By: Cole Miller
cmiller@klkntv.com
You may remember the story of little Carter Hertzel we brought you back in May. Doctors can't figure out why he stopped growing. Carter is the definition of a medical mystery and in the simplest terms, he just won't grow. Now, in less than 2 weeks, the family will travel halfway across the country in search of answers.
17-month-old Carter Hertzel is doing something his doctors said he'd never do, he's walking. And that puts a smile on mom and dad's face. But sometimes smiles are few and far between.
"He's 17 pounds. He was 8.5 when he was born. He was a big boy and then just kind of stopped growing," Mom Angie Hertzel said.
Angie Hertzel says they've tried everything. They've seen more than 30 specialists, tried high-calorie diets, but nothing seems to work. His organs haven't grown either and he runs fevers daily. It takes a toll on little Carter, as well as his family.
"It's great to have a lot of people on Carter's team, but sometimes when you have so many doctors that you're dealing with, you're running around in like 50 different directions, but we're trying," Hertzel said.
They may be running on empty, but on September 21st, the family will load up the car and travel to the National Institute of Health, which is all the way out in Maryland. Where a new team of doctors will do their best to find answers.
"Ideally, they can tell me what's wrong with my son. I'm tired of doctors saying, "enjoy your time with Carter," and "there's nothing we can do and Carter's little body cannot survive like this. His organs cannot survive like this." But how can they tell me repeatedly they can't help my son if they don't know what's wrong?" Hertzel said.
For now, Angie remains positive. And little Carter is happily moving about, taking an interest in our camera equipment! But all this family wants is a diagnosis.
"I don't think any parent would be okay with just saying "ok, you don't know, so I'm not going to try. There will be a point, I know we'll get there, when we won't have to do this anymore, whether it's a great diagnosis to where it's something they can help us with or it's something where there's nothing we can do but at least we'll know why this is happening to him," Hertzel said.
As you can imagine, all of this work and traveling isn't cheap. The family has set up the Carter Hertzel fund at Union Bank. Just drop by any branch to make a donation.
