Bloomberg When Patricia Teklu’s daughter started coughing uncontrollably, her pediatrician said it was a routine asthma flare up. But that didn’t explain the eight nosebleeds she endured in just one day.
“She was coughing so much that she literally could not breathe,” said Teklu, a 36-year-old software sales executive from Boston. The spasms were so severe that the 8-year-old was vomiting mucus and blood, causing a hemorrhage in both eyes that were swollen and black-and-blue. “I had no idea what was going on.” It took three weeks to diagnose pertussis, a highly contagious bacterial infection known as whooping cough because of the sound patients make as they struggle to find their breath. It wasn’t on doctors’ radar because the third-grader was up-to-date on her vaccinations, including a raft of pertussis shots starting when she was a baby.