How It All Began

It was late December 2011 when my then ten-year-old daughter, Emma, started throwing up profusely.  At the time, I thought it was a normal virus that may have been going around her fifth grade classroom.  Little did I know that it was the beginning of a tumultuous illness.  

A week or so later, she became ill again, and I had just assumed that this virus had yet to run its course. Over the next few weeks, this presumed illness kept resurfacing.  As a teacher in the same school Emma attended, I found myself being pulled out of class time and again to tend to her.  (I was very thankful that I was so readily available.)  

The episodes of vomiting became more frequent, and we started noticing other significant symptoms:  diarrhea, headaches, severe abdominal pain, back pain (presumably the spine), and lethargy.  Some time around late February or early March (I'm not sure why I waited so long to have her seen), we ended up taking her to the emergency room at a children's hospital.  I am not the emergency room type, but her pain was intense, and we were tired of seeing her sick.

The ER doctors asked lots of questions, took a history, drew blood work, and ran some scans.  Eventually, one of them came back into the room and announced, "Well, she doesn't have a brain tumor."  Brain tumor?!  Seriously?  Not only had this never crossed my mind, but I certainly don't think this is a phrase you nonchalantly proclaim.

Ten minutes later, we were released from the ER with no other answers and a suggestion to visit our pediatrician.