LITTLE ROCK, Ark – A 12-year-old girl from Arkansas who contracted a brain-eating parasite during a trip to a water park has improved slightly after being treated with an experimental drug.
Kali Hardig was so exhausted when she first arrived at Arkansas Children’s Hospital that she couldn’t answer the doctor’s questions.
“(The doctor) asked me several times did I think Kali was being like what you call a hypochondriac,” Kali’s mom, Traci, recalled.
After listening to what the family had to say and running tests, doctors learned Kali was suffering from a rare and typically deadly infection — a brain-eating amoeba was swimming around in her spinal fluid. Kali’s parents were told she might have only days to live.
“I hung on by my husband and asking him, ‘What are we going to do?’ And he would tell me that, ‘We’re gonna pray for Kali and we’re gonna help her fight. We’re gonna tell her to fight.’ And that she would be okay,” Traci said.
To preserve brain tissue, Kali’s doctors induced a coma and cooled her body to 93 degrees. Doctors also turned to the Centers for Disease Control for an experimental anti-amoeba drug. Doctors were at first unsure if the experimental drug would help, but there is no longer any trace of the amoeba in Kali’s spinal fluid.
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