The family’s life was turned upside down a week after a beach holiday when 13-year-old Caleb began to feel so ill that an ambulance was called.
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At first, the boy felt headache and fever. After that, his temperature rose to 40.5 degrees, the boy felt excruciating pain in the neck, which was associated with meningitis.
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The boy’s aunt, Katie, said in a Facebook post that the boy is now in the intensive care unit at a children’s hospital being treated for cerebral edema.
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Doctors believe the boy may have contracted a brain-eating amoeba, Latin for Naegleria fowleri, while swimming in the water. This amoeba usually enters the human brain through the nose. In the majority of officially known cases of infection, patients die.
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“Most of the time, people didn’t go to the hospital early enough,” says the aunt. “We hope we made it.”
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The amoeba likes to stay in a warm freshwater environment, due to climate change, more and more water bodies are becoming more suitable for this amoeba to live in.
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