An Indiana family’s ordeal helps raise awareness after their 4-year-son developed a rare infection, initially considered flu. The bacterial infection had spread to numerous parts of his body, eventually resulting in the amputation of his right leg.

Parents, Megan and Ben Crenshaw, thought their youngest son Bryson had caught the flu when he first developed a fever in early January.

Bryson was treated at home to start with, but when his fever didn’t subside and his heart rate became fast, his parents took him to the emergency room.

“He laid across my chest and it felt like his heart was about to blow up,” Ben told Good Morning America. “It was like, ‘OK, let’s go now.'”

The Crenshaws said even the doctors within the emergency room thought Bryson had the flu, but once they noticed he was limping a bit in his right leg, the medical professionals on the local hospital had the boy transferred to Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis.

When Bryson reached the hospital, his right leg had turn into red and swollen, the Crenshaws said. Their son was diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis, a rare bacterial infection, in response to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Also called the “flesh-eating disease,” the infection can spread quickly, and destroy tissues within the body. The condition can turn fatal if not caught early on.

Though necrotizing fasciitis is normally contracted via a cut within the skin or insect bite, Bryson didn’t have any of the kinds, in response to his parents. In those cases, infection is usually brought on by a gaggle of bacteria called group A streptococcus (group A strep), in response to the CDC.

Group A strep also causes other common infections like strep throat and tonsillitis.

“We couldn’t process it,” Megan said, ABCNews reported. “After we initially got to Riley, there have been just so many individuals rushing in, talking to us, wanting information, getting information.”

“All we kept hearing from every doctor was, ‘Your son is the sickest kid within the hospital right away,'” she continued. “We didn’t even expect for him to make it through the primary few days due to how sick he was.”

Bryson spent a complete of 55 days on the Riley Hospital for Children, where he was kept on a ventilator machine to assist him breathe. 

Bryson underwent surgery during which a component of every of his small intestine, colon, and the appendix was removed by the doctors. The infection has caused the tissues to turn into necrotic.

In a single major surgery, amputation needed to be performed on Bryson’s right leg, where the infection had first appeared. For the reason that infection had occurred high in Bryson’s leg, doctors were capable of preserve and use a few of his non-affected lower leg. This may allow the boy to walk on a prosthetic later, in response to Dr. Christine Caltoum, medical director of surgical operations and division chief of pediatric orthopedic surgery at Riley Hospital.

“A part of his lower leg was actually used to increase the length of his amputation,” said Caltoum, who was an integral a part of Bryson’s care team. “That enables for an extended a part of the leg to be salvaged to make that a bit more functional leg for prosthetic use afterward.”