Penelope
    Penelope; a dazzling, graceful and sweet girl; was the envy of her whole campus for, she was a proud cheerleader for the Los Angeles Cathedrals. She was slick for a girl in playing football. Truly she was the perfect crush on every boy in her school. Due to her popularity on her school she had a hard time coping with her schedule making her grades poor in literally all her subjects; she was so busy sometimes that she had only a few hours of rest before going to her next activity. She also had a sweet tooth especially on donuts cheesecakes, and desserts in different variants, making her suitors bring lots of sweet just to please her.Â
   On the 22nd of February she experienced a sore throat followed by an extreme fever making her unable and helpless to fight for her team on their football championship that day. Then 3 more accompanied with high fever for the past 3 months. She also began having weak feelings to her joint, disabling her to perform to the fullest. A week later; an annual checkup by the city doctors of Los Angeles came to her school mandated by the city government. Penelope was considerably among the first to be checked as for they were the school’s varsity having a priority among others. The doctor checked her weight and other things having x rays and different exams. She was asked to come back tomorrow for the result of her test; But as the doctor have read on her result it showed on the 2D ECHO that she had a mild regurgitation and leaking of the valves, having labs of higher values than normal, and a symptom of being easily exhausted; accompanied by swelling of the knees. Her symptoms were evident that the doctors can place her to the diagnosis of rheumatic fever. She was shocked after hearing of the said diagnosis; the doctor added that she may not play any kind of sport nor eat any traces of sugar as it may worsen her condition, she was also asked to just stay relaxed as any untoward incident of extreme joy and anger may help to trigger another problem. As for the medication; she was asked to return every three weeks for the antibiotics to be injected for the next 4 years or so. Penelope was very stunned with what was happening to her life that she didn’t talk to anyone for three days thinking what she’d done wrong. As the whole team learned about her illness they were saddened as she would just be watching by the bleachers for an entire 4 years or just whenever the doctor told so.Â
    Her life had really changed in an instant from being the most active to just no one on the team. With the reduction of her school activities she began to see the fact that she had the ability and talent to speak on public. She also had concentrated on her studies more that whenever they had a class standing she was the top dog of every ranking. She already shifted to healthier fruits that in a way it was her new craving, to eat lots of fruits. Now she really accepted the fact that what had god given her was a good thing in a way that she may benefit in the future. Months go by and she really hopes and prays that she may come back to her original self as a normal person again. After years of medication her laboratory results began to clear up and show negative results and she had tremendously improved compared to her original condition before. She really was cleared from her condition and that had thanked God for answering her prayers. She now saw the goodness on that downfall for she may able to live healthfully with her new lifestyle and even achieved a scholarship for concentrating more on her studies rather than being busy with other activities and achieving more from what she can do before. It then crossed to her mind that good effects really happen from bad thing, and that God will give you a challenge; because he knows that you are capable of surpassing it and make a good out of it in the future.












