Over the next few years, the family visited dozens of doctors. No one had a concrete answer. And even then doctors didn't have much to tell us about what it was. Minn. Its symptoms include red stains on the skin, overproduction of soft bone tissue and blood vessel malformations. Those symptoms, usually confined to one limb of the body, can make the limb useless.
Sufferers find temporary relief by undergoing surgery to have malformations removed.
But the deformed blood vessels make operations dangerous and there is no guarantee that use of the limb can be restored. A few years ago, Kern underwent the surgery and his walking improved. Take a risk that we could pay the ultimate price for the chance that Kern could walk again. The disease has given their boy the chance to learn lessons that escape many adults, his parents said. He knows he can achieve whatever he wants to set his mind to.