DoctorOz: Parents' Heartbreaking Plea After Son Dies in His Sleep

It's a tragic story that has gone viral all over social media people are reacting to a heartbreaking plea from working parents after the sudden death of their 8 year-old son, their story is an incredible example of the power of one proof that you have the power to inspire others to change the world in a meaningful way. On September 3rd millions of people logged on to LinkedIn ready to network but found themselves gripped by 2 parents heartbreaking posts there were photos of a happy family twin boys smiling laughing, but jr and Jessica wrote that they were grieving the sudden loss of one of those boys, they're 8 year-old son why. Why they seem to be sleeping quite late. Later that morning, I became suspicious that sleeping in lasted too long. As I pulled the blanket back and I traced the deep purple color of the city. I heard a pulse and somehow felt surprised by the cold skin I touched. I started to call 911 but hung up because there was a more important call I needed to make. I got the call from my wife, I was sitting in a conference room with 12 people in the office talking about PTO policies, I answered with hey what's up reply was I see immediate jr why he is dead. The couple went on to detail the chaotic scene at home that included a rush of first responders preventing them from seeing their why. 2 and a half hours passed incredibly slowly while we begged for the ability to hold our son's hand body touches hair. We were finally granted the opportunity but our time was not the way a parent should have to see their child but it was all we had. A lay down next to him in the bed that he loved held his hand and kept repeating what happened buddy what happened. While these parents believe their son's death may be related to a previously diagnosed mild form of epilepsy. J r and Jessica's post resonated not just for their tragedy. But for their personal plea. Many of asked what they can do your kids don't work too late there's any lesson to take away from this it's to remind others and myself not to miss out on the things that matter. If you are a parent and have any capacity to spend more time with your kids do. When it ends it's just photos and leftover things and time is no longer available to you will not regret the e-mails you forgot to send. Jared Jessica are here today with a vital message for all of us. I was so important. I think there's this incredible shock. When you lose a child overnight in the way that we did. It was completely unexpected. We had no idea that was even possible that could happen like that. And so to give explanation to our friends and family how do you go from having this incredibly happy healthy 8 year-old to and so many will call me and say are you kidding is this a joke. I was like of course it's not a joke which first of all who jokes about that and secondly of course not but the disbelief is so real for people that it's impossible to think that we could lose someone so fast so young. I'm sure so so off you but at least you've had some life experience to cope how about Oliver while he's 20 brother how is he coping. Oliver is actually doing really well. Has lost his best friend and so he's desperate to hang out with other kids right now, but he's in school and he's back in soccer practice and so he definitely has a good support network of kids around him. He's just now starting to figure out how to talk about it. And he is the sweetest kid because he says oh yeah, that's why these or yes, oh I lean I used to do this and so he brings up these fantastic memories for us as a family on his own which is so lovely to see that he's able to integrate the history there is able to articulate that he misses. Yes, and that's about as far as I think you can go right now. He will say he's missing him and we see him missing him. But I think right now it's about as far as that goes, I mean that the good news I think for for him even though he lost his best friend is that you know has previously had split attention from 2 parents who we're very busy and now he has complete attention from 2 parents who are much more focused on him than we were before for you describe it as a as a powerful trying. Yeah, I mean that was a big change for us we've always been a family of 4 was twins and it was like 2 groups ahead of the twins and we had us and we came together now realize you know now to try and just the 3 of us together is that what that is and you're on oh yes, so we did decide to go ahead and get tattoos to represent our new family so Jerry has one I have one. Why these favorite color has been blue for many many years. And so we decided to color blue so that while he no longer is a part of the family unit it will always be colored by hand so it's going to take a few months to really work out exactly what might have happened because it's such a strange process trying to die something but you think it's something called sudden unexpected death in epilepsy something that I've learned a lot about I thought it was extraordinarily rare, it's not what the doctors tell you about the risks associated with that I think while he just had one minor episode of a small seizure that that we're aware of yeah, I mean his his type of epilepsy was meant to be one of the most benign it was actually called benign but then rolandic epilepsy. And the doctors told us like that's the best type that he could have and it's supposed to resolve by the time he was in his teenage years goes out of it because yeah, it's just supposed to happen at night. And the only reason we found out that he had it was we were staying in an Airbnb and it had hardwood floors. And she heard a thud upstairs and he had fallen out of his bed and she went upstairs and found him having this the seizure is the only one who ever saw that was about nine months before he died. And after the diagnosis, you