January 19, 2020

Dear Sonzee, 

Today, a year ago, the questions began to flood my mind, but overall I wasn't overly alarmed.  There was some confusion within my mind because there were no other symptoms besides a ridiculously high fever that we couldn't get you to break.  We did round the clock fever reducers but your temperature fluctuated between 100-103.6 and you felt frozen.  Mrs. Zupnick asked if your toes were purple, and how blood flow was, I remember you were paler than any other color, but again, nothing overly alarming.  I texted Dr. Kelly, she went down the list of symptoms and I crossed them all off.  We considered starting you on Tamiflu just in case, but we both decided that since you had no other symptoms besides the fever and other viruses were going around, it was best for you to not have another med that was just going to be a crapshoot. 

You were "blah", but honestly so much of the last six months that would have been exactly how I would have described you the majority of the time anyway.  We let you stay in your bed and just rest.  I googled the timeline of flu about 600 times and it wasn't making sense why you only had just a fever on day 2.  Ironically, I was actually feeling relieved that you hadn't started with a runny nose, cough, or any other symptom because I was going to assume that meant it wasn't the flu...but also I didn't exactly consider it to be death.

Your seizures stopped along with the start of your fever, so whatever it was we knew your body considered you sick...regardless if it was just the way your body was handling stress or a real illness. Today you rested...but tomorrow...tomorrow is actually the day that my mind started to wonder...it would still be another 2 days until there was a shift in my thinking...

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I often wonder what you must have been thinking or truly feeling during your last days.  I know deep down we made the very best choice to keep you home.  I have zero doubts in my mind with the information that would soon follow that everything we did was not only in your best interest but absolutely the right answer.  My heart breaks the same regardless of those facts.  I won't ever be okay with you having to endure all you did.  Still, even as peaceful as we attempted to make your last days of life I wish your ending could have been different...less chaos, less pain, and less confusion (so we could have possibly done better for you).  

Until next time.

Love always, 

Ema