N'Khemya King complained of a stomach ache and was treated for strep throat before doctors diagnosed her with leukemia. (Furneral Expenses N'Khemya King/GoFundMe)
A Memphis family is mourning the death of a 10-year-old girl who may have had an undetected form of leukemia since birth. N'Khemya King, who complained of stomach pain and was diagnosed with strep throat, died March 15, just three days after learning she had cancer, WBRC Fox 6 News reported.
“I can’t believe that my child was as happy and as healthy as she was and as active as she was, and was just up and moving and talking, and now she’s not here at all,” N’Khemya's mother told the news outlet. “I was doing the home remedies with the soup, the Pepto, the Pedialite, things like that, hoping I was flushing [it] out … thinking it was a virus.”
When N'Khemya's symptoms worsened, her mother took her to the local hospital where doctors administered a shot of an antibiotic used to treat strep throat, WBRC Fox 6 News reported. Doctors allegedly told the family that they should she should see N'Khemya's appetite and energy return within 24 hours. However, hours later, she was rushed back to the hospital on an ambulance, and doctors dealt the family a devastating diagnosis.
“When I heard the word ‘leukemia,’ I was like, ‘We don’t have cancer, what are you talking about?’” Trayce Tate-Campbell, Nya’s grandmother, told WBRC Fox 6 News. “I’m like, ‘Wait a minute. You said the baby had strep throat. What’s going on?’”
Doctors allegedly told the family that the cancer may have gone undetected since N'Khemya's birth and gave her a 60 percent chance of survival. With the family now preparing for her funeral, her mother said she can’t think about what she could have done differently, the news outlet reported.
“I really don’t think about it in depth because if I do, then I am going to think about how and why, and I don’t want to,” she told WBRC Fox 6 News. “Just a lot of unanswered questions, just a lot of things I couldn’t get told, and I couldn’t prepare for this.”