4-Year-Old Finally Leaves Hospital After 8-Month Battle With COVID-19, Rare Neurological Disorder

A 4-year-old girl who was paralyzed due to Acute Transverse Myelitis, which was a result of COVID-19, has finally been released from the hospital after eight months.

Stella Martin was brought to San Juan Regional Medical Center in April 2020 after she complained of a backache and "went limp" in her mother's arms, KOAT reported. From there, she was airlifted to the University of New Mexico Hospital (UNM), where doctors found that she had Acute Transverse Myelitis, an inflammation of the spinal cord, and COVID-19.

"They said since COVID was an infection, that the good antibodies were attacking her spinal system when fighting off the COVID virus," her mother, Cassandra Yazzie, told Good Morning America (GMA). She noted that Martin could have gotten COVID-19 from her own father, who died from COVID-19 complications while the girl was at the hospital.

Martin developed a fever and her lungs also began to collapse, so she had to be placed in a coma for weeks. However, Yazzie could not be with her daughter until she herself had tested negative for COVID-19, GMA said. The family was able to communicate with Martin through donated iPads.

According to KOAT, doctors told Yazzie that Martin's was the first case of COVID-related transverse myelitis in a child at UNM. It's possible that the "Hyper Immune Response" typically observed among children with COVID-19 may be behind the spinal inflammation, Dr. Barry Ramo explained to the outlet.

As the Mayo Clinic explained, transverse myelitis disrupts the messages the spinal cord sends to the body and can cause pain, bowel or bladder dysfunction, sensory problems, weakness or paralysis.

Although most people who develop the condition can recover, "at least partially," some of the patients can also be left with major disabilities.

In Martin's case, she was left paralyzed after her bout with the disease and doctors have informed her mother that it might be unlikely for her to recover. But according to Yazzie, her daughter has already improved and can already move her arms.

The young girl spent over five months at the pediatric ICU at UNM and another three months at UNM's Carrie Tingley Hospital (CTH), which specializes in musculoskeletal and orthopedic conditions in children and teens.

On Jan. 26, after months of being at the hospital and away from her home and sibling, Martin was finally released from the hospital.

In a video shared by UNM, the hospital staff can be seen giving the young fighter a proper sendoff.

In a Feb. 1 update on the family's GoFundMe page, Yazzie said that her daughter is "doing great" and is "happily sleeping through the night."