A mother of two is urging parents to stay alert this flu season after an unexpected complication left her 9-year-old daughter hospitalized and temporarily unable to walk.
Earlier this year, Ashley Geuther’s daughter Tori developed the flu and began experiencing all the usual symptoms. She battled fever, chills and extreme fatigue, and needed plenty of rest and fluids to get through it.
Like many parents, Geuther was worried but not alarmed at first. She told Newsweek that nothing initially seemed out of the ordinary, and she continued to closely monitor her daughter until the fever finally broke.
“It started like a typical flu and Tori had a very high fever and was extremely weak,” said Geuther, 35, from Michigan. “When the fever broke after a few days, I thought she was turning a corner. Then suddenly she started complaining of intense pain in both legs.”
Tori first reported that the pain was in her thighs before it moved down into her calves.
Because her daughter was still recovering from the flu, Geuther assumed it was “just normal soreness” after being so unwell. But the pain continued to escalate, and it quickly became clear that something more serious was going on.
“She told me the pain was deep in her muscles and that it hurt too much to stand. She said her legs felt too weak to support her,” Geuther said.
Not long after the leg pain began, Geuther took Tori to a walk-in clinic. She pushed for tests, but said the doctors there “didn’t seem concerned.”
Tori was sent home with instructions to rest, stay hydrated and take pain medication. Clinicians even said she could return to school, despite the 9-year-old insisting she wasn’t able to.
Geuther chose to keep her daughter at home to recover. The next morning, Tori tried to get up for school—but things took a frightening turn.
“She tried to get up for school, took one step and dropped straight to the ground because the pain was so unbearable when she put pressure on her feet. I immediately carried her to the car and took her to the ER. That was the moment I knew this was something serious,” Geuther recalled.
At the hospital, doctors ran blood tests and performed a urinalysis.
When the results came back, Tori was diagnosed with benign acute childhood myositis, a rare condition that typically follows a viral upper respiratory infection such as the flu, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is often marked by sudden-onset calf pain caused by inflammation in the muscles.
A case report published by the NIH notes that the condition can be difficult to recognize because many clinicians are unfamiliar with it. It usually affects children—more often boys—and symptoms can last for up to a week.
“This completely caught me off guard. I had never even heard of this kind of complication from the flu before. It was scary and very unexpected,” Geuther said.
Tori was admitted to the hospital, where she received IV fluids and pain management, and was closely monitored until she began to improve.
About a week after she was discharged, Tori was finally able to walk normally again, and she is now back to her usual self.
Although the ordeal was terrifying for the family, Geuther decided to share their experience on her TikTok account, @ashleygeuther, to raise awareness about potential flu complications. A video showing Tori in the hospital has since gone viral, drawing more than 777,000 views and over 28,700 likes at the time of writing.
“Listen to your kids when they say something hurts, even if it seems unusual. Trust your gut—you know your child better than anyone,” Geuther told Newsweek.
“I’m just grateful she’s OK now. I shared our story because I know a lot of parents have never heard of viral myositis, and I hope this helps someone catch it sooner.”
