Three-Year-Old with Cerebral Palsy Takes His First Steps

A three-year-old from Georgia with cerebral palsy beat all the odds after he took his first steps last week.

Melissa Swanson, Bryson McArthur’s mother, said the feat was nothing short of a miracle, WMAZ reported.

Bryson was born on August 28, 2017, when Swanson was only 33-weeks pregnant.

Swanson says she had to undergo an emergency C-section at Houston Healthcare, even though Bryson’s due date was at the end of November.

“When they did take him out, he was no longer with us,” Swanson said. “It took them 38 minutes to bring him back.”

She said her placenta erupted, and the umbilical cord choked Bryson’s neck, wrapping around it three times.

Doctors told her Bryson had no chance of living without life support, and that if he did live it would be for minutes or hours, Swanson said.

“They told me that nothing was going to change. That he has no brain activity, they told me he was deaf, he was blind. They told me he’ll never see quality of life if he makes if off life support,” Swanson said.

Bryson’s family decided to baptize him and then take him off life support. After Bryson stayed alive for days, a doctor asked the family if they wanted to go home on hospice or transport Bryson to a hospice facility.

“I said, ‘We choose to go home on hospice, but I know he’s going to be okay,’” she said. “They just kept telling me he’s not going to be okay.”

Two days after they got home, Swanson’s mother heard Bryson cry for the first time.

Doctors told Swanson Bryson would have no reflexes, but she said he took a pacifier when she tried to give one to him.

Bryson eventually started eating and drinking regularly with a bottle, and started crawling in summer 2019.

Then on March 24, Bryson — who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy in his legs — took his first steps.

“I gave him a walker and he fell three times out of ten that I tried it and now he’s just walking without any troubles, not falling or nothing,” she said.

“His progress is absolutely amazing. A true miracle from God,” Swanson added.