In summary, her symptoms were these: 103 fever that night and an ache in her left upper arm; she vomited once in the evening about 30 minutes after talking the Motrin. In the morning she had chills, headache, and dizziness. She had no temperature in the early morning. The dry heaved bile and seemed to be very thirsty. She was thirsty in the evening and in the morning. She made herself tea Sunday night and even mentioned that to the emergency squad in the monring. It wasn't until mid morning when the marks appeared. From subsequent reading I have found those to be a symptom of a blood infection. Even the medics thought that it was from blood vessels broken in the pressure from vomiting; they didn't see it as a prime symptom.
Most parents would have left Sarah for the day, She didn't seem that sick. Sarah's dad questioned why I was staying home at all. Can you even imagine if I had not? Her sister would have found her dead in the hallway when she came home from school.
Sarah did not feel pain in death. She died years too young, but I am thankful that her death was easy for her. In death, what more do we ask for the people we love?
To this day we still do not know what happened to Sarah. Her pathologist notes that either the treatment and the toxins in her blood wiped out all evidence or she had something so rare, that we can't recognize it. He said that what happened to her is consistent with a toxic reaction, one that could have been chemical or bacterium based. Unfortunately, no toxic compounds have been identified even given substantial lab work.
Her cause of death has been listed as toxic or septic shock. The underlying cause still remains unknown.
Several theories have been explored: These include:
- toxic shock from tampons: Sarah's
death is being called Toxic or Septic Shock. The hospital is still investigating
the underlying causes. Sarah was at the tail end of her period when
this happened. Because of medical reasons we know about now, she had
an extremely long period, which adds the possibility that she might
have left a tampon in longer than normal. This was only the second cycle
that Sarah ever used tampons. She expressed to me how much better they
were than pads. Now we wonder, were they really or did they cause her
death?
Deaths for TSS have increased over the last few years. I have spoken with TWO moms whose daughters contracted TSS in October, one survived and one died. It is not a lost disease of the 80's.
Girls:
- Read and follow your tampon directions.( NOTE to teen girls: NEVER leave a tampon in for more than 4 hours. Do not sleep with them inserted. Use the lowest absorbancy you can get away with. And rotate their use with a pad.
- If you ever have irregularities in your period talk to your mom. If you don't think you can talk to your mom, call the nurse at your doctor's office. She will be HAPPY to talk to you.
- A toxic spider bite ( although we searched for and collected spiders and could not find any dangerous ones.) Additionally, for those of you who knew Sarah, can you even imagine her not running from any spider?)
- Meningitis and meningiococemia although Sarah had no rash and it didn't culture. Subsequent tests have disproved this possibility. If you were to call the Franklin County Health Department today, however, they would swear by this diagnosis, since Children's has no other. I have less than gracious things to say about the Franklin County Health department concerning this matter.
- e.coli or other food borne diseases- I am not convinced that it was not a food borne illness. The pathologist found no e.coli in her gastrointestinal system. Then again, he found no bacteria either. There should have been some- somewhere. Just as there are "bad" bacterium, there are "good" ones too. The pathologist found no evidence of "good" , just as he found no "bad." The Franklin County Department of Health did NOT explore issues raised about the sub. They said since no one else got sick, there was probably no problem. This comes from the organization who will not accept that Sarah did not have meningiococemia, despite the fact that the hospital crossed that possiblity off in less than a week.
None of these theories are totally panning out for several reasons not going into here.. Sarah lived a very simple life. It shouldn't be this hard.
We know it won't bring her back, but knowing would make a tremendous difference to us. At the very least, perhaps it could let us help this from happening to other teens.
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Finally, I would like to acknowldge the work, dedication and compassion a few people. If I left you off this list or attributed an action to the worng person, I apologize, since events and people blurred into eachother. Just know that I appreciated your actions.
Dr. Nadeem Khan and the ER team at Children's- We have no doubt that this team did the best with what Sarah presented. I can't even imagine what it would be like doing emergency room work. They made a stab at what was wrong and aggressively worked on stopping it. Unfortunately ( understatement of the year), this time they weren't successful. We saw more than one person cry in that emergency room. Their compassion was obvious.
All of the Nurses- Aside from compassionate care for Sarah, they took care of John and me. After reading Sarah's chart, it is obviouis to me that they continued CPR on Sarah just so that we could be with her when she was pronounced dead. We will never forget the one nurse repeating in her ear," Your mommy loves you; Your daddy loves you," until the monitor flatlined. Everyone in that room cried and they were very real tears.
The Plain Township and Westerville Medics- I watched the shock on these men's faces in the emergency room. They are dads too. The Westerville medics did not accompany us to Children's that day. We were transported by Plain Township. I understand that the Westerville medics went to Children's later that day, because of the hurt they felt in losing Sarah.
Dr. Mark Luquette and the pathology department at Children's- I appreciate Dr. Luquette's determination to make sense of what happened to Sarah and come up with a cause of death. I also appreciate his putting up with me and keeping me informed along the way as he does things and as tests are returned to him. I have no doubt that if anyone can figure this out, he has the capability to do it.
Last, but definitely not least, Curt Jackowski- I don't know what we would have done without the support and solid thinking that Curt offered. He brought Sarah's sister to Children's that day, and instantly became part of our family, as he found out what happened at the same time as Anna. As he mourned the loss of his student, he concerned himself with the safety of the rest of his Warriors. He dealt with a difficult situation with sensitivity and continues to be a pillar of support for us.
