Seven-year-old Wyatt Shaw suddenly fell into a deep sleep that lasted 11 days. A few hours before falling into a strange state, the child was visiting his uncle's wedding and behaving as usual. In the evening, when he came home, he went to bed. When the boy's mother could not wake him the next morning, she brought the child to the hospital.
According to his mother, Emily Shaw, after she shook her son to wake him up in the morning, he woke up for a couple of moments, but then fell asleep again. The frightened woman took the boy first to the nearest clinic in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and then the doctors sent the child to Louisville for examination.
At the hospital, the boy underwent five electroencephalograms, three MRIs (magnetic resonance imaging), one MRA (Magnetic resonance angiography) procedure, and three lumbar punctures. Also tested for parasites, viruses, bacteria, and infections that cause drowsiness. They also checked for encephalitis. However, careful examinations failed to provide an answer as to why the boy fell into a lethargic sleep.
11 days later, Wyatt suddenly woke up from sleep after being injected with cramps. However, he was partially immobilized. Doctors contacted the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and London specialists, trying to find the cause of the child's 11-day sleep.
“One of the doctors in London told us that in his practice there was a case when a child fell asleep for 10 days,” says Rhonda Thompson, the boy’s grandmother.
One of the possible causes of Wyatt's condition may be the very rare Kleine-Levin Syndrome (also called Sleeping Beauty Syndrome). This is an extremely rare neurological disorder characterized by recurrent episodes of excessive sleepiness (hypersomnia) and narrowing of consciousness.
Patients sleep most of the day (up to 18 hours, and sometimes longer), waking up only to eat and go to the toilet; become irritable or aggressive if not allowed to sleep. It is extremely difficult to wake them up. The disease occurs most often in adolescence.
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Another possible cause could be disturbances in the hypothalamus and thalamus, which are responsible for sleep patterns.
When Wyatt woke up after a long sleep, he could not walk, speak, swallow food. Doctors are not sure if he will completely return to normal, but his condition is gradually improving. He has already begun to speak and each time he moves more confidently.