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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Freddie Freeman returned to the Los Angeles Dodgers lineup Monday night after missing eight games to be with his ailing 3-year-old son, who is out of danger after receiving a serious medical diagnosis.
“I’m back,” he said, “which means good things are happening at the Freeman household.”
After the initial diagnosis proved to be wrong, Maximus Freeman was found to have Guillain-Barré syndrome, a condition Freeman and his wife, Chelsea, had never heard of. The rare neurological disorder occurs when the body’s immune system attacks the peripheral nervous system, causing nerve damage and muscle weakness.
“It’s so hard to see your child struggling on a ventilator,” Freeman said, her voice breaking. “That’s what’s so heartbreaking. No one deserves to go through something like this. I know parents understand. They would change in a second to take away their child’s pain and suffering. “When you feel as hopeless as Chelsea and I do, it’s hard.”
During interviews with the media, he sometimes cried and wiped his eyes and nose with a towel.
“If you had talked to me six days ago, I would never have been able to talk,” Freeman said. “I’m only able to get through this because of the tremendous victory we’ve had with him over the last few days. “This is a miracle recovery, that’s what they’re telling us.”
Maximus first fell ill during All-Star Weekend in July, when the family traveled to Texas to watch the game and cheer on Freeman. Four days later, the boy couldn’t sit or walk, and finally stopped eating or drinking.
Freeman said her son’s sensory loss extended from his feet to his shoulders and he was having trouble breathing.
He was taken to a hospital near his Orange County home and put on a ventilator. Maximus received two rounds of intravenous immunoglobulin, a combination of biologics and antibodies that help restore a damaged immune system.
“Then it’s a waiting game,” Freeman said.
He and Chelsea sat by their son’s bed in the pediatric intensive care unit for hours, watching for the slightest change.
“He started shrugging his shoulders, which was a huge sign for us,” Freeman said. “It meant we were one step closer to getting him off the ventilator.”
Doctors were encouraged by how quickly Maximus’ paralysis progressed from the upper to the lower body.
“We’re marking the small victories we can have during this time,” said Freeman, who died of melanoma when he was 10 years old.
“At 10:46, the respirator came off, and I’ll never forget it,” he said. “Within six minutes, he was sitting on me. I can’t tell you how good it felt to be able to hold my son again.”
Maximus is one of the Freemans’ three children. Charlie is the oldest, followed by Brandon and Maximus, a name Chelsea came up with.
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