Three-Year-Old Battles Life-Threatening Disease Caused by Insect Bite
SINGAPORE: Three-year-old Filipino girl Caitlin Soleil Lucas is battling with illnesses which started off with a minor insect bite but have now turned into life-threatening ones, leaving doctors baffled.
They have been trying to find out how some insect bites, found on her right ankle last September, have caused a host of life-threatening symptoms, Straits Times reported.
The Filipino family flew from Manila to Singapore Monday, in the hope that experts here will be able to diagnose her condition, the report said.
Outside the pediatric intensive care unit at the National University Hospital (NUH), where Caitlin has been admitted, her 30-year-old mother, Christine Del Feliz Lucas, recalled how the bites quickly developed into skin lesions that spread to her legs, arms and face.
On New Year’s Day, Caitlin was first hospitalized in Manila after suffering severe abdominal pain.
“Her lesions were fading, but she started to have low platelet and red blood cell counts, swollen lymph nodes, night sweats, blasts in her blood, and diarrhea,” Lucas, who runs a fashion business, reportedly said.
The young girl also have an enlarged spleen and liver, which pushed against the surrounding organs, causing her heart rate to spike at times. Her family members found themselves shuttling between different hospitals in Manila, reports said.
“The doctors were all puzzled because, while she would show symptoms for the different illnesses, the test results would come back inconclusive,” said her wedding photographer father Jericho Jose Lucas, 34.
The couple arranged to take Caitlin to Singapore, after doctors told them it could be leukocyte adhesion deficiency – a rare autoimmune disease for which, tests are not available in the Philippines, according to the report.
Over the past two months, Caitlin has reportedly gone through many procedures in a bid to get a clear diagnosis – from bone marrow aspirations, blood extractions and lymph node biopsies to more than 20 blood and platelet transfusions.
Despite the pain and discomfort, Caitlin has remained calm, losing her cool for only once, Straits Times reported.