With one look at Noah Wall, you would never guess that there's anything wrong with the boy's health.
But the six-year-old from Cumbria, England is actually a living medical miracle, who has outlasted all of his doctors' expectations.
Worrying scans of Noah when he was still in his mother Shelley's womb revealed that he appeared to have no brain, and also seemed to have the birth defect spina bifida. Shelley, says doctors urged her five times to terminate her pregnancy.
Instead, she carried her baby to term. At his birth, doctors found that Noah's brain was just 2% of its normal size, and worried the disability would always affect him.
It was predicted that Noah would never talk, see, hear, or eat on his own.
But three years later, Noah had defied the odds again as his brain had somehow "grown back" to 80% of its normal size, with help from a shunt that drained fluid from his head.
Medical experts can't agree on an explanation for Noah's odd condition. Some think he had no brain at all, and it developed later than normal. Others think his brain had flattened into his skull because of fluid filling his skull.
Now six years old, Noah is a healthy and happy young boy who can do everything doctors said he never would and more, and his father Rob calls his life "a miracle."
"Even if his brain had been so squashed up, he'd be severely mentally disabled because of all that damage and look at him "“ he's as bright as a button," he bragged on Good Morning Britain.
Rob also revealed that he and Shelley are thankful they defied their doctors' advice to keep Noah.
"I think possibly if younger people were offered that choice, they may have felt pressured into taking it," he said.
"Because we're older parents, we know our own minds and we're positive people. We wanted to give Noah the chance of life."
There are still more milestones for Noah to tackle, including learning how to walk despite his spina bifida. But with his incredible success so far, it seems like there's nothing this special little boy can't do.
[H/T: Newsweek]
