Growing Pains, Stomach Flu, Mono?

On January 16, 2011 I took my daughter to the doctor because for about a week she complained of some rib pain. No big deal right? It was cold out, she was a pre-teen, doing PE outside. The doctor chalked it up to growing pains or irritated ribs from exercising. Two days later we are at Disneyland "Happiest Place on Earth". My daughter was barely eating. Again no big deal, excitement, tired, so many other reasons.

She barely at anything that day and stayed home from school the next. She was not eating much at all. We were lucky if we could get her to eat broth. By Thursday she was not much better very lethargic and not eating. I took the day off work. I figured I would take her to see the doctor at our local Urgent Care and rule out something that needed to be treated. I honestly figured it had to be a stomach bug and they were going to just send us home, maybe give her some fluids.

The doctor took one look at her, didn't like it, and ran blood work. Her white blood cells were 25,000. I asked what normal range was and he said 5 to 15k but because she was sick it was not that alarming. He also started an IV for fluids and more antibiotics. She was sent home with a follow-up appointment for the next day. On Friday we returned, he gave more antibiotics, did more blood work. Her white blood cells were now 34,000. Doctor again said no reason to be alarmed she was just fighting an infection.

The next thing he did was test for mono, you know good old kissing disease. The test he did at clinic came back negative but he told me 10 % of those after further tests end up being positive. At this point I knew her platelets were low, her white blood cells were high. I also knew that my child had not been awake much in the last two days. I had also noticed at this point she had some tiny red marks on her almost like broken blood vessels. After he exhausted his testing there and she received antibiotics we were sent home with a follow-up appointment made for Sunday.

I never thought I would pray for a diagnosis of Mono before. However, that is exactly what I was doing. I was also using the internet to find all possible information. Asking friends who had mono or had kids with mono. My child was now only waking up if I woke her up and not staying awake at all. I was lucky if I could get her to drink 1/2 of a Pediasure a day. Everyone was telling me this is just mono, the exhaustion is just so overpowering. I kept thinking over the weekend it was just mono because any other diagnosis was unthinkable. Within 5 days my child was disappearing before my eyes. She was not her bright energetic self and I was unsure what was going to happen.