There are many wonderful an positive things to say about DeCota that it's hard to put it all on paper. Here are a few things about him and his life with Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis (LCH).
A beautiful, precious baby boy was sent to us on September, 2001 and his name was DeCota Blayne Logan. DeCota touched everyone's heart from day one. in his short life here on earth he taught us many things, especially the true meaning of love. You couldn't be around him without falling in love. He had a beautiful spirit about him that emanated from him. He loved to make people laugh. He had an incredible sense of humor and an incredibly contagious laugh. He was also a very caring little boy. Sometimes he made you wonder who was the parent, you or him. He had the brightest smile that would light up a room. He was gorgeous inside and out. DeCota had an abundant love for everyone he knew and the sweetest heart of anyone I've ever met. He was truly a precious gift from God.
Unfortunately for DeCota, he was born with a horrible illness, Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis. Through this illness there was only one word that can really describe him, a trooper. No one really believed he was sick, because he looked so healthy and happy most of the time. It's hard to imagine how much he truly suffered and even harder to watch, which is a little ironic, because even though he had a lot of pain, chemo, and health problems he never complained. He just kept smiling and playing as if nothing was wrong, but then again he never knew what it felt like to be healthy and pain free.
DeCota was born with lesions all over his body, but his doctor told us it was normal and didn't do anything else about it. It just seemed to get worse from then on. He would get pneumonia and colds all the time and couldn't handle any of the formula we put him on. On his 4 month check up we noticed a large lump behind his ear that we never saw before. We showed it to his doctor and she ran some x-rays on it and then sent us over to the hospital, that's when it all began. He had many tests and surgeries done on him to find out what was the cause of this and they all came up inconclusive. Finally, when he was 8 months old they told us what his diagnosis was. it turned out to be LCH. The doctor told us about it briefly and said it was rare. We researched it and found out that the younger the child when diagnosed and the more body parts affected the worse the outcome. Most of the cases we read, the child didn't make it past 2 years of age. We got worried. He had many hospitalizations in his short life and even started staying in one particular room. He had weekly chemo treatments that he hated but got used to. He made friends with a little girl in the clinic, Yolanda. In September 2003 he wouldn't eat for days and screamed while having bowel movements and we brought him to the hospital. He had a fistula and it didn't heal no matter what they did so they had to give him a colostomy. We celebrated his 2nd birthday in the hospital after his colostomy and thought we had this illness beat.
The change happened at Easter. DeCota didn't seem like his normal self; he was depressed and cranky and didn't want to talk much. He was brought to the ER twice and sent back home saying everything was fine (which we heard a lot). They finally admitted him on May 20th with pneumonia. The doctors treated it with many antibiotics, but noting was working, so they decided to run some tests thinking but hoping it wasn't his illness. May 22nd they gave him an Open Lung Biopsy. That Saturday when he came out of the surgery he seemed like his normal self again and we were all relieved. Sometime in the middle of night he stopped breathing and they put him on a respirator machine but it wasn't working. They put him on a support machine Sunday and we just had to watch and wait. The doctors wanted to give him 2 rounds of stronger chemo to see if it would work. The first dose was given on June 1st, but it was already too late. His vitals continued to drop no matter what the doctors did. We all prayed day and night for him to get better, but he just kept getting worse. We knew that even if he did come back to us it was already to late and that he would be brain dead and not the DeCota that we knew. Not only would he have to deal with his illness but that as well. We couldn't do that, so the doctors talked to us and made us realize that he wasn't coming back. We finally had to just let him go. He passed away at 2:30 am June 2nd. the week of July 5th we learned that LCH had gotten to his lungs and was the cause of his death.
Decota was 2 years and 9 months old when he died. He is now our beautiful guardian angel looking down at us. His beautiful voice and words still linger in our hearts and that alone puts a smile on our face and keeps us going. He is enjoying being a healthy, happy little boy and that makes his death easier to deal with. He will never be forgotten and always loved!
http://www.histio.org for more info on LCH
