was unresponsive the morning after he was admitted and the staff was unable to obtain a blood pressure measurement on him. They took him to the intensive care unit, where she described him as being in “serious condition.”
“The doctor informed me that had I waited until the next morning to transport him to the hospital, he most likely would not have survived,” Abbott explained.
Although Cason was discharged from the intensive care unit and brought home a month later in January, Abbott said he must continue to return to Cook Children’s Medical Center for routine checkups and lab work.
“His inflammatory indicators and some of his laboratory results are significantly wrong,” she explained. “As a result of the MIS-C therapy, he now lacks immunity.”
Antibiotics, steroid treatment, and intravenous immunoglobulin are all used to treat MIS-C, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Cason is now immunocompromised, according to Abbott, and exhibiting MIS-C symptoms such as tiredness and inflammation. She is concerned he may re-infect himself when he returns to Wylie West Junior High on Aug. 18 as a sixth-grader.
“We were only released from his infectious disease doctor last week to return to school wearing a mask,” Abbott explained. “So here’s my concern as a mother: what about the other children he’ll be around? The majority of them will not be wearing masks and will be unvaccinated due to their age.”
Following Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order prohibiting government organizations, including school districts, from compelling students to wear masks, Cason’s school is one of several that will not require students to wear masks this school year.
Abbott stated that Cason will be ineligible for the vaccination when he reaches 12 on Sept. 3 due to his son’s compromised immune system. The CDC recommends that individuals diagnosed with MIS-C postpone immunizations for 90 days following diagnosis.
“It’s the only thing on my mind,” Abbott explained. “This is not an everyday occurrence. Every minute of every day, I’m concerned about him. … I get the distinct impression that we are about to enter a combat zone with no means of defense.”
Additionally, Abbott stated that Cason’s school will not provide any sort of remote learning. As a single working mother without access to daycare, she is unable to withdraw Cason from school to homeschool him.
“My child remains unwell… It’s frightening to think of my child contracting COVID again “Abbott asserted. “I’m not even going to consider what it may entail for us.”
Wylie West Junior High has not responded quickly to a request for comment from ‘GMA’ on Cason’s remote learning.
Cason Abbott, 11, was diagnosed with MIS-C, a very uncommon complication of COVID-19.
Abbott is now pleading with parents to take the virus more seriously and to consider the importance of masks and the vaccination in limiting the spread.
“Be grateful that your world has not been flipped inside out, as mine has,” Abbott added. “COVID and MIS-C are very real in my household, and the repercussions have been terrible, so please don’t sit there and say it’s not a big problem.”
“If someone could walk in my shoes and experience what I did with my child, I believe there would be no doubt in their minds that they wanted the vaccination — that they never wanted to be so sick or pass it on to someone else,” she continued.
Abbott refers to Cason as a “soldier.”
“He’s an angel,” she stated. “He is more worried about my being depressed if we receive a negative diagnostic or reason to be concerned. He is never concerned about himself. He’s never complained about it once – he’s so protective of me.”