After 12 brain operations, kidney and liver failure, paralysis and going blind in both eyes, 5-year-old Thomas Miller has become the first person in Britain to beat a deadly strain of E. Coli.
The boy, from Aspatria, Cumbria, was infected with the deadly disease after eating a burger aged two.
After developing life-threatening symptoms 24 hours after eating the infected meat in 2009, Thomas's parents feared he would die from the killer bacteria after watching their son become paralysed down the left side of his body and go blind in both eyes.
"We thought it was a stomach bug, then, 24 hours later, Thomas became unwell and it got so bad he was passing blood," Thomas's mother told the Daily Mail.
"That was when I knew something was wrong. With him being the youngest it affected him the worst. He wasn't talking to me, which was strange as he's always been a bubbly boy. He went to the doctor again the next day and was rushed to hospital. The tests came back and showed he had E. Coli.
"We just didn't know what was happening. It was frightening. He went for an operation that day and had to have dialysis. He was holding his head and screaming, he couldn't move and was as stiff as a board."
After being rushed to hospital, Thomas was transferred to Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary where doctors discovered the E. Coli had spread to his bloodstream. Despite an emergency blood transfusion, the bacteria quickly spread to his brain, baffling doctors who had never seen a case like this one before.
To add to the trauma, months into his treatment for E. Coli, Thomas suffered a severe allergic reaction to the medication being used to drain abscesses in his brain. The reaction caused his skin to flare up and got so bad, he had to see a burns specialist.
"I went to pick him up and his skin came off in my hands," added his mother.
Thomas spent 13 months having treatment, and after having two golf-ball sized abscesses drained in early 2009, Thomas's eyesight began to return. In 2010, Thomas had a further three abscesses removed and it was after this that Thomas began to recover.
"I'll never forget the day he came out of intensive care. He sat up and said, 'Where's Richard?' his other older brother. I knew then he was OK. He could walk and talk," says his mother.
Thomas has now recovered from his ordeal and is a normal five-year-old boy. His case was so rare, it has been recorded in a medical journal.
"Now Thomas loves school, and he's looking forward to Christmas. I think he's forgotten a lot of what happened and that's probably for the best," added his mother.