Just a little background into Michaela's illness!

Heard through the grapevine there was some confusion on how we came to the diagnosis of Mono. So here is the scoop!

Michaela started the week before just being extremely tired. I just blew it off, as it was that time of the month and such. Towards the end of the week, Thursday the 29th to be exact, she started complaining of terrible headaches. These lasted all weekend, even with tons of sleep. I took her in to see the doctor on Sunday afternoon, as they were worried about Meningitis, that "quick" test, does it hurt when you look way up or put your head to your chest was negative. Her throat was red but not strep, nose fine, ears fine, just told it was a the lovely "V" word. So we went home. Stopped at Hy-Vee to get a deli pizza for the Super Bowl. And saw our own Pediatrician, she asked what was up and said to call her Monday and let her know how she was doing.

Monday came, still had a headache, but I made her go to school, you know the thought, get with your friends and life will be fine. She made it to lunch and couldn't keep her head up. So Steve came and got her. Called the Doctor and of course the nurse didn't call me back until after our doctor was gone. I tell you want If I could have reached through the phone and slapped this woman I would have. Anyway, basically told to keep doing what we were doing and if it was just terrible she guessed we'd have to take her to the ER. We got through the night and I got her up on Tuesday to see how she was. By this time we are using the pain scale with her, her pain was an 8-8.5 on Tuesday morning, gave her Motrin and sent her back to bed. Called doctors office again, only to have to speak to a nurse again, our doctor doesn't work on Tuesday's. They called Steve at home and we made an appoint with our own doctor for Wednesday morning.

We all got up on Wednesday and she had a bad headache, gave her Motrin 1 hour before our appointment. By the time we saw Dr. Friesen she was still rating her pain as an 8 to an 8.5. They tested her for strep (Negative), checked her eyes to make sure it wasn't something with the nerves there. At this time we are thinking it is migraines, but after she saw her she said, I am not convinced it is, and didn't want to give her anything stronger without doing the MRI to check her brain and the blood vessels to make sure they were not enlarged or anything. She had the worst Lab Tech ever to draw her blood, bless her heart, she was a trooper, as it seemed like it took this girl 10 minutes to find the vein, mind you the whole time moving the needle around in her arm. I was at the point of telling her to just stop when she finally got it, poor thing, Michaela was a ball of sweat, I couldn't believe it. Needless to say, she was not excited about going for the MRI..

We were gotten right into Advanced Medical Imagining. They were awesome, Michaela was worried because she had to have an IV to do a Contrast scan of the head. But said she would to the IV any day compared to the blood draw. They told us we would have results by the afternoon or early the next day.

I called that afternoon and the nurse called me back. Her MRI was Negative which was great, but her blood test showed she had Mono. So doing what I swore I wouldn't do I went online to look it up and then called back several times to ask questions.

She has a note at school, that she is excused from PE until further notice, no contact sports and she can only attend 1/2 days if needed. She was better yesterday, a little more energy until about 7:00, we had walked to the park at her request and that was too much. She was in bed early last night, but didn't sleep as long this morning. We will see. They said to just let her sleep as much as she wants and to push fluids. In other words this is going to be a long haul and just be patient.

Thank you all for your concern and prayers, we can still use them, she is not out of the woods yet, she needs to be very careful to not injure herself, as her spleen is very vulnerable right now.

Also prayers for Marcus as he is showing signs of a bad cold and for my Great Niece Emily as she has was appears to be RSV and is on a Nebulizer.

Love to all.