Rafferty Whitbread-Ward when born was a happy young child,

Rafferty Whitbread-Ward when born was a happy young child who had hit all of his developmental milestones.

But as the weeks passed and the child began to crawl, his mother realized something wasn’t quite right.

Samantha Whitbread, of Kent, claimed her son began to have tremors in his arms and legs after a while, and his eyes began to shake and roll back in his head.

When he was diagnosed with ‘dancing eye syndrome,’ a neurological disorder that affects children, his mother was taken aback.

Opsoclonus-myoclonus syndrome is the medical term for involuntary eye and muscle twitching.

Because the illness is so uncommon, many doctors are unaware of it.

Rafferty was diagnosed in Autumn 2021, and health experts are due to release new guidelines on how to treat the ailment.

Samantha said she’s ‘happy to have her little baby back’ following the ordeal, which included an emergency hospital visit for the Kent family.

Rafferty was treated at Evelina London Children’s Hospital (ELCH), and physicians there are now hoping to help the five million people who suffer from the disease by providing instructions to clinicians all across the world.

Samantha reported Rafferty’s condition worsened around the week of his first birthday.

“He was quite wobbly and agitated,” she explained, “so we had an emergency appointment at the hospital.”

Rafferty was transferred to ELCH, where doctors discovered a tumor in his adrenal gland had caused his condition.

“We went straight to the Royal Marsden Hospital’s cancer treatment programme, where he had surgery, steroid medication, and physical therapy.”

It took a long time to figure out what it was because it’s such an uncommon disease, but once they did, it was incredible

“He’s come a long way, and we’re getting our little guy back,” Samantha added.