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A little girl is lucky to be alive after her parents discovered that her “mosquito bite” was actually a flesh-eating ulcer.
7-year-old Mia Spilman had a wonderful vacation with her family near the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, but when they returned home she couldn’t help but notice the giant bug bite on her leg.
“She was scratching away and it became red and raw so we went to the doctors and she was given a course of antibiotics but it didn’t improve.” Mia’s mother, Amalia, told Kidspot.
The antibiotics only seemed to make the painful itch worse, and soon Mia had to be taken to the hospital to find out what was going on with her leg.
“She couldn’t even stand a bed sheet on top of it,” Amalia said of the painful sore on her daughter’s leg.
Although doctors did more tests on Mia, they still couldn’t quite figure out what exactly was causing her condition.
“She was first diagnosed with cellulitis but [doctors] never investigated the underlying cause,” Amalia explained. “She was on a drip but was only 50 per cent better but they sent us home with two courses of antibiotics and said it will go away.”
After several visits to the hospital, Amalia finally contacted a doctor who asked if her family had been to the Mornington Peninsula in the last six months.
Finally, in late July, Mia was diagnosed with the Buruli ulcer, a horrific disease that has begun spreading to Melbourne’s southeast in the last few months.
“We could have got her disgnosed and treated much sooner if they had just asked the right questions,” Amalia said.
Now that they’ve figured out what’s really going on with Mia, doctors have decided to put her on three more rounds of antibiotics for the next eight weeks.
But if the antibiotics don’t work, they’ll be forced to operate on Mia to clear out the disease.
“I just hope it starts healing soon to reduce the scarring so she can get on with her life and start enjoying herself again!” Amalia said.
