She Was Only 11, But Her Mom Knew Something Was Terribly Wrong
This story was first published in the Washington Post on September 16, 2018
You’ve had a bad feeling all summer, a nagging in your gut that something’s wrong. She looks thinner, but she just turned 11 and kids that age get taller, thin out. Yet . . . why is she so pale in July? Why is she tired all the time? Your husband said it was because she’d been staying up too late on her iPad, so you limited her screen time. That didn’t help. She keeps falling asleep smack in the middle of bright summer days.
You notice she isn’t enjoying her summer. She’s irritable, picking frequent fights with her younger sister. “It’s just hormones,” you tell yourself. “Eleven is a difficult age.”
You take her to the doctor for a rash and fever, and you learn that she has strep. You’re relieved. Maybe that’s what it was all along. The doctor looks at your daughter’s torso — she looks right at the tiny bulge in her abdomen — but she sees only the rash. “It’s scarlet fever,” the doctor says. She prescribes an antibiotic and sends you home.
A month later, your daughter returns from a five-day trip with your mother-in-law, who insists she was fine on the trip. “I gave her tea to help her stomach,” your mother-in-law says.
