My daughter Shannon was healthy and happy in 2007, in 2008 that slowly changed. It has really just been too emotional for me to blog about. But it is time.

Here is Shannon in 2007.

Here is a picture of Shannon in October of 2008 after losing about 20 lbs.

I am sure you are wondering how we let her get this thin without knowing something was wrong. She started losing weight and missing school in the Spring of 2008. We were attributing it to lactose intolerance. Buy the time summer rolled around and Shannon was sleeping more and more. Normal teenage behavior right? We thought maybe she had mono. After numerous trips to the doctors’ office we were assured that it was just a virus, etc. We made the mistake of not seeing the same doctor every time. When school started in the fall, she had strep throat over and over. She was missing so much  school it was beginning to be ridiculous. More Dr. appointments, strep tests, mono tests, high fevers, stomach aches and assurances that every thing was fine. She was just getting used to being in contact with new viruses and catching everything. We had planned a trip to Disney World so we went to the Dr. one last time to make sure everything was OK before our trip. We did not want her to damage her spleen since we still thought it was mono.

On our trip we noticed that she was getting worse. She could barely eat at all without stomach pain. We spent out vacation at Disney like we did when the kids were little; we spent the afternoon back at the campground taking naps. Really, what 13-year old had rather nap than swim, or ride roller coasters? We even made her go to the pool with us just to see if she would swim. She was so exhausted she fell asleep in the chair by the pool.

When we returned home from our trip. Her stomach pain was a daily part of life. We started monitoring her fevers more frequently and once it hit 104 degrees, I was sure there was something else going on. I made a Dr.’s appointment with our pediatrician, making sure to get her actual Dr. and not just another Dr. in the practice. We were going to get answers.