*People don’t DIE from the flu, do they? The mother of 12-year-old Alyssa Alcatraz thought little of the doctor’s flu diagnosis; after her daughter was sent home from school because she had regurgitating.
When the girl was taken to Urgent Care by her mother, Keila Lino, she was given meds for nausea and a cough “just in case” because…
…she had the flu.
?She?s been sick before with a cold and flu that has lasted longer,? Lino told Fox News. ?It was nothing new for us. Like any normal teen, she just wanted to be left alone on her phone.?
But four excruciating days would pass with Alyssa getting sicker and sicker. She began to lose her appetite, and was very fatigued.
Again her mother took her to Urgent Care.
Doctors there told Lino that Alyssa’s oxygen levels were low. The child was then rushed to Kaweah Delta Medical Center in Visalia, California.
?The doctor wanted to rule out meningitis, though she wasn?t complaining about her neck, he didn?t want to rule it,? Lino explained. ?We were starting to do that procedure to test her fluid when she coded.?
Alyssa went into cardiac arrest, as a result of septic shock from a strep infection in her blood her mother said. She was unaware that her child was suffering from an infection; but within hours, Alyssarez was dead.
In the days following her daughter’s Dec. 17 passing, Lino learned the cause of her death.
?A couple days after she passed, we got a call from the lab at the funeral home,? Lino said. ?We were shocked by it. Doctors said it was the flu, but it was a bacteria infection due to strep that shut down [her] organs all within three days.?
This sad, sad incident is a wake up call for us all. This is the heaviest “flu season” California, especially, has had in quite some time. We might use this family’s experience as a reminder to have the doctor’s dig a bit deeper when our children, or even us, come in with symptoms that appear to be flu.
?I know right now with the flu season clinics, hospitals, everyone is just busy and assuming that?s what everyone has,? Lino said. ?But it?s more than that. In order for us to know, with simple blood work, it could have been caught. Something so simple.?
Lino, a mother of four, said she?s sharing her daughter?s story as a warning to other parents, encouraging them to push doctors to do further testing.
Mrs. Lino please accept our sincerest condolences. Godspeed.
