Mikeal was diagnosed with a brain cancer called DIPG.
Her symptoms were pretty mild - in October 2018 Mikeal noticed her right eye was not blinking in sync with her left eye. It was so unnoticeable that even when she showed her mother she could not see it. But she noticed.
- her mom took her to the doctor in November for what appeared to be pink eye. With just a glance at her eye the doc prescribed eye drops.
-In January Mikeal noticed her right eye remained cracked (just a little) when she closed her eyes. She went back to the doctor and was told she needed that she needed potassium. Eat bananas. That did not resolve anything. Mikeal started to feel like people did not see what she was seeing with the issue with her eye
January- She fainted but didn’t tell her mom, because she did not want to scare her.
February 15- She lost her balance and fell randomly
February 27- at 7:00 am Mikeal was walking to her room, and fell down the stairs, with out tripping on anything. She figured she may have just been tired. She walked to school went on with my day. Towards the end of the day, she was laughing with her friends and noticed she could not feel the right side of her face. She went to the bathroom and saw that the right side of her face was paralyzed. That afternoon she showed her mom her face and they both agreed this has to be a simple case of bells palsy and said they would go have it confirmed in the ER. They arrived and was rushed to the back, she went through a lot of neurological tests before getting a ct scan. Less than 30 mins later Mikeal was told that she had a “mass” in her brain. However, she was transported to WHC because she is 18. She received an MRI there and was told the mass was DIPG, a childhood illness and sent back to children’s where she was admitted at 5am to the PICU.
on 3/4/19 3/6/19, after a biopsy, the DIPG was officially diagnosed.