So, I don't exactly know how to start this.
On this past Tuesday, August 10th, our son Hayden Matthew Guitar, passed away.
This is his story. (Warning: Sensitive Details)
On Tuesday August 3rd, Hayden woke up with a fever, and by the time we had done a second dose of Tylenol at 12, his fever had already started to not respond and was climbing back up by 2, so we called the Dr office up here and got him in and seen by 4:30, and they said he needed fluids because he had a fever of 103 and was lethargic. So we went to the ER, where they gave him ibuprofen and Zofran incase he had an upset stomach, because he had been puking that morning as well. They checked him over, no strep throat, no ear infection, no pneumonia in the lungs and negative covid test. And he perked up and was back to his own self. And so since everything looked good, they released us to go home.
Over the next two days we were fighting his fever again, rotating Tylenol and ibuprofen. And he was still nursing and drinking pedialyte good to keep his fluids up, and by the 4th day, he was perking up so good and we barely had to give him medicine and he started to want to eat more. He was his happy go lucky self and the 5th day he was even better and eating full meals and almost completely back to normal, but at times he was fussy and sticking his fingers in his mouth so we assumed he was teething, and gave him Tylenol and ibuprofen on and off to help with the teething pain and the fever that was coming back on and off, but never high.
We had been visiting with family and when we got back home on Monday, I decided to stay with my sister that night. Well, 5 a.m. Tuesday morning, Hayden woke up fussy so I picked him up to comfort him and that's when he puked on me. When we turned on the light, we saw that it was blood. Shortly after that first time, he had puked up a second time, with a much larger amount of blood. We were in shock after the first puke, but by the time he puked the second time, my sister had called 911 and I was trying to keep him conscious as he was getting pale and blue lips and seemed like he did lose consciousness. By the time the fire department and EMT got there, he had started to become more responsive again. We Got in the ambulance and they took us to the helipad, where we rode to Community Medical. And hayden was so dehydrated his veins were collapsed, but they managed to get one IV in and started to get fluids in him, and eventually he passed out again due to the stress on his body, after puking more blood up again. He got multiple fluids and some blood as well, and his stats started to perk up so they got him up to a room and had procedures planned for shortly thereafter. They finally got some blood pulled early that afternoon, but within 10 minutes of that, he had a seizure nd crashed. The Dr's worked tirelessly on him for hours to try to bring him back, doing a few last ditch procedures, but when they finally saw something in his throat, it was in an impossible area to repair, and at that point there was nothing else they could have done, even if it was in a repairable area. We had to leave the room when they started performing surgery, as he wouldn't have made it to the OR, and so about 2 hours after we had to leave, they sat us down and gave us the news.
They ruled it an accidental death, due to what they referred to as a tumor caused by asphyxiation, which from my understanding was like an abscess thing that could have been caused by the tiniest piece of food sitting in his throat or even a liquid. The coroner said it could have been caused by anything and we may never know.
I was hoping that by performing an autopsy, we would get answers, not only for us, but so if something like this ever happened again, maybe the Dr's would have better luck in saving the next child, but I dont know how much help it may have been. But we needed to at least try to understand what happened.
We have got funeral processes started, and so far we as a family are going to have a private viewing on Friday the 20th. Later on Friday August 20th, we will be having a graveside service at the Seeley Lake Cemetery at 2 p.m., that will be open to the public for anyone who wants to come. We are still sorting out details, but we will be having a video made as well to play at some point during the ceremony, so people can see hayden as he was. We are also hoping to plan a celebration of life that anyone can attend at a later date.
We appreciate knowing this community has been waiting until we were ready to start processing things, and we appreciate having the community behind us during this time. For those that want to help with funeral costs or medical costs, there is an account at Citizens Alliance where donations can be made for Hayden in both parents names, and we will be doing future fundraising for the cause as well.