Mom heartbroken after losing second child

Seven years ago Ameila Ellis lost one of her twin, boys, three days after the brothers were born.

Her pressure skyrocketed but her family and counsellors reassured her that all would be well and she needed to be strong for her other son.

Heeding the advice, Ellis said she picked herself up and dedicated her time and energy to her surviving son, Nickoy Campbell.

Sadly, when Campbell was three years old, she found out that he had a tumour, and, after the operation, he lost his sight.

The thought of losing her second son began to loom as doctors told her that he had a 25 per cent chance of surviving.

Prayer and great family support pushed her forward and she decided that she would remain strong for young Nickoy.

After Nickoy lost his sight, she enrolled him in the Salvation Army School for the Blind and Visually Impaired and even travelled hours from her Clarendon home to be close to her son in Kingston.

"He was such a fighter because even though he had the first tumour and he lost his sight, he was moving around normal and was very jovial. If you saw him and didn't know his condition, you would not know that he lost his sight," she said.

Life was going well until Nickoy complained of headaches in May.

Ellis immediately took him to the Bustamante Hospital for Children when she received terrible news.

"I took him in on the first of April and found out that the tumour came back. They admitted him and the tumour was removed the eighth of April and he was sent to the ICU," she said.

The 34-year-old mother told THE STAR that her son was recovering until he suffered a mild stroke leaving the left side of his body non-reactive.

A couple of weeks later, she said that pressure started to build up in Nickoy's brain. But she was still hopeful that she could take her son home soon.

Unfortunately, Nickoy took his last breath at 10:42 a.m. last Thursday; Ellis was told he died from an infection.

UNEXPECTED

"I was not expecting this. It was the hardest thing fi know seh you carry in your child and a look fi him fi get help and he died not from what you brought him in for. Even this morning I was like 'No man him a come home man, him deh a school. It nuh hit me yet that he is really and truly gone," she said.

Ellis said that her family is taking it as hard as she is.

"Because to know that you take him in from something and then to know that he died from something else is really hard. We have been fighting and coming from far because I remember when he did the first surgery and the doctor said that his chance of survival was 25 per cent at the time and I said that is what you said and not what God said. So we a come from far and the struggle was real," she said.

Ellis described Nickoy as a brilliant boy, who was on the honour roll at his school. He would have been eight on July 27.