Girl with aneurysm survives after multiple misdiagnoses

Today, 6-year-old Daniella Jennings can run and play, but a few months ago she was gravely ill and no one could figure out why.

One day, Jennings threw up so much blood that her mom, Marcia Maldonado, rushed her to the hospital.

"I can hear the nurses literally say, 'She's not going to make it,'" Maldonado said.

First, doctors said it was allergies. Then, they said it was mumps and an infection. Three doctors told her it was gastritis. Another said migraines. Then, a different doctor said he needed to split her jaw in half and cut out what he thought was a tumor in her throat.

"And I'm just sitting in front of him thinking, 'This is really not happening to me,'" Maldonado said.

After three months of watching her little girl dying, Maldonado finally found out what was wrong with her daughter.

"It's not a tumor, it's her main artery. It's about to burst," Maldonado said. "I felt like we finally have the right diagnosis."

Dr. Alexander Khalessi discovered that Jennings had an aneurysm the size of a racquetball growing in her mouth. It happened when surgeons injured an artery during a routine tonsillectomy that had been performed six months earlier.

"If there was a breakthrough bleed from this aneurysm, you could bleed to death from your mouth," Khalessi said.

Khalessi filled the aneurysm with coils to prevent blood from entering. He then used stents to re-build the artery. It was the first time this surgery had ever been performed that preserved the artery.

Now Jennings is back to being a kid.

"I'm thankful every day that she's at home, dancing and playing," Maldonado said.

To learn more about how to protect yourself and to print out a checklist composed by the National Patient Safety Foundation, visit Ivanhoe.com/fight.