GREAT READS → MEDICAL MYSTERY Issue 1007 · April 10, 2024

A Rare Scare

My daughter suffered a rare complication — again and again

A Rare Scare

MY daughter Rikki is three years old. She’s a precocious, adorable kid.

She’s also been sent to the emergency room way too many times in her life, all because she has a unique medical condition no one had ever seen before.

It started when she was three months old. She had an ear infection that wouldn’t go away, so we started treating her with antibiotics. On the third day of her taking antibiotics, I picked her up from her crib to find she was shockingly cold.

I took her into my bed with me, but I couldn’t get her to warm up. Taking her temperature, I saw that it was below the threshold, at 35.5°C (95.9°F). She was also sleepy and completely out of it. I was very scared and ran to the kupat cholim. It was Friday morning (medical emergencies always seem to happen on Fridays), so my regular pediatrician wasn’t available. The doctor on call dismissed my concerns and told me Rikki was just recuperating from the ear infection.

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