Fifteen minutes. That was all it took to transmit a rare, dangerous, and debilitating disease caused by a tick. The victim was a nearly four-year-old boy, Johnny Simson who fell seriously ill and ended up in a hospital where they miraculously managed to save his life.

Jamie Simoson’s intuition, the mother, prompted her to seek more medical attention for something the youngest son’s pediatrician initially downplayed, assuring her it was a virus that had to run its course.

The bite that changed everything happened when Jonny was swimming in a neighbor’s pool on June 15th. Out of nowhere, her mother noticed a small spot on her right shoulder blade. It was a tiny dot smaller than the tip of a pen. “I’ve seen it,” she says.

“It wasn’t embedded. It wasn’t swollen. I pulled it out easily with a pair of tweezers and it was still alive.”Simonson said. “He didn’t necessarily have any marks on his back shoulder until a few days later; there was only a small red bump. It was like this”.

About two weeks later, Jonny’s daycare called saying the boy wasn’t feeling well.

“He was depressed, had no appetite and the fact that he complained about a headache it wasn’t normal for a 3-year-old,” Simoson said. Her symptoms worsened over the next two days. After a visit to the pediatrician, Johnny was sent home with some supportive medication. He woke up that night with a fever.

“We called the doctor the next morning and I told him he sleeps a lot and it’s not really like him,” Simoson said. After a second visit to the doctor, who once again told him to wait. But he didn’t and she took her son to the emergency room when his fever rose to over 39° and showed no improvement with an antipyretic he had been given. He felt that something was wrong.

The worst was beginning. Days in the hospital turned into weeks. The elevated white blood cell count rose to 30,000. He was unusually sleepy and showed no signs of recovering from the IV. A lumbar puncture discovered that he had an increase in neutrophils, a type of white blood cell that acts as an early response from the immune system, in his umbilical cord fluid. He has been cared for Bacterial meningitis and viral until doctors ruled them out.

The doctors decided to transfer the child to another, more complex medical center and he spent there four days in intensive care. They did a coronary CT scan to rule out a brain hemorrhage, abscess, or mass. “Things got really scary at that point, I didn’t speak up. It was very frustrating looking for an answer. we were terrified that we can’t go home to our son,” Simoson said.

However, after an MRI, neurologists they were able to diagnose him with meningoencephalitis, an infection of both the brain and the thin tissue surrounding it. After a night of intravenous immunoglobulina treatment for antibody-deficient patients, there were signs of hope.

“Within 15 hours of her first dose she was like ‘mom, is that pepperoni pizza?”“ the woman recalled. Actually, it was just a box of tissues, but that meant Jonny was hungry.

After almost five full days of not responding, his son was alert and talking. “It was amazing. That was the first time since this whole situation began that my husband and I have completely broken down,” she said confidently, finally knowing her young son would be home soon.

His parents had to teach him to eat and drink again, as well as sit and speak clearly. “We knew going home was going to be tough,” Simoson said. After 12 days, the child was discharged and the joy was total. “He’s very active and doesn’t understand his limitations. We were so excited to get out of the hospital but so scared of what was going to happen next.”

“Jonny wasn’t walking yet and his balance was poor,” Simoson said. “We knew we had a lot of work to do, but we were up for the challenge,” he added. Three days after he was released, doctors informed him that Johnny had tested positive Powsan virus, a rare and dangerous disease transmitted by ticks. And then the mystery was solved.

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, human infections with Powassan virus have been reported in the United States – also in Canada and Russia – in the northeastern states and in the Great Lakes region. These cases occur mainly in late spring, early summer and mid-autumn when ticks are most active.

there was only 178 cases reported in the US since 2011.

After much heartache, Simoson opened a Facebook page and now she’s urging others to prevent tick bites and stand up for their children. “You’re the only one who knows them and knows what’s normal for them, and if you’re not feeling well, he speaks for them,” she said.

“Don’t feel like you’re questioning someone. That’s your job. And we want to warn everyone of what can happen if you don’t act quickly,” he concluded.