Ivy Hayes

On the evening of October 3, 2011, my 3-year-old daughter, Ivy, started complaining about a pain in her side. She pointed to where it hurt. At this point, I was concerned, but not alarmed. I thought it could have been a number of things – like her older sisters beating up on her. So I kept a close eye on her.

That night, she developed a fever and had problems sleeping, so I knew something was wrong. My first thought was appendicitis, so when my husband woke up early to go to school, I told him what was going on and he decided to skip class and take her to the ER. I stayed home with my then 6-year-old twins. When they got back from the ER, my husband told me it was a urinary tract infection (Sepsis and Urinary Tract Infections) and had antibiotics for her.

Later that day, just before 1 in the afternoon, she had fallen asleep on her stomach watching cartoons. I turned her over to wake her up so I could give her the second dose of antibiotics. When I turned her over, she was blue and unresponsive. I grabbed the phone, called 911, and gave her CPR until the ambulance arrived.

We made it to the ER and I had no idea what was going on. My first thought was SIDS, but they assured me that SIDS does not happen to kids this old. They flew her out to the children’s hospital. When we got there, the doctors told us that they weren’t sure, but they suspected Ivy had gone into septic shock. They kept her on life support through the night, but were unable to save her. Around 8 the next morning, with no hope, my husband and I made the decision to take her off life support.

Source: by Michele Hayes (Ivy's mother)