I wanted to roll into a ball and cry, but I HAD TO BE BRAVE FOR MY SON

Mom Nikki McIntosh trusted her instincts — and saved her child’s life

- Amy Spencer

WHEN NIKKI McINTOSH GAVE BIRTH to her first son, Mason, she listened to relaxing music to help her through the pain. “It didn’t work,” she laughs, “so my second son, Miles, came out kicking to “Eye of the Tiger.” And that has been our theme song ever since.”

Miles was a happy, fat baby who sat up early and had a ferocious appetite. “We thought he was going to be our linebacker — he was just so rough and tough,” says Nikki, a former magazine strategic planning director. (Her husband,

Tony, works in corporate insurance.) But by the time Miles was 9 months old, Nikki had a prickling sense that something was wrong. “You know how babies push through their legs when you bounce them? He collapsed at the knees,” says Nikki. And while he crawled, he made no attempt to stand.

The pediatrician waved off her concerns. “She said he was extremely flexible and it would just take him longer to get up,” says Nikki. She asked three months later and was again told not to worry.

When Miles turned 13 months old, Nikki told the doctor she wasn’t waiting any longer and demanded referrals to specialists to find real answers. “I was praying I was wrong,” says Nikki. “But in my gut I knew I was right.”

FACING FEARS

In the next few months, Miles underwent more testing and did physical therapy, but “we didn’t see any improvement,” says Nikki. By now panicked, she took him to see Wendy Mitchell, M.D.,a pediatric neurologist at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, who ordered a blood screening and an MRI (to check whether his spinal cord was “tethered,” which would mean it was being pulled by extra tissue impeding his mobility — an issue fixable through surgery).