After spending eight months in the hospital due to complications from COVID-19, four-year-old Stella Martin is finally going home. Martin was diagnosed with COVID-19 back in April after she went limp in her mother's arms while complaining of back pain.
She was airlifted to the University of New Mexico Hospital, where doctors discovered she had developed Acute Transverse Myelitis, which causes acute inflammation in the gray and white matter in the spinal cord. She spent five months in the pediatric ICU while doctors tried to treat her condition, which left her paralyzed.
She was then transferred to another hospital, where she spent the next three months recovering. While doctors do not believe she will fully recover, her mother, Cassandra Yazzie, told KOAT that Stella has regained some movement in her arms.
When Stella was finally healthy enough to return home, she received a round of applause from the hospital workers who became some of the young girl's best friends.
"I am so grateful for the staff at UNM, the doctors, the chiefs, the nurses. They've done a lot for Stella. We thank them all," Yazzie told the news station. "Every person there, she tells them she loves them, she checks up on the staff, when they'd come in, she'd ask 'are you OK?' she calls them all her friends," she said.
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