GRANTSVILLE – Meghan McCormick said one day her son was fine, and then the very next day he had a high fever, was exhausted and sick with a syndrome that is caused by COVID-19 — except no one knew he had the coronavirus.
It was a confusing time, even for their pediatrician who didn’t even suspect it had anything to do with COVID-19.
Ask 7-year-old Easton McCormick how it went, and he will not mince words. “Poo-poo,” he exclaimed.
It wasn’t good. We’re talking about Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children, also known as MIS-C. It’s a rare condition that can make children really sick after they get COVID-19.
“He woke up with a fever of 104, so yeah, that was really high,” Meghan McCormick said.
They had no idea her son, or really anyone else in the house, had COVID-19.
“We didn’t know that he even had COVID,” she said. “So yeah, he was asymptomatic and nobody else in the household … either we were all asymptomatic or none of us, nobody else got it.”
Easton McCormick was happy and healthy on March 5.
“And it does come on quick,” Meghan McCormick said. “It’s not anything like we were, ‘Oh yeah, Easton’s not been feeling good for a couple days. He seems really off.’ He was totally normal. We were actually at Disney on Ice Friday night, and then Saturday is when it just came on.”
McCormick said things took a turn for them just two days later.
“His vital signs were terrible,” she said. “His oxygen was below 90. His heart rate was really high.”
There were also rashes and red eyes.
MIS-C can inflame organs and body parts. It’s still new and rare.
“His pediatrician just assume that he had walking pneumonia or it was something with his asthma, and so he gave us some medicine and we went home,” McCormick said. “And when we got home, he just violently threw up.”
The scary thing about MIS-C is kids will be fine, and then they won’t be fine.
–Meghan McCormick
Easton McCormick spent seven days at Primary Children’s Hospital with some of that time in the intensive care unit. His mother said parents need to know the symptoms and they may have to specifically ask about MIS-C, especially if they know their child recently had COVID-19.
“The scary thing about MIS-C is kids will be fine, and then they won’t be fine,” Meghan McCormick said. “And the hard thing is our medical professionals don’t know enough about it yet, because it is linked to COVID and we’ve only had COVID for a year.”
Her son is getting better, but he’s still being told to take it easy a month later.
It’s not easy to hold back a 7-year-old. “No physical activity … no running, which is really hard because he’s such an active kid,” McCormick said.
Easton McCormick still has some swelling, his liver activity was up and doctors schedule another CT scan for next week.
It’s not over yet, but things have been looking better after a scary experience for this family.
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Mike Anderson