Texan couple Josy and Dustin Baker were stunned when their then 4-year-old daughter Lylah became so sick she could no longer walk, but had no idea why.
It turns out that Lylah contracted a rare bacterial infection known as melioidosis, from a common household item. The girl has been fighting off her illness ever since.
Before Lylah got sick, the couple were enjoying their recent move to a farm in Bells, Texas.
Josy and Dustin, along with Lylah and her sister Adelaide, made the move in January 2021. It was idyllic.
"We loved being outside," Dustin explained to People in a recent interview. "Lylah loves the cows. She loves running barefoot and playing with her cousins out in the little pond."
“She was always very sweet, quiet, polite, and so giggly,” he said.
But in May 2021, the parents saw signs in Lylah that something wasn’t right.
It started with a low-grade fever and “just a typical regular stomach virus that kids get,” Lylah’s aunt, Ashley Kennon, told KXII in June 2021. Josy and Dustin brought her to the hospital and within days she was unable to walk or hold her own head up, Dustin told People.
"Our lives have turned upside down," he said.
“She was a healthy little girl running around playing you know with all her animals, and then now we haven’t heard her talk,” her aunt said at the time.
Lylah was required to go through months of testing and a five-hour brain biopsy at Children's Medical Center in Plano, Texas.
Her doctors ultimately diagnosed her with melioidosis, which is caused by the bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei, People reports. Typically, Burkholderia pseudomallei is found in Northern Australia and Southeast Asia, so her medical team was puzzled how she picked it up all the way in Bells, Texas.
“That’s the big question like everybody is how did she get it. And the honest answer to that is we don’t know,” Dustin told KXII in July.
Soon three other cases of melioidosis popped up in Kansas, Minnesota, and Georgia.
Which only made the case more curious. People reports that researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looked at the commonalities between the cases and traced the source back to an air freshener spray that was being sold at Walmart at the time, the Better Homes & Gardens Lavender and Chamomile Aromatherapy Spray with Semi-Precious Gemstones.
The air freshener has since been recalled.
The product was made in a factory in South India, although the CDC is still trying to figure out how the bacteria made its way into the air freshener. Authorities believe it might have come from the water used to make the air freshener or the semiprecious gemstones, which could have been contaminated before it was packaged.
s gemstones, which could have been contaminated before it was packaged.
Doctors don’t know why some people get sick from Burkholderia pseudomallei and others don’t.
But just learning what was causing Lylah’s sickness was a relief to her parents.
It "almost felt like she could breathe again," Josy told People. "It wasn't just this shadow in the dark that was terrorizing our baby."
Lylah was released from the hospital in August after an intense regimen of physical, speech, and occupational therapy eight times a week. Josy even quit her job as a veterinary assistant to help care for her daughter.
"You do anything for your kids," Josy explained. "I could not look back if I wanted to. This is where we are."
Lylah turned 5 at the end of October.
By her birthday, Lylah had made some strides, although her progress is slow and her journey is far from over.
“Before all this started we had a normal 4-year-old and a normal 1-year-old,” Dustin told KXII on October 29. “We’ve had to adjust with having a daughter who now has special needs."
“She has now began to be able to nod her head yes and no to a response to questions and she’s able to open her hands to things now,” he added.
With medical bills mounting, the family has also started a GoFundMe page that has raised over $45,000 toward her medical fees.
Much to her parents' surprise, Lylah has started smiling again.
“Seeing all of these smiles has made it a lot better, a lot easier on us,” Josy told KXII in October.
“The other day on her birthday she laughed and my mom actually got it on video. Hearing her laugh again was awesome and seeing the little parts of her come back through like her little personality and stuff,” Dustin added at the time.
"When we make a joke, she's smiling right along with us,” Josy told People recently. “It finally feels like Lylah is here. She listens and hears everything we say and when we make a joke, she's smiling right along with us. It just brightens our day."
Source: cafemom.com
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