My family's e.coli story.

Still no diagnosis.

My story starts in February 2004. I received a call from my sister telling me my 18 month old cousin Catherine was dying and no one knew why. I immediately called my mother to ask what was happening. I was told she had been sick with severe diarrhea for a couple of days and she had recently seen a doctor that immediately put her on antibiotics. With hope that Catherine would get better her parents came back home. In the middle of the night my aunt woke up to give Catherine another dose of the medicine. Only to find that Catherine was out of her senses. She seemed dead. Her parents immediately rushed her to the hospital. She was admitted and administered IV fluids to restore dehydration, which at the time they thought she had. The same night she started convulsing and had high fevers. Things were getting worse. In a matter of hours her kidneys stopped working one first then the second followed. She was retaining lots of liquids so doctors decided to put a catheter in her. Within that week one of her lungs stopped functioning, as the other was getting weaker, she was put on life support. Still, doctors had no answers. A week later her intestine ruptured and we were told that Catherine would not survive more than 72 hours. We were mourning again. Just a few months before my grandmother had died after being in a comma for 9 months. My aunt and uncle had no more money and were exhausted. They contacted a Doctor here in the States and asked if their baby could be brought to the States to receive further treatment. My family refused to give up. Although she had an American visa for travel she could not be transferred here because of fear that she would not make it. At the time she was in Tijuana, a Mexican city neighbor to California. Catherine was weaker as the days passed. On the last day the Doctor here in the States recommended to start dialysis since the bacteria was already circulating in her blood. At the time there were more infants at the hospital with similar symptoms, but still Doctors couldn’t explain what was happening. Catherine was the lucky baby. Within two weeks after the dialysis stopped she started getting better. After 6 weeks in the hospital she was released with only a few setbacks. She’s now called the miracle baby because she is the only baby that survived. Amazingly until this day my family has never gotten a diagnosis or explanation of what happened. I am happy for my aunt and uncle, Catherine walks, eats, plays, and recently began speaking again. She is being seen every 2 weeks for progress. Although she seems recuperated we don’t know what future lies ahead. After watching the story of a young boy on forensic files I believe that Catherine had e-coli. It makes me sad to say that we aren’t educated enough about foodbourne bacteria and how it affects us. I feel obligated to inform others of this and would like to learn more of this. Since I watched the show I have browsed thru different web sites and spoke to my uncle about the show. I want to buy the video and hope to find books about it. You see it has been several months now and the Doctors that treated Catherine are still unaware of the disease and how it affects a lot of us. I hope you can give me resources that I can pass along to others. Thanks to you we can close this chapter of our lives.

Written by, Luisa Sosa
Orange, CA
June 30, 2025

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