Caitlin Soleil Lucas and her parents are fighting an unknown battle.
Doctors have been struggling to put a name on the mystery illness which caused the three-year old to develop a series of life-threatening symptoms like lesion on her skin, enlarged spleen and liver, low platelet count, high white blood cells count, and low red blood cells count.
At such a young age “Courageous Caitie”, as she is affectionately called, has gone through an unbelievable amount of pain and heartache.
Early signs of lesion appeared when Caitie was only six months old. Caitie’s parents Jay and Feliz thought that the lesions were merely mosquito bites. In September 2015, the ‘bites’ became too many to ignore.
On New Year’s Day 2016, Caitie was rushed to the hospital due to extreme abdominal pain.
Since then, Caitie has been shuttling between Cardinal Santos Medical Center and St. Lukes. Hospital. She has endured numerous blood tests, biopsies, CT scans, and blood and platelet transfusions.
The family has exhausted their savings with hospital bills ballooning to PHP3.5 million in just two months.
With hope that they will finally be able to pin down the disease that is causing their suffering, Caitie and her parents flew to Singapore to receive medication and undergo tests at the National University Hospital, a medical research facility.
It can be gleaned through the updates on the Courageous Caitie Facebook page that the family has been keeping a positive attitude in the middle of this ordeal.
Caitie has been receiving support from her family, relatives, friends, church mates and even strangers who pray for her.
Even Ms. Pia Wurtzbach expressed her words of encouragement “Hi Caitie, it’s me Pia Wurtzbach Miss Universe. Stay strong and I hope to see you soon,” the beauty queen said in a video greeting.
Feliz posted an update saying “We have a tentative diagnosis which might require approx at least PHP10 million for transplant, hospitalization, etc. we will find out tomorrow.”
As of writing, a confirmed diagnosis has not yet been released.
Stay strong, Caitie!
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