When Amber Shoemake and her husband, Tim, returned to their Georgia home to pick out their dead 6-year-old son’s burial clothes, they found a piece of note on a table by the living room. The note read: “Still with you; thank you mom and dad; love mom and dad; it’s a good day.”
It was from their son, Leland, who perished from a rare amoeba called Balamuthia mandrillaris, which caused brain and spinal cord infection and was likely contracted by the young boy while playing in the dirt.
Playing in dirt, according to his mother, was something Leland loved, along with school, the history channel and documentaries, ships, and learning about World War II.
“I never imagined that would be the thing that would take him from me,” said Shoemake in a Facebook post, recalling the beginnings of Leland’s mysterious illness last month.
It all started with Leland’s complaints of headaches, which prompted Shoemake to take him to a pediatrician in Williamson. The doctor treated Leland for allergies, but the young patient’s condition deteriorated.
After bouts with vomiting, Leland was taken to a local hospital where a swelling behind the nasal cavity manifested in his CT scan and was believed by doctors to be a sinus infection. After a series of more CT scans and a spinal tap showing inflammation, they finally checked for the presence of amoeba.
Shoemake said her son “was so extraordinary” that he was, of course, experiencing something rare.
Two days after he started being treated for the parasite, Leland became brain dead – the test for brain death was repeated 12 hours later and confirmed the family’s “worst fear.” The doctors took Leland off the ventilator and Shoemake watched her baby “leave this world.”
Shoemake wrote on Facebook about her fondest memories of her preemie baby who came out healthy, screaming, and “smart from day one.”
“He loved his brother and his family so much. He was the life of every party. His smile could light up a city. He was the smartest, most caring, loving little boy there ever was,” she wrote, saying one can always tell Leland was a special child.
