This child's mother knew something was seriously wrong

She noticed her daughter falling asleep in the middle of the day – and it turned out to be a rare form of cancer. Four years of excruciating treatment, operations and a concoction of drugs followed but, in the end, none of it could save her

You’ve had a bad feeling all summer, a nagging in your gut that something’s wrong. She looks thinner, but she’s just turned 11 and kids that age get taller, thin out. Yet, why is she so pale in July? Why is she tired all the time? Your husband says it’s because she’s been staying up too late on her iPad, so you limit her screen time. That doesn’t help. She keeps falling asleep smack in the middle of bright summer days.

You notice she isn’t enjoying her summer. She’s irritable, picking frequent fights with her younger sister. “It’s just hormones,” you tell yourself. “Eleven is a difficult age.”

You take her to the doctor for a rash and fever, and you learn that she has strep. You’re relieved. Maybe that’s what it was all along. The doctor looks at your daughter’s torso – she looks right at the tiny bulge in her abdomen – but she sees only the rash. “It’s scarlet fever,” the doctor says. She prescribes an antibiotic and sends you home.