Dealing with the loss of a child

Dealing with the loss of a child has been the hardest part of my life. But losing two children, nearly destroyed me. We were so lucky to have had three children who we named Andy, Katie and Jamie. The pregnancies went well, we were enjoying our life with our children until that fateful day. Our son Jamie was 18 months old. For several months Jamie had been sick off and on, so was late for his last booster shot which was HIB which stands for Haemophilus influenzae type b. Back then children were immunized when they were 18 months. Now they can get it as early as 0-12 months. I have copied this text from another site so you know what happens when your baby does not get vaccinated.

“Why does my baby need the Hib vaccine?
The Hib vaccine protects your child from the Haemophilus influenzae type b bacteria, which can cause epiglottitis (severe swelling in the throat that makes it hard to breathe), a serious form of pneumonia, and a disease called bacterial meningitis. Meningitis is an infection of the membrane covering the brain and spinal cord that can lead to lasting brain damage and deafness in young children, and can sometimes be fatal. Haemophilus influenzae can also cause serious joint and skin infections as well as other less common infections.

Before the Hib vaccine was approved for young children in 1990, Hib was the leading cause of bacterial meningitis in U.S. infants and children. Every year, roughly 20,000 people were infected with Hib, and two-thirds of those patients developed meningitis.

Jamie woke up one morning feeling pretty cranky. I got my two other children off to school, and that day Jamie only got worse. He started running a very high temperature, so like other times, I bathed him in cool water and he seemed to be comfortable. As the day progressed though, he became increasingly sleepy. I started having a hard time waking him up. I called my husband at work and he came home, and then we called our family doctor. When I told the doctor how sick Jamie was he told us to get to his office right away and to go straight through to a room. I found that odd, but he must have suspected something. We got to the doctors within ten minutes and we were whisked into a side office. I layed Jamie down on an examination table and the Doctor proceeded to raise his feet to his chest. Jamie just moaned. He tried it several other times and then left the room. When he came back in the room I could tell from the look on his face that it was serious. He then told us to drive straight to the hospital in the next town. He had already called ahead and said that he suspected Meningitis. I froze when I heard that word.

We drove as fast as we could to the next town. They again whisked us into a waiting room and tried waking Jamie up by pushing his legs to his chest. Jamie did not respond. Within a few hours, and after several tests it was confirmed that he had Meningitis. They had already hooked him up to intravenous anitibiotics. I spoke to a doctor and asked what his chances were and he said that he had seen much sicker children come in that responded well to the antibiotics so we kept our spirits up. They brought Jamie to a room and I sat with him, my husband was exhausted, and we decided that it would be best for him to go home to be with our other children. In the early hours of the morning I was awaken by the sounds of people yelling “code red”. Within minutes, doctors and nurses rushed in the room with machines and started working on Jamie. I staggered out into the hallway still half asleep. They decided to transfer him to McMaster Hospital in Hamilton. He was rushed there by ambulance and I followed in a taxi. I just had enough time to phone my husband to tell him where we were going.

They worked on Jamie all that night, we were told that he was very, very sick. Someone talked to us about organ transplant and then realized that they could not use any of his organs because of the Meningitis. There was so much confusion…sadly, later that morning they called us into a room and told us that he was on life support and that due to the swelling in his brain they did not feel he would make it. We were taken to his room after they took out all the tubes and he peacefully slipped away. Jamie was only 18 months old.

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Our son Andy was 25 years old when he passed away. We were in Iowa at the time when we got a call very late one evening from Andy’s girlfriends mother. I had just got in the driveway when I got the call. She told me that there had been an accident. Andy’s girlfriend was learning to fly a plane and I thought maybe something happened during one of her flights. Andy had gone away for the weekend with some friends for an ATV trip. Andy and three friends went up north to Barry’s Bay, Ontario to spend a weekend with just the guys. Several of his friends had been going up north for years with their ATV’s and Andy had always said that he would love to go with them one day. From what we were told, they had got to the cottage late that afternoon and that it had been raining. When the sun came out later they decided to warm up their machines and go for a short drive. They drove for several hours and then went to a cliff and watched the sun go down. They said how happy Andy was, that he was so pumped about the long drive they had planned for the next day. They drove back to the cottage before it got dark. It was a gravel road that these guys had driven on many times over the years. Two guys were in the lead on the road, followed by Andy and then another friend. All of a sudden the last person who had been lagging behind, found Andy’s ATV on its side and no sign of Andy. He thought he was playing a trick on him until he noticed Andy laying on his side beside a tree. He rushed to his side but was scared to move him. The others guys drove back as they were wondering why they had not got back at the cottage and called 911 right away. From what we were told, they think that Andy stood up briefly on the ATV, looked over his shoulder to see the guy behind him and lost control of the machine. He was thrown from the ATV, broke his leg and the impact to his head was fatal.

Our trip back home was a hazy one. We had to fly from Iowa to Detroit and then on to Ottawa, Ontario. From there we had to rent a car and drive to the hospital. Both of us were mentally and physically exhausted, we could barely drive. We got to the hospital and were ushered into a little room. His girlfriend and family were there and let us go in on our own. Andy looked like he was sleeping, I couldn’t believe it. I did not want to accept it. It was too much to take, I can barely remember being taken from the room. We were told by the doctor that Andy would have to be sent for an autopsy to determine the cause. I can not to this day say the “D” word. For me, a person passes away. After two days it was determined that the cause was severe head trauma.

How do you deal with the loss of a child? What do you say to a person who has lost a child? I could feel how awkward people felt, no one can prepare you or tell you what to say. For me I felt better when people talked about my children. Share special memories with me, or give me a photo that I had never seen before. I hated when people would not talk about my children, I realize now that they thought it would upset me. But then if felt like they had never existed. I know it is different for everyone, but I felt better talking about them.

We prepare ourselves for the miracle of birth, but no one can prepare you for a loss. And every loss is different. For parents who lose a child in childbirth, to Cancer, I can not even fathom how they deal with it.

When we lost both of our children we donated to a charity. For Jamie, we raised money for a neubulizer for our local hospital. And for Andy we set up a Tool and Die Scholarship as he has just completed his apprenticeship. We wanted our children to be remembered, and to give something back to the community. We even set up a website for Andy as we were planning a golf tournament in his memory and to raise more money for the Scholarship Fund, but sadly, my father was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer and passed away almost one year to the day that we lost Andy. We canceled the golf tournament but I have kept the website up because I still like to go to the site and look at the photos and run through all the happy memories. It felt so good to be able to post photos of him, and his friends were able to post special photos that they had. Today I decided to clean up my office and put away some photos of Andy and Jamie. It upset me a lot. That afternoon I noticed a Google Ad on my singlescanada.com website. It was for a memorial site. I checked it out and was overwhelmed. They had 51,067 memorials on the site and 2,154,153 Candles. You can light a candle for a loved one. You can post your loved ones life story on the site, post video’s, friends can leave condolences, you can choose their favourite music. How I wished there was a site like this when Andy passed away. But then I decided that it would be a great idea to move everything onto this site. This way I can always keep their memory alive. And if anyone ever does any genealogical research they will find all the information there too. If you are interested in this website it is: http://www.memory-of.com/Public/

I have to say this has been the hardest post that I have ever written. It brought back a lot of memories for me. I only hope that I can be of some help to anyone else who has lost a child/children and that they might find comfort in posting an everlasting memorial of their loved one.

MMMomma