Rare coronavirus-related inflammatory syndrome strikes Sebastopol girl
Devi Katz and her 2-year-old daughter, Alma, were recently standing in line at the post office in Sebastopol when the toddler began screaming, “No shot, no shot!”
In Alma’s eyes, Katz saw the lingering fear and trauma from her hospital treatment over the summer for a rare coronavirus-related condition in young children that causes inflammation of their internal organs.
To Alma, the post office line could have led to the Oakland pediatric intensive care unit where she spent nine days in August. The queue also represented going for more blood tests, echocardiograms to check her heart and the shots of blood thinner her parents had to give her twice a day after she came home from the hospital.
“I just had to walk out of the line and say no, we’re not getting a shot I’m just mailing a package,” Katz said. ”And then I just realized, I think it was the environment, kind of sterile, and there was a line. We don’t go really go anywhere these days, except for the hospital for (her) blood tests.“
Before their daughter got sick, Katz and her husband, Hunter Ellis, took comfort in knowing like other parents that the coronavirus pandemic was largely sparing infants and young children like Alma. They never thought she would develop multisystem inflammatory syndrome, or MIS-C.
And why would they, since the serious condition only has been diagnosed 1,163 times and led to 20 deaths in the United States from May through Oct. 30, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But medical experts fear more cases are likely as COVID-19 resurges.
The illness causes inflammation of different parts of the body, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes or gastrointestinal organs. Medical experts do not know what causes the illness, but it’s clear many children who develop it either had contracted the pandemic disease or had been exposed to someone with COVID-19. The average age of children that come down with it is 8.
The symptoms of the inflammatory syndrome start for most children two to four weeks after they’ve been infected by the coronavirus. Although it can be deadly, most children diagnosed with it have gotten better with proper medical care. That’s the message Katz and Ellis want parents to hear.
With coronavirus cases surging in California and across the country, Katz said there likely will be more cases of MIS-C, and parents need to know the symptoms.
"I’m also realizing that I’m telling the story as a way to heal myself from trauma of the whole experience,“ said the 32-year-old mother who was a piano teacher before her daughter was born. ”Fearing that I was going to lose Alma to MIS-C is the worst pain I’ve ever felt. And I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else.”
Delayed effect
Ellis fell ill around July 10, after a number of workers at the Healdsburg textile business he runs contracted COVID-19. He figured it was only a matter of time before he got it. Indeed, he was tested and learned he was infected. Katz didn’t bother getting tested since the young family was isolating together at home in Sebastopol.
“Alma did not get sick the whole time,“ Katz said of when her husband grappled with the virus. ”She had one day where she took like a really long nap, like she was fighting something, but then she was OK. We felt really lucky that she wasn't sick with COVID. But you know, we all hear it's really common that kids are fine.“
Then a month later, Alma started getting persistent high fevers unlike any she’d ever had. Her mom and dad had several video consultations with Kaiser Permanente medical staff about their daughter’s situation. Meanwhile, Alma’s health worsened, with continued fevers, skin rashes on her face and body, lethargy and vomiting.
Katz thought something was “lost in translation” during the video consultations, and doctors ultimately diagnosed Alma with roseola. It’s a viral illness that usually affects children by age 2 and is characterized by days of fever followed by body rashes.
By Aug. 15, the couple took her to Kaiser’s emergency department in Santa Rosa. A physician there, Katz said, concluded Alma didn’t have MIS-C because it was too late for the condition after her COVID-19 exposure. Doctors gave Alma fluids and sent the family home. Her parents hoped for the best.
However, the next morning Alma was “even more limp, curled up on the couch, like someone was dying. She couldn’t move; she wouldn’t eat or drink or talk to us. It was like she was regressing,” Katz said. The nearly 23-month-old toddler had stopped walking, talking and “needed to be held and was just draped over me, with no strength,” her mom recalled.
UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy: