Marin Independent Journal

So sick they feared the worst, now they urge change

- By Lindsay Whitehurst

MONTPELIER, IDAHO » Kale Wuthrich watched doctors surround his son in the emergency room, giving him fluids though IV tubes, running a battery of tests and trying to stabilize him. He was enveloped by the confusion and fear that had been building since his 12-year- old suddenly fell ill weeks after a mild bout with the coronaviru­s.

“He was very close at that point to not making it, and basically they told me to sit in the corner and pray,” Wuthrich said. “And that’s what I did.”

Shortly after Thanksgivi­ng, the boy from a secluded valley in Idaho became one of hundreds of children in the U. S. who have been diagnosed with a rare, extreme immune response to COVID-19 called multisyste­m inflammato­ry syndrome in children. Cooper Wuthrich’s fever spiked as his joints and organs became inflamed, including his heart, putting his life at risk, his father said.

“Cooper had it in every organ, in his joints; his feet were swelled up the size of mine, his poor eyes were red, bugged out of his head and very lethargic, very scared,” Kale Wuthrich said. “Cooper would never, has never complained about pain, but that’s all he could do was tell me how bad he hurt.”

After days in the hospital, Cooper is back home. But the kid who loves sledding and skiing spent much of the following days on the couch in the lounge of the Montpelier, Idaho, truck stop that his parents partly own. A short walk left him with a bloody nose, and he’s still on medication­s that require twice- daily injections.

For Cooper’s parents, his illness deepened their commitment to wearing masks and urging others to do so, though pushback can be intense in conservati­ve Idaho. Hundreds of people have protested mask requiremen­ts for months, even forcing one Boise health official to rush home this month in fear for her child as protesters blasted a sound clip of gunfire outside her front door.

Opposition to restrictio­ns is strong even as coronaviru­s patients fill Idaho hospitals. Gov. Brad Little warned that car crash victims could need to be treated in hospital conference rooms if beds run out. He’s encouraged people to wear masks but is among about a dozen governors who haven’t issued a statewide mandate.

Cooper caught the virus in late October, likely at school, which is open for in-person classes without a mask requiremen­t, said his mother, Dani Wuthrich.

“He had got himself grounded, and so he hadn’t been allowed to go anywhere except for to school,” she said. “We kind of don’t know anywhere else he could have gotten it besides school.”

He recovered in a few days and was back to playing basketball after a twoweek quarantine.

But as Thanksgivi­ng approached, Cooper called to come home from practice, unusual for a kid with bottomless energy. His fever spiked above 103 degrees, and the medicine his parents gave him didn’t help. He was throwing up; he tossed and turned at night.

As the days wore on and Cooper’s fever refused to break, his parents rushed him to a local hospital, where doctors ran tests to try to figure out what was wrong. Not seeing improvemen­t and suspecting appendicit­is, they loaded him into an ambulance for a three- hour whiteknuck­le drive through the mountains to Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City.

Cooper is one of about 40 kids treated for the inflammato­ry syndrome at Primary Children’s, said Dr. Dongngan Truong, a pediatric cardiologi­st who is helping with a study on the illness.

“Luckily, it is a rare complicati­on, but it’s a complicati­on that can get kids pretty sick pretty quickly,” Truong said. “We need to take it seriously, because we don’t know the longterm effects on the child’s body, the heart, the other organ systems.”

An August report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that many children with the condition had severe complicati­ons, including inflammati­on of the heart and kidney damage. In nearly two-thirds of cases, children went to intensive care units, and the average ICU stay was five days. It found Hispanic and Black children made up three-quarters of those with the syndrome.

A total of 1,288 kids nationwide had been diagnosed with the syndrome as of Dec. 4, and 23 had died, according to the CDC.

The root seems to be a dysfunctio­n of the immune system, which kicks into overdrive when exposed to the virus, releasing chemicals that can damage organs. Symptoms include fever, abdominal or neck pain, vomiting, diarrhea, rash, bloodshot eyes and fatigue.

 ?? PHOTOS BY RICK BOWMER — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ?? Cooper Wuthrich rests Dec. 15 on a bed at the truck stop his family partly owns in Montpelier, Idaho. Shortly after Thanksgivi­ng, Wuthrich, 12, became one of hundreds of children in the U.S. diagnosed with a rare COVID-19 complicati­on that landed him in an emergency room.
PHOTOS BY RICK BOWMER — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Cooper Wuthrich rests Dec. 15 on a bed at the truck stop his family partly owns in Montpelier, Idaho. Shortly after Thanksgivi­ng, Wuthrich, 12, became one of hundreds of children in the U.S. diagnosed with a rare COVID-19 complicati­on that landed him in an emergency room.
 ??  ?? Kale Wuthrick puts his arm around his son Cooper on Dec. 15 at the Ranch Hand Restaurant at the truck stop his family partly owns in Montpelier, Idaho.
Kale Wuthrick puts his arm around his son Cooper on Dec. 15 at the Ranch Hand Restaurant at the truck stop his family partly owns in Montpelier, Idaho.

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