A grieving mother has shared how her 3-year-old son suddenly died after battling an on-off ‘tummy bug’.
Little Alexander Bowes from Lancaster suffered from tiredness and a stomach illness during Christmas but he managed to enjoy the festive season.
But he sadly passed away on Boxing Day, with doctors still having no clue after a post-mortem failed to determine the cause of death.
His devastated mother, Emma Cooper, said: “He loved cars, Peter Rabbit, spending time with family, being outside. He was just a really cheeky little chap that just lit everybody up.”
Describing her son’s sudden illness, Dr. Cooper said he was “a little bit unwell” on Boxing Day, adding his symptoms were “on and off.”
She said that they had a ‘lovely’ Christmas.
“I’ve got lovely memories of him dancing with Freddie randomly to the Masked Singer which we never watched before but it just happened to be on.”
She continued: “On Boxing Day, he’d been a bit unwell but no temperature or anything, nothing particularly serious.
“I went out on a walk with Freddie and came back to (a) police van outside my house (and we) went straight to hospital and he died later that evening.”
The grieving mom said she spent the next days “just existing” and walking around “in a daze.”
“You have to go through all of the administrative stuff that you’ll never dream that you have to do as a parent like sorting out the undertaker, communicating with a coroner and waiting for a post-mortem.
“You don’t expect them to have to happen for a parent as a child, it’s not something I would wish on anybody and having no answers makes it even more unbearable as a thought to have to potentially live with.”
“You try not to think about but those early were really hard, it’s all still hard but I guess as time goes on you have to try to learn live around the grief,” Dr. Cooper continued.
“It’s always there and he’s never far away from our thought with whatever we’re doing he’s always at the front of our mind.”
According to the charity SUDC UK, around 40 children die from sudden unexplained death in childhood (SUDC) every year.
Dr. Cooper and Mr. Bowes are expecting their third child. They’re now trying to raise awareness of SUDC.
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