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Post by Clara Hinton on Oct 18, 2006 20:53:52 GMT -5
Dear Parents,
Please use this board for sharing your story of loss, your journey through grief, and your walk back to hope. This is a post only forum. *Please do not reply to the stories or poems.* Thank you!
Love,
Clara
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Post by zacksmom on Oct 27, 2006 9:34:45 GMT -5
Hello Clara, My name is Jeannette, we stay in Durban South Africa. My 4 year old son, Zack, got sick mid Feb06, he ran fevers, and then started to turn yellow. The doctors thought he had Hepatitas, but the tests came back negative, he was admitted to the Umhlanga Hopital on 10.3.06 and on the 17.3.06 the Paed told us that the had contacted a virulent form of Cocksackie Virus, that had attacked his liver so badly he needed a liver transplant. We flew him down to the Red Cross Childrens Hospital in Cape Town where they told us that they only do on average 5 liver transplants a year but he would be put on the waiting list. In the interim they pumped him full of antibiotics, and drew blood twice a day. My normally cheerful sunny child became sullen and crabby. Unknown to us he was already in 2nd stage liver failue, and change of personality was one of the signs. A week after we arrived, I was told that his name was being removed from the donar liver waiting list, he still had the virus lodged in his lungs and was no longer a good candidate for a liver transplant. They continued with the antibiotics and he seemed to improve, we had 2 amazing days where he started behaving normally, he was communicative, upbeat, and interacting with the people around him, this was on Monday - 27.3.06, On tuesday Zack started to swell up again, hes fitting back into age 7/8 undies and is grumpy and no longer talking, late on Tuesday night he started to hallucinate and kept trying to climb out the bed and kept undoing all the drips. We were forced to tie him to the bed. On Wednesday, he went into shock and started convulsing. The whole of Wednesday, he convulsed and stopped communicating, he also have a strange smell, his liver was starting to shut down. On Thursday - 30.03.2006, he was put onto morphine to relieve the pain, he kept convulsing, he couldnt close his eyes, his breathing was erratic and eventually his lungs burst and he passed away. These images are forever seared in my mind. I washed and bathed hime before they took him away. Its been 7 months since he passed away, but it seems like yesterday. We have so many unanswered questions. Its comming up to Christmas now and dont think that I can go thru this without my Zack. When will I be able to function normally? How do others cope with this. What am I doing wrong.
Regards,
Jeannette.
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