PLYMOUTH, Mass. -- She's just 3 years old and she's dealing with a disease with a name bigger than she is. A little Plymouth, Mass., toddler who wants only to be identified as Allie is battling Eastern equine encephalitis, or Triple E, and it's debilitating.

While her family tries to raise funds to get her treatment, health officials are hoping her story will raise awareness as mosquito season begins.

Allie's story grabbed the public's attention when she was only an infant. She was infected with the virus by a mosquito when she was only 3 months old and she was not immediately diagnosed. The bite changed her life forever.

"She has a hard time controlling her muscles and she gets frustrated that she can't. It lets us know that her body's not, her mind's not letting her body do what it needs to do," her mother Tina said.

Triple E caused severe brain damage. Allie can't speak and there's little she can do on her own. With constant therapy, however, she has improved. She's off her feeding tube and is finally seizure free.

"She's just a beautiful, wonderful little girl who has such potential that there's nothing we won't try for her," her father, Tait, said.

Now the family will go all the way to China, where stem cell treatment is legal and may provide some promise for Allie.

"The stem cells are from the umbilical cords of healthy babies. They're what normally would be thrown away as medical waste that are amazingly helpful in many cases," Tina said.

The treatment remains experimental.

"It may not be the answer to some of these problems, but I think, when you're in these situations you need to have hope," said Dr. Alfred DeMaria of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

What they also need is money. Allie's parents have started a fund at Citizens Bank for donations that will help them pay for the $25,000 trip.

"We're just regular people, so we don't have trust funds and bank accounts to help us along and help us explore things for Allie," Tina said.

After hearing of Allie's story, the Ray Tye Medical Aid Foundation said if the family falls short of the $25,000 fundraising goal by May 30, they would make up the difference.

After much research, Allie's trip to a hospital in China is set for June. The only question now is whether the treatment will work.