Honoring Baby Shiloh

Hello, I am Gianna Jackson, the aunt of Shiloh Chance, the baby shown in the photo. I’m saddened to introduce you guys to Shiloh under these horrifying circumstances. The other night, my sister woke up in her sleep and discovered her baby unresponsive. She went into a panic, and that’s when I woke up and assisted her in getting medical emergency responders. After an hour of the EMTs resuscitating him on our hotel floor, his pulse came back on its own. They then got him stable enough to transfer him to Newport Hospital in Rhode Island. We had to wait two hours for the Hasbro Children’s Hospital to arrive and transfer him to their Providence Hospital. When they picked up Shiloh, he was instantly rushed to their Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. Shiloh had a whole team of amazing and dedicated doctors in his room working on him. The doctors were doing everything in their power to help Shiloh continue thriving. Shiloh's heart was the only organ running on its own; everything else was working because of machines and medicine. We were waiting for the test results that confirmed it was only temporary and that we would have him back 100% healthy and okay. Whenever my sister or I would speak to him, we would hear his heartbeat instantly rocket up. He knew we were there. Shiloh was struggling to keep his temperature at a regular rate, his blood was clotting due to all the high doses of heart medications he was on, they put him on steroids to protect his stomach lining from the medication, he had catheters in his leg and a catheter in his perineum area. I was only so at comfort with visiting him and seeing him in that condition because I genuinely believed in my heart and with my faith it was temporary. My sister had just stepped out of the waiting room with Shiloh’s father and Shiloh’s uncle around midnight (Saturday, November 9th) to finally go and try to get something to eat. I stayed in the family waiting lounge. Shiloh’s doctor came in looking for my sister in a panic because Shiloh’s heart rate started “fluctuating.” I called my sister and met up with her, and we ran to Shiloh’s room. The doctor bluntly told my sister Shiloh is dying and offered her to hold him in his last few moments. All she had been wanting to do since we first left her hotel room to bring him to the hospitals was just hold him again. I was aware of how much that offer meant to her. She was trying to maintain her composure to be with him while also processing everything she was just told. It was more than hard; I don’t have a word to describe the pain I witnessed her feel. I watched Shiloh take his last breath in my sister’s arms at 12:14 am, Saturday, November 9th. I was more than blessed to have been there with them and got to witness that moment.

While waiting with my sister, watching her in emotional agony, I couldn’t help but just keep thinking, trying to understand what happened. The night before the incident, I had just come into my sister's room after getting out of work, and he looked at me with a smile and laugh. That’s Shiloh. Shiloh loves to be silly, he loves his walks with momma, he loves when you draw your finger down his forehead to his nose and “boop” the tip of his nose, he likes to watch Bluey with his sister, he only cries when he needs something, he lets out burps that will have you convinced he’s a 35-year-old man in a 4-month-old body. Shiloh's mom calls him her “light.” She always said he is just an embodiment of life and light. And she couldn’t have described him any better. Shiloh only brought joy to those he met and will continue to do the same wherever his spirit may travel.

Please help us to honor Shiloh in the most graceful and ravishing way we can. Nobody was prepared for this tragedy.