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July 1999-September 1999: In July I worked 25 hours a week as a Child Life Intern. It was a great experience, and I learned so much. I also worked on designing a Child Life website. I finished my internship on August 12, and a few days later took a vacation to TN. When I got back, I moved back over to Messiah to start my senior year. I started contacting graduate schools and narrowed my options down to two, Marywood University in Scranton, PA and MCP Hahnemann in Philadelphia. I started struggling a lot physically again in September. The last week of September on a Friday, I woke up one day and was covered in a rash. It worsened throughout the day. Saturday morning when I woke up the rash was still there, along with a high fever, muscle and bone pain, weakness and fatigue, and a flu-like feeling. Sunday I woke up and I was worse all over. My rash had turned into bruises all over my body and my eyes and lips were swollen. My feet were also very purple and swollen. Finally when I got up Monday morning and was no better, I went to see my doctor and they were very nervous about my condition. They ran a number of tests and told me to come back in two days. For the next two days I feared the idea that I might have leukemia. When I went to my doctor that Wednesday, she assured me that it was not leukemia, but they still had no idea what was causing the problem. Several weeks later, after I had recovered, she called to tell me she had just received the results of my blood cultures and it showed an extremely rare virus in adults known as Parvo (like the dogs get). She had only seen two cases in 15 years, and never a reaction as bad as mine. I was glad to know there was a real cause and that it had cleared up.
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