17-year-old Ariana Rae Delfs from Florida died after contracting mononucleosis, according to WJAX-TV.
Her dad, Mark Delfs, said Ariana started showing cold-like symptoms and ‘seem to always have a headache’ before her health quickly deteriorated.
“Your body is supposed to be able to fight it off. It was too far, too fast,” he expressed.
The heartbroken father said the family took Ariana to a hospital when her condition worsened. Physicians ran multiple tests but there was no proper diagnosis.
“One evening, not too long ago, she started throwing up just constantly. We got very nervous, so the next morning at 7 a.m. we said we’re going to take her to the hospital,” Delfs recalled.
He then said that his daughter started showing more severe symptoms, including slurred speech and loss of feeling in her limbs.
“She got up to go to the bathroom,” he said. “All of a sudden she couldn’t feel part of her legs, and she felt like her legs were just giving out.
“Her words were very slurred at times. She was just talking gibberish, and the damage was already beginning at that point, which we just didn’t know.”
Doctors initially thought that the teen was suffering from a stroke and transferred her to a Jacksonville hospital. But it was not until her final days that doctors finally determined what was wrong.
“She actually had mono and Epstein-Barr, which is mononucleosis, which is the sleeping disease,” Delfs said.
The teen was in the hospital for a few days before her life support was turned off.
“Her brain swelled to the point where it couldn’t function and brain damage did occur,” he expressed. “And we just made the decision that it was time to let her go.”
Mononucleosis, also known as ‘the kissing disease,’ is an infection usually caused by the Epstein-Barr virus.
It is common among young adults and teenagers, and can be transmitted through bodily fluids like saliva.
“She was a very giving soul; she would give anybody anything,” the heartbroken dad told WJAX-TV of his child. “The doctor actually told us she was an organ donor and we were just, I can’t even describe it. We were just like, ‘Wow, that’s her. That sums her up right there.”
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