"He basically had to rewire his brain to acknowledge his feet and his legs."
As his mom, Amanda, described, this would be the new normal over the next few months for 12-year-old Mason Doherty, whose life changed after suffering a concussion in a flag football game this past October.
Mason, an avid Eagles fan from Orlando, Florida, went home after the game and began to experience concussion symptoms. Over the next few days, he began walking with his legs and feet crossing over each other and was eventually admitted into the hospital.
"He was able to, kind of walk into the hospital, but by the end of it, I mean, they were lifting him with sheets just to get him on a stretcher because he couldn't feel or move anything from the waist down. It was a gradual regression. He went from walking funny to barely being able to stand. He was in so much pain," Amanda said.
Despite being diagnosed with a concussion, no one could understand why Mason's condition was regressing, as he lost feeling in his toes, then his feet, and up to his waist.
After numerous blood tests, MRIs, X-rays, and dozens of other tests, Mason was diagnosed with Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), which is a result of the body sending too many pain signals to a certain area, leading to the brain no longer sending signals to the rest of the body.
"We wanted to bring him home, but there was no physical way we could possibly do that, because it took three people and a machine to lift him up just to get him to go to the bathroom," Amanda said. "We knew we couldn't support him in that way, and he needed around-the-clock speech, OT (Occupational Therapy), PT (Physical Therapy), every day because he was still having a lot of the concussion symptoms that come with it, like memory loss, childlike behavior, and confusion."
After 10 days in the hospital, Mason was moved to Nemours Children's Hospital, which had an in-patient rehabilitation program.
With FND, there is no timetable or guarantee as to how long – or if – someone will be fully healed. The Doherty family found hope when Mason began wiggling his toes and moving his feet.
After spending the first 10 days in a hospital bed not being able to move, he lost a lot of his muscle strength and function. At Nemours the goal was to start building that back up, starting with moving into a wheelchair on day one.
"He basically had to rewire his brain to acknowledge his feet and his legs, and so that was a big part of what Nemours Hospital did for him, was having him perform physical therapy exercises while simultaneously working on cognitive skills," Amanda said.
Since football was so important to him, one of the trainers at Nemours, Jermaine, would throw the football with him every day during his physical therapy sessions while he practiced walking. The exercises made his brain focus more on throwing the ball rather than the physical act of walking, which gave the same result without focusing on the problem of his legs not functioning properly.
For Mason, along with the support of his family, friends from school, and those in the hospital, there were two things that helped him during his recovery – the Eagles and a Rubix Cube.
The sixth grader taught himself how to solve a Rubix Cube on YouTube, and eventually was able to complete one in under a minute while working on his walking.
During a difficult part of the recovery, Mason and his dad, Curt, were watching the Eagles play the Jaguars in the hospital. The play that made waves all across the country – Barkley's iconic backwards hurdle – gave a little light to a hurting Mason.
"Mason could barely even keep his eyes open. He was so out of it, and he cracked a little bit of a smile, and he's reacting some," Curt said.
"What's wild is, we've all become huge Saquon Barkley fans, because here we are, going through all of this personal, really chaos in hell, to watching these football games and just taking it one step at a time trying to understand how to help Mason get better."
After a month total in two different hospitals, Mason was able to return home and continue his rehab. Now, he is able to walk, ride his bike, and return to school.
"We didn't know in those dark days if we would ever see him walk again. And so that alone is such a gift to have," Amanda said.
"He's a fighter, and he did what he needed to do to learn how to walk again, and didn't complain and didn't get down. And the crazy thing, even through all of this, the scary stuff, the hard stuff, hasn't stopped him. And I think that it can be an example to us in so many ways, not only did he learn how to rewire his brain and can walk again. We hope his story is able to give hope that anyone can rewire their brain to do anything that they want to do. Like the possibilities are limitless. But also, that you can come out from something so hard and so terrible and so scary and still be able to push and go for your dreams and what you want, and the fear doesn't have to stop you."
When Mason told his father he really wanted to see the Eagles in 2025, Curt initially looked into the Pro Bowl for a quick trip.
"It was just this moment where he just, it was so innocent – he just looked at me – he's like, 'Can you at least try, dad?'" Curt said.
A few days later, Curt put together a video of Mason's journey, which got back to the Eagles and Saquon Barkley.
Barkley reached out to Mason with a video of how proud he was of the work he put in to recover.
But that wasn't all ...
Barkley invited Mason and Curt to Super Bowl LIX, where he will finally get to watch his Eagles on the biggest stage of them all against the Kansas City Chiefs this Sunday.
"I don't even know if the kid got any sleep that night. He was just so excited. He was just blown away. I still think he's in shock, but he's ready to go, he's very good. He's ready to get out there, that's for sure. So, it's very surreal. I think it's overwhelming. The gratitude and thankfulness in our hearts, words are just hard to put behind it. It's just amazing," Curt said.
"I think for me as a mom, watching him get to go to the Super Bowl, and just watching his genuine, pure joy reaction, it was just a full-circle moment," Amanda said.
"To get to see him experience something like the Super Bowl, or even just hearing from Saquon, even just that alone, you get to see kind of the why?
"There's a bigger story here, and I had so many people just follow our story, and so many people in our community caring about us, that I feel they've walked this road with us, and they're all just excited as he is for him. Wow, it's so cool that he gets to experience a moment like that after everything he's worked so hard for and everything he's been able to accomplish." – Written by Liam Wichser