know, they were very clear, we talked to multiple pediatricians and neurologists, just let him let him be don't medicate him don't do anything. And it is fairly rare. It's something like one out of 4500 kids with epilepsy. But it can happen to any kid who's had any seizure. happened to adults to where it's one in 1000. Yeah, more common in your position. So you had insights into it. Cameron Boyce, the Disney star, who died in July, we've died from the same thing. So here's what I want to do today, I will at least make the pain you're going through to talk about this. Useful. I want everyone as a child with epilepsy to hear me clearly. Many doctors don't ever warn families about the risks of sudden unexpected death and epilepsy. Because the philosophy is, why share terrifying news when you can't do anything about it anyway. But I'm not sure that's true anymore. It can happen with anyone with epilepsy. There are things we can do while we can't get rid of all the risks. There are things that are effective, right? Yeah. So there's definitely a list of criteria and risk factors that are associated with a higher risk of SUDEP occurring. Clonic seizures and the frequency of clonic seizures being among those risks. The seizure that I did witness my son have was clonic. So the more severe the epilepsy, the higher the risk is. There's new studies being done. The research is really limited. And it's going to stay unexplained until we have more information. Why not just have a monitor? So this is a great question. So there's a wearable tech and there's alarm pad monitors. These are new. Not every physician knows about them. Not everyone recommends them. At the moment, both wearable tech, there's a watch and the alarm, like a mattress pad. They only detect clonic seizures. So if you're having a more minor form of a seizure, it's not going to be detected by that technology. But if we don't utilize the technology and there's not enough people actively using it and collecting data from it, the technology will not get better. So I do think, I wish that we had had that. I don't know that it would have changed the outcome for my son. We'll be right back with J.R. and Jessica's advice for parents at home. Welcome back. Last month, parents J.R. and Jessica suffered an unimaginable loss when their eight-year-old son died in his sleep. Their viral message to make time for your children has inspired millions and exemplifies the power of one. So you wanted to inspire parents to hug their kids a little tighter, to send one last email. Are you finding solace? I hope you are, in knowing that it's working. Yeah, I think, you know, the big thing we're seeing is people reaching out, as we've done with our own son, Oliver, and just having a perception shift, which is not saying don't work or, you know, stop working because most of us can't do that, but just recognize that when you're feeling frustrated with that child, that it's important time that you have and make those little adjustments, make those little changes and maybe just the extra five or ten minutes are just the way you respond. One of the biggest regrets I have is the night before Wiley died, I yelled at him and made him cry, and I really didn't need to do that. You know, he was doing something that was frustrating, annoying, but it was one of the last interactions we had, and I could have been softer with him. So we're trying to be softer now with Oliver in ways that maybe we weren't before, and we're hoping others will do that as well. So you wanted to inspire parents. Yeah. Without question, you found some effectiveness there. Do you take solace in the fact that you've been able to influence families? I've got, you know, tons of quotes over here, people written to you. Do you feel like you've accomplished your goal by writing about your son? You know, it's a tough answer because it doesn't bring Wiley back. Not to sugarcoat it, that's the deep down feeling. You know, we've heard stories of people who've like said, hey, I'm, you know, not going to take this promotion, or I'm moving back to my family, or, you know, I canceled meetings this week and I put one-on-ones on the calendar with my daughters, and that stuff, it feels really heartfelt, and that's the stuff we're trying to do now with Ollie. So that's been good. So I want to read one comment on social media. Charlie came down to our room four times last night, four separate times. I got progressively frustrated with him for waking everybody up, and then dot, dot, dot. A genuine, heartfelt thank you to JR and Jessica for giving me the power to recognize the privilege of having my sons here in my arms to be here to wake them up. That was the goal, right? You don't know what you have until you lose it. Yet, when you see a post like that, Jessica, what's that like? You know, parenting is kind of relentless, right? It just, they wake up in the middle of the night, they're sick, you have a fever, you deal with this. It's so touching to know that someone can take a step back from that after what we've been through and recalibrate and say, you know what? We have definitely implemented in our own household a more tender approach to caring for our other son, because he's there, and we can, and Wiley isn't. The most powerful line for me was when you said, you're not going to regret not sending that extra email. Right? If that is distracting you from spending time with your kids, that you're like, just one more, I just have this one more email, right? I regret that, right? And I know that if I had waited another half hour until after they were asleep, or if I had waited until they went to school, it would have been fine, right? There's no urgency to that. It would have been fine. For all the parents who have changed their views and the time they spend with their kids, thank you for spending time with us and for putting yourselves out there. Thank you.