ForeverMissed
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His Life

what happened to you

February 3, 2012
The Fray - How to Save a Life (Live)

We were down the shore in Brigantine at the end of March 2010.  The night of the 27th you woke up throwing up and with a fever.  During the next day you were still pretty sick so I called the doctor.  Hunterdon Pediatrics said something was going around but not to worry unless your temp went above 104.  So that night after midnight it did, it hit 104.5.  We took you to Atlantic City ER.  By the time they saw you the doctor took your temp at 102. The doctor thought it was viral and just needed motrin and fluids.  We brought you home to Readington Sunday early afternoon.  You slept on me most of that day but woke up for drinks and nursing.  You and I went to bed early that night. Your temp was only around 99 degrees. At 2:00 AM I woke up and saw that something was very wrong.  Your eyes were open and you were shaking and you could not make eye contact with me.  At that point you had probably had a seizure and suffered brain damage.  I raced you to the Hunterdon ER.  When the nurse in triage saw you I will never forget how she asked me "what is wrong with him." "I don't know, that's why I"m here"  I told her.  Within 15 minutes you were getting a spinal tap and I was questioning whether or not you were going to be ok.  By the time the results came back I had a pit so deep in my heart at this point I"m sure that it will never go away.  They wanted to transfer you to St. Peters because the pediatric doctor thought you would get better care there. The doctor was foreign and kept calling you "She' but I know it was because you were so beautiful.  It was in the ambulance that I really lost you.  I rode over there with the paramedics.  You stopped breathing on the way and the paramedics kept you alive until we got to New Brunswick. You stopped breathing I heard afterwards because you had a septic shock when the antibiotics killed off the bacteria in your body and the combination became toxic to your system.  I saw you throw up blood and stop breathing...your body stopped.  I was screaming and telling you that I love you and the ambulance passenger came back to hold me.  They used an ambu bag to keep you breathing until we got to St.Peters.  The next hard part was when the 15-20 doctors and nurses that immediately came to work on you couldn't look at me.  They all averted there eyes.  The older nurse came over to me and reminded me it was in God's hands.  They stabilized you for the time.  This was Monday morning the 29th.  Doug got there just as they were bringing you up to the PICU about 6:00am.  All of the nurses were crying when they saw how hard I was crying.  We started calling people.  They couldn't believe it.  Do I even still?  No.  The first thing the doctor said to me as we were bringing you up was that "has has a heartbeat for now."  That was the same doctor that was with us when you died 3 days later.  For those three days I didn't eat or sleep.  I didn't take my eyes off of you.  I sang to you and held the one hand that wasn't covered in tubes and needles.  They had so many medications going into you that even a drug aficionado like me couldn't keep up.  The neurologist checked for any signs of brain activity on Tuesday....they didn't find any.  On Wednesday Dougie came to visit you because to me it was really important that if you didn't live that he had a chance to say goodbye to you.  And he did.  At first we didn't bring him there because I was waiting so he could see when you started to get better.  Then when I realized you weren't I wanted him to see you before you got worse.  My brother was the last person to leave before you died.  We knew something was going to happen because they wanted to declare you brain dead.  It didn't get to that point.  On Wednesday they had all of the doctors that had seen you come into the waiting room with Doug and I.  I've never cried so hard in my life.  I had to pull it together to hear what they were trying to say, but I knew.  You had no chance to make it.  At 4:00AM on April 1st your heart stopped. If they could have kept you alive on life support I would have sat there for 30 years and watched a machine breath for you.  But they wouldn't have let that happen.  They said brain dead is death.  All from an infection.  What could have been a sore throat or basically nothing in another kid. Pneumococcal  Strain 7F.  You were scheduled to receive the new vaccine that had that strain covered in it on June 15th 2010.  I spent weeks thinking that if people weren't so lazy they could have pushed the new vaccine through faster and you would have been covered.  I still think people are slow and lazy.  You had just had the pneumococcal vaccine at your 1 year visit.  We had you cremated.  Never imagined that I would have to make a decision like that for my own son.  Your memorial was such a blur to me.  I was in such shock that I didn't need tranquilizers...I don't even remember if they offered them to me.  Bits and pieces come back to me from time to time but I think that it will be a long time before my brain is willing to revisit that day.  We must have natural mechanisms that want us to live even if we don't care either way. Survival mode.  Otherwise I think I would have spontaneously combusted.   It would make sense that I probably will not get to know God's plan in this life.  I still have questions and I don't really look for answers but sometimes have gotten them anyways.  I thought I would never be able to find the gratitude that I had when you were here - but I am grateful that you were here..and not all the time but every once in a while that is enough.  

February 3, 2012
Death Cab for Cutie - What Sarah Said

When I think back about your life, Jake, I know that there is something special about you. I know that everyone thinks their own kids are special and different but it as if some part of me always knew that I wasn't going to get to keep you forever and I know that I treated you that way.  If there was ever a time that you wanted to be picked up, or cuddled, or kissed or nursed or loved I never minded.  I remember laying with you thinking that I needed to concentrate really hard to remember what the time felt like.  Then I thought it was because babyhood goes by so fast and I would always want to remember what it felt like to be with you but now I know it was a gift from God giving me the patience to pay attention in the moment knowing that those moments would have to last me a lifetime.