Kelsey | "Angel" Takota | "Angel"
David
David's Story
written by mom Terry
David was born on January 9th, 1995. He was a
small miracle to us as we had lost our two daughters before. One was lost at
birth and the other to a brain disease. David was born a healthy happy baby.
After his third birthday he started having seizures.
Doctors thought that the daughter we lost before David was born, had Batten
Disease. She was never tested because at the time they hadn't found how to
test for Batten Disease. We called the BDSRA (Batten Disease Support and
Research Association) people and got information on the new testing for
Batten Disease. We sent the blood samples to the research lab and after six
weeks got the terrible news, David had Batten Disease and was dying.
Our lives were crushed. There is no cure for Batten Disease and it robs the
children their motor skills and more. David had already lost some of his
sight, ability to walk, he could not talk and he had seizures. As his sister
did, soon David lost the ability to do anything on his own. He had to be fed
through a tube in his stomach, he needed constant care and we knew he would
not live to be 10. David loved having his big brother play with him and his
little sister tickle him. He loved eating popcorn or cookies when watching
Barney videos. We were able to keep him out of hospitals because we had been
through it before and the doctor helped us with his seizures. It was a hard
thing to watch one child die but even harder to watch your third go.
David died peacefully on April 30th, 2000 after have a few weeks of stopping
breathing and a lot of seizures. The day he went to Heaven we knew it was
time. He left us while listening to his Barney tape.
Since then we have planted a garden in all our Angels memory. This way we
can plant something new on their special days. We even have statues of
Angels. After Hurricane Isabelle damaged our village terribly, we realized
we saved our home but one of our Angels went missing. We were blessed that a
nice lady gave us one with a little boy hugging a teddy bear. It is our
David to us.
