MERCEDES – A Hidalgo County mother wants to know why she was not notified that her daughter had become sick during school hours.

Mercedes resident Joana Sanchez said she noticed something wrong when she saw her daughter exit her school bus Wednesday afternoon. She said she could see the pain in her face.

“It just didn’t seem right because of the pain and the crying, and after that she went and threw up,” she said.

Her daughter told her she went to the nurse’s office at school and complained about stomach pains.

“So, now we’re here at the hospital with my daughter and she has appendicitis,” she said.

Sanchez said she wants to know why the school’s nurse didn’t contact her.

“She told me that she did not need to call me because my daughter was not vomiting, and she did not have a fever. And I told her I did not care, that she still needed to call me,” she said.

CHANNEL 5 NEWS looked through the Mercedes Independent School District’s handbook to find out what’s the policy if a student gets sick during school.

The handbook states:

“If a student becomes ill during the school day, he or she must receive permission from the teacher before reporting to the school nurse. If the nurse determined that the child should go home, the nurse will contact the parent.”

Mercedes ISD superintendent Daniel Trevino said he could not speak about specifics regarding the case citing privacy laws.

“If there are no critical symptoms such as fever or nausea we will ask the student, ‘Are you able to go back to class,’” he said.

Trevino said they will continue to monitor the student throughout the day if they choose to return back to their classroom.

He said parents are able to request that the school administration contact them during any nurse visit their child makes during the school year.

Sanchez said she made the request yet she wasn’t notified about her daughter’s nurse visit. She said she plans on meeting with Trevino once her daughter is out of the hospital.

Appendicitis can be a deadly condition if it’s not immediately treated.

This is caused by inflammation of the appendix usually cause by blockage. If this goes untreated it could lead to a rupture.

Dr. Melissa Fuentes said if the appendix does rupture, the material inside could cause inflammation of the lining of the abdomen and could be fatal.

“It usually begins with abdominal pain, usually within the navel, even in the upper part of the belly then it slowly starts to move down to the right,” she explained. “You get fever, nausea, we can even see constipation or abdominal bloating but typically there’s pain involved.”

Dr. Fuentes recommended people who start developing any of these symptoms to see their family doctor if the pain persists. If the pain is severe, she urged them to go to the emergency room and get treated.