Dr. Cesar Termulo is a pediatrician at Parkland Hospital. He lost his healthy, active 16-year-old daughter to the flu in 2020.<\/p>\n
DALLAS \u2014 She can still be seen inside his office. A baby picture on a shelf. A flower drawn on a handwritten note she left behind telling her “papa” to have a good day. And her presence can be felt down every hall her father walks.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s always here. She\u2019s always here,\u201d Dr. Cesar Termulo said of his daughter, pointing to his heart.<\/p>\n
Reese Termulo was a 16-year-old sophomore at Bishop Lynch High School in Dallas.<\/p>\n
Six years ago this week, she developed a fever.<\/p>\n
Dr. Termulo, a pediatrician and Associate Medical Director for Parkland Health, thought it was the flu.<\/p>\n
A test proved him right, and everything quickly \u00a0went wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe passed away on January 10. Her first fever was January 9. It was less than 24 hours that she started having a fever and passed away,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Reese had gotten a flu shot, but the strain of flu she caught was not in that season\u2019s vaccine. Her father still believes flu shots can and do save lives. So he still tells each family he treats to get them, and he\u2019s disappointed that these days, an increasing number of families don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s horrible that a lot of people are somewhat indifferent to flu. They think flu is a runny nose or some phlegm, and that\u2019s all it is. No, flu can cause pneumonia, asthma attacks, and children can die,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cToo many times, people, when they think about the flu shot, they really minimize its importance,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I could just tell them, my daughter died from the flu. These things happen. You have to be able to take the flu seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Termulo practices out of a Parkland Health clinic on Scyene Road on Dallas\u2019 south side.<\/p>\n
The entrance to the pediatrics wing of the clinic bears a sign dedicated to his daughter, Teresa Ann \u201cReese\u201d Malvar Termulo.<\/p>\n
The waiting room there was full on Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Dr. Termulo said he\u2019s already treated many pediatric flu cases this season, and some of his patients have ended up hospitalized.<\/p>\n
He doesn\u2019t share his personal tragedy with each family he comes in contact with, but Reese is on his mind every time he\u2019s treating a child with flu.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s paradoxical because six years ago feels like just yesterday, but six years ago also feels like an eternity. That\u2019s how it feels. That\u2019s what it\u2019s like when your child dies,\u201d Termulo said.<\/p>\n
As a pediatrician, he hopes the number one takeaway for anyone who hears his story is how important flu shots are.<\/p>\n
But as a father, he says he hopes people see a family continuing to lean on faith.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe suffering can be redemptive,\u201d Termulo said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dr. Cesar Termulo is a pediatrician at Parkland Hospital. He lost his healthy, active 16-year-old daughter to the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":498563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-498562","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-texas","11":"tag-tx","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115853053734176372","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}