Cody Sherrell, a Fighter

Cody Sherrell

     
     When I started "What I Learned from Daniel", the blog was to be about Daniel, our grief in having lost him so suddenly  at such a young age, and about how we survive, if we ,in fact, did.  My intent was not to become a listing of children, teens, and sports figures who were victims of sudden cardiac death.  However, so many cases have come up lately, I feel for the families of those boys lost, and for the important task of bringing awareness about sudden cardiac death, that I must.

            Cody Sherrell, according to the Mail Online, was a shy La Centre, Washington, fourteen year old.  He very much wanted to try out and be a part of his school's basketball team.   His parents, Brandon and Renee Sherrell,  like good parents everywhere, took him out to buy new basketball shoes, and encouraged him, to live his dreams.   On January 3, Cody was very active on his teams first practice.  At its conclusion, he sat down, and collapsed and went into a cardiac arrest.  He received immediate CPR from his coach.  The rescue squad came with a conventional defibrillator, and was able to restart Cody's heart on the third shock.  He was then transported to the hospital.
             Despite vigils at his school, and the best care, Cody remained in critical condition in Intensive Care, from January all the way until April 23, 2012 .   He received state of the art care, and for at least part of that time, this included hypothermia treatment.   Once the brain and other body organs are deprived of oxygen during a code, sometimes, there cannot be a complete recovery. Cody was a fighter, and remained here on Earth as long as he could.  I can only imagine what his family endured in those months.  I don't know if we were luckier to have lost Daniel at once on that terrible day, or whether the Sherrell Family were luckier because they had their son on Earth longer following an ultimately fatal cardiac arrest.     Once again, Cody had no known cardiac history or anything else to suggest he would become a victim of sudden cardiac standstill.   There was also no family history of such a thing.  The random nature of these occurrances is one of the things which leaves families devastated.   Often, there are no symptoms, no indications that this will occur at some point.  Our family sends our condolences and best wishes to the Sherrell Family.

Cody Sherrell, 14      (Photo: Facebook)




This is how Cody's school is memorializing him

Cody's family has been very vocal in giving thanks to his coach, his friends, his school, the hospital, and all opf Cody's doctors who helped him since January.

I apologize for typographical errors which occur all too easily when I tell of other families who have experienced the loss of their sons or daughters to spontaneous arrhythmias. Many of the posts about sudden losses such as these, I write with tears in my eyes.