Jennifer Mathews: It's tough to keep up with two-year-old Daniel Snowman.
Treasa Snowman: You can see, since he can walk good and you can't stop him.
Jennifer Mathews: For the past year Daniel did not get around this easily.
Treasa Snowman: Every time he tries to walk, he would fall and he would hit whatever was there.
Jennifer Mathews: Bruises covered his head, it was so bad a stranger once question Daniel's mother in a store.
Treasa Snowman: It looks like somebody has been smacking that child around or something like that, she said, what's going on, and I was terrified and I said no lady.
Jennifer Mathews: Dr. James Atkins diagnoses Daniel with a small hole in his inner ear called fistula. Fluid leaks out causing the child to feel drunk. Dr. Atkins says, it's a problem overlooked in children.
Dr. James Atkins: These children essentially fall down all the time, they tend to always fall in the same direction and they are very unsecured and doing things that normal children like doing.
Jennifer Mathews: A fistula is hard to diagnose, because you can't see it during an exam.
Dr. James Atkins: It is about as big as the end of a safety pin.
Jennifer Mathews: A surgery used on adults in the past is now being done on children to seal the hole.
Dr. James Atkins: Here they are daily trying to deal with this and feeling awful and by patching that hole it does seem to relieve that.
Treasa Snowman: Now he has every chance in a world to just have normal life.
Jennifer Mathews: Without the falls or the looks from strangers. This is Jennifer Mathews reporting.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services