August 15, 2024, I took Hayden, my 2 ½ year old son, to the pediatrician for flu-like symptoms. She listened to his tummy and checked his temp and told me he had a virus. She did not do a test to determine which virus he had and told me to come back in if he was not better Monday. I showed her a picture of my son’s bowel movement and shared I thought he was pooping blood. She assured me it wasn’t blood.

August 17th, at 8:00 a.m., I called 911 after Hayden had vomited a blood clot. He was rushed to the ER where they did a CT scan, a chest X ray and realized something was very wrong with his kidneys. Hayden had stopped peeing completely and they told me they believed he had Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS) caused by Shiga Toxin producing E.coli (STEC). They took a stool sample to confirm.

They told me Hayden was severely ill and that they did not have the equipment to handle his complex medical needs. We were sent to a children’s hospital in Portland. At the time I still didn’t understand the severity of the situation. I had never heard of HUS and I never knew STEC could be deadly.

Unfortunately, there was a storm that day so they could not airlift Hayden to Portland. He had to wait 6 hours for an ambulance to come from Portland and another 4 hours riding back to the children’s hospital. Hayden arrived on August 18th, at 1:30 a.m. They started dialysis immediately. Hayden endured a code blue, a failed surgery, intubation, etc. for the next couple days.

August 23rd scarlet started showing signs she has STEC as well. I was with Hayden, so her grandmother took her to the ER. They gave her fluids and sent her on her way KNOWING her brother was in Portland fighting for his life in the PICU. She showed no improvement by the next day, in fact she was getting worse. She was brought back to the ER and they decided to transport her to Medford for observation. Unfortunately, she only got worse and was air lifted to the PICU in Portland.

The morning of August 25th, Scarlet was in a lot of pain. She had a rectal prolapse and was not doing well. I gave her my phone to watch “combo panda” and that comforted her until she had an unnoticeable stoke and stopped watching my phone. She still was in an extreme amount of pain and I just knew something was very, very wrong. They took her to get some scans done and realized she needed her colon removed ASAP.

She went in for emergency surgery and that’s the last time I ever saw my daughter awake without a breathing tube. Scarlet was extremely unstable after surgery so they spent the next day trying to stabilize her enough to get some brain scans done because unfortunately the scan they did before surgery showed that she had bleeding in her brain.

We met with a neurosurgeon who explained the seriousness of the bleeding and swelling in Scarlet’s brain. They told us that she had what they call a full brain stroke. Her entire brain was bleeding and clotting in a cycle which left leave her completely brain dead. They told us she had no blood flow in her brain and that there weren’t any signals being sent off from her brain stem which is the part of your brain that tells you to breathe.

They told us that even if she does survive (which was unlikely) she MIGHT be able to move her eyes. At that, point Josh and I decided this was not a life we wanted our daughter to live. We didn’t want her to be in pain anymore. She had already had her colon removed and we didn’t want her suffer anymore more then she had already.

August 27th, Scarlet passed away. She was holding her Mama and Dada’s hands and Hayden was lying down asleep next to her. I told her how sorry I was that I couldn’t protect her. I told her how much I loved her and wished it would have been me. I told her not to be scared because she has people in heaven who will take really good care of her.

After Scarlet passed, Hayden started making leaps and bounds in recovery and I know that’s because he has the best guardian angel watching over him.

This is my story and this is Scarlet’s story. No child should die from going to a petting zoo or a river, etc. Kids shouldn’t die from doing things that make fun memories. I always knew Scarlet was special and would do something great in life. I had no clue that great thing would be me sharing her story in hopes we can save other children from a similar outcome.

My biggest advice would be to trust your parental gut. I knew something wasn’t right with Hayden and Scarlet but I trusted the doctors to get to the bottom of it and make sure they were okay. I also would like to warn people against anti-diarrhea medications when your child has a colon sickness. A lot of times that can make it worse. I wish I would have known that.

Please hold your children tight. You never know what unseen dangers there are in the world.

Rip my beautiful angel girl I will keep spreading your story no matter how hard it is for me, your story deserves to be heard.