Re: Wisconsin - Child Dies From H1N1 Virus In Milwaukee
http://www.jsonline.com/features/health/48294837.html
Milwaukee flu victim was high school cheerleader
By Mark Johnson of the Journal Sentinel
Posted: Jun. 17, 2009 7:52 p.m.
In 24 hours, Tiara Mosely's virus escalated rapidly. The 14-year-old freshman cheerleader at Madison High School had returned from Children's Hospital of Wisconsin feeling better after a series of routine tests and a Tylenol.
A day later, "she just lay in the hallway," her mother Edwina Mosely-Forrest said. "I noticed that her fingertips were cold. They'd turned gray."
Mosely-Forrest offered to drive her to the hospital.
"No, mom," the girl said. "Just call 911."
After returning to Children's Hospital by ambulance on June 1, Tiara Mosely never left and on Monday night, after a two-week struggle, she died, the third Wisconsin resident to succumb to swine flu.
A fourth Wisconsin resident, a school-age child from Wausau, died from swine flu Wednesday at St. Joseph's Children's Hospital in Marshfield.
G. Richard Olds, chairman of medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, has said that nationwide the novel H1N1 virus appears to be killing younger people than the seasonal flu, and at the same time appears to be less deadly among those over the age of 65. It is not yet clear why.
Both other people who died of swine flu in Wisconsin were adults.
The Wausau child had been hospitalized since Saturday and had an underlying medical problem that put the child at higher risk for death from swine flu.
According to relatives, Tiara did not have such a condition. She was healthy. She liked to dance. She looked forward to cheerleading camp in the summer.
She liked Beyonc? and Hannah Montana and watching television with her father while they ate Chinese food. At school, Tiara made the honor roll, her mother said.
"I've searched the pages in my brain to see just exactly when she got sick, to see if it was something I missed," Mosely-Forrest said. "We were trying to figure out where it came from. We just want to know how she came in contact with it."
The day she was admitted to Children's Hospital, Tiara was alert and talking, according to her mother. She was able to tell hospital workers that she was having chest pains and trouble breathing. Mosely-Forrest said it was the last time she was able to talk to her daughter.
"I told her that I loved her," the mother said. "She said, 'Mom, I'm scared.' "
It was a while before the family knew Tiara had the swine flu, her parents said. Her family - she has six brothers - sat in the hospital room in shifts. Although Tiara could not talk, she was able to squint her eyes and move her tongue.
Her mother told her how much they all loved her and wanted her home, and what a wonderful job she was doing of fighting her illness.
"I told her she was just as beautiful as the day I brought her into the world," Mosely-Forrest said.
Alan Forrest, the girl's father, would visit after his shifts at the meat-packing plant. He told Tiara she was his heart, and she was going to get better. The family kept praying.
"Oh my baby girl," her father said Wednesday.
At times, Tiara seemed to be making progress, her mother said. But progress was always followed by setbacks.
"She was a very courageous young lady," her mother said. "Even in death she was courageous. She fought so hard to live."
