Maddie wasn’t really showing any symptoms. The only thing that was a little alarming was that she got strep throat twice in a month. When she had it the first time her temp was 104° and she also had Scarlet Fever along with the strep. She was put on amoxicillin for 10 days. After just a few days of being on it she was her normal self again so we just went about our normal routine. The second time she got it we thought she had a UTI bc she was a little uncomfortable “down there” so we took her in to be seen and the strep test came back positive. That was on Monday, 2/20/23. She was then given Cephalexin to take for the next 10 days. Same as last time, she was on it for a few days and already starting to feel better, so we thought. Sunday 2/26/23 started off like any other day. She got up and came into my room to watch cartoons in bed. She acted perfectly fine. So it’s time for us to get ready for the day, I turn on the light and go to put her shoes and sock on, look up at her and notice something was off with her neck. But her head was down so I thought maybe it was just the double chin effect. Have her lift up her head and the whole left side of her neck is swollen. To the point where it looked like she had a golf ball in her neck. So we take her to St. Clair. They take her vitals, give her a once over which involved them examining her neck. She immediately screamed and cried so we knew something was wrong. They admit us to UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. There they run several blood tests, CT Scan and X-ray. After a few hours the doctor comes in and explains that her White Blood Count, Red Blood Count and Platelets were alarmingly low. Then they proceed to tell us that they did notice some cancer cells as well and stated she could potentially have Leukemia or Lymphoma. But she wasn’t 100% sure since there was a whole situation going on with Maddie’s neck too. So they send the sample out to a lab Monday morning. Monday night, around 5:30ish is when we got the news that it was confirmed she has BCell Leukemia. The 4 words no parent ever wants to hear “Your Child Has Cancer”. It was a dagger to the heart. It’s a blessing in disguise that her lymph node became swollen (and it was literally over night) bc otherwise, I’m not sure we wouldn’t know she was this sick.