Cameron Mott is easily one of the bravest and most amazing little girls we have ever seen!
When she was 3 years old, Mott began having violent seizures (often 10 or more a day) that left her family scared. They would continue for the next three years while the family tried everything in their power to find out what was happening to their poor baby girl. Many failed medications and examinations later, doctors finally diagnosed her with Rasmussen's syndrome — a rare autoimmune disorder that causes deterioration of one half of the brain.
The only solution for Cameron would be a radical surgery called a hemispherectomy, where doctors would remove the entire right half of her brain. It's a risky procedure, but one that has found success in children because of the ability of their young brains to adapt to the situation.
“We like to do children because of their ability or their plasticity — that’s the ability of the other side of the brain that we haven't removed to take over and control the function of the diseased half we’re removing,” neurosurgeon Dr. George Jallo told NBC News in 2010.
Immediately after her successful surgery, Cameron was left completely paralyzed on the left side of her body — but several weeks of grueling physical therapy allowed her to walk out of the hospital and on her way to a healthy, happy life.
This video, from her 2010 appears on NBC's Today Show, shows Mott's transition from a girl that had multiple violent seizures every single day to a girl who, at the time, hadn't had another seizure in two years, and was well on her way to a full recovery from Rasmussen's Syndrome.
We get to watch as Mott's family tries to manage Cameron's grueling (and frightening seizures), her recovery in the hospital after her hemispherectomy, and the many hours of physical therapy that followed, before we finally get to see the beautiful, bright, and smiling Cameron on the Today Show studio discussing her ordeal.
"I want to be a ballerina," she tells Today's Ann Curry at the conclusion of the interview.
We can't wait to see Cameron Mott twirling and dancing, seizure-free, in the years to come.
Please SHARE with all your friends and family!
