By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
KELLY Myors demanded to know what the third option was, but there wasn’t one.
Her 11-year-old daughter, Chloe, wouldn’t be coming home from hospital.
“They said there were two choices – she’ll either come out of this basically a vegetable, not having any functions or bodily movement at all, or she won’t survive,” Kelly, from Narre Warren South, said.
“And I kept saying – what’s the third option? What is the third option? And the doctor said there was no third option.”
Two-and-a-half years on, 14 May 2012, has become a date forever ingrained in the memories of Kelly, husband Ian, and their son, Ben.
It’s the day their daughter and older sister, Chloe Myors, collapsed in her Hillsmeade Primary classroom and died hours later in hospital.
And it has now served as the catalyst for the family to start up The Chloe Foundation; a charity launched this month to help families who lose donor children.
Chloe, 11 at the time, died from an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) in her brain – an abnormal connection between the arteries and veins.
Kelly is a teacher at Hillsmeade and was working only three doors down from Chloe’s Grade 6 classroom when her normally healthy daughter collapsed onto the floor.
“She’d (Chloe) walked passed my classroom around ten to nine, and given me a wave as she used to do every morning,” Kelly said.
“And then about nine o’clock, a couple of Chloe’s friends came running in and said Chloe’s fallen over in the classroom.
“So I went in and Chloe was lying on the floor, it looked like she was having an epileptic fit.”
Ian arrived at the school just before Chloe was rushed to Casey Hospital and then flown by emergency helicopter to the Royal Children’s, where she drew her last breath.
“Because she was on life support, we kind of thought that she was still alive because you go in there and her chest was moving up and down and her heart was beating on the screen, but they were trying to tell us that they were doing that artificially to her,” Kelly said.
And just like that, everything Chloe was became a memory.
She was a talented netballer, a best friend, a beloved sister, a cherished daughter.
“I feel like every morning I wake up and the tsunami hits me again and it’s like – has this really happened to me?” Kelly said.
Ian tried to explain what it means to be a “bereaved parent”.
“You become a bereaved parent for the rest of your life and you’re always going to be a bereaved parent,” he said.
“You’ve got to learn to manage that and it’s basically re-educating yourself how to deal with certain situations.
“Even just seeing Chloe’s friends walking down the street now, you see them and you sort of go – what would my daughter have looked like?”
Soon after their daughter’s death, Kelly and Ian were faced with a decision they wouldn’t wish upon anyone. They were asked if they were willing for Chloe’s organs to be donated, and they agreed.
But it was a decision only made after much deliberation, when Ian remembered something his daughter had said to him years ago.
“I can remember I was with Chloe one night and there was a little girl on TV and she needed a transplant and her family was working hard to earn money, so she could go overseas for this transplant, because there weren’t many organ donors in Australia for the organ that she needed,” Ian said.
“And Chloe said, geez Dad, if I could help her I would, and I said, yeah I know, squirt, it’s just the sort of kid you are.”
Chloe’s organs were donated to five different children, five different families faced with the possibility of losing what the Myors had already lost.
“We had the opportunity to help a family not have to go through what we were going through at that time and we got the choice of where Chloe’s organs went,” Ian said.
It was only several months later when Ian had the fledgling idea to start up a foundation in Chloe’s honour, but it took the best part of two years to launch the organisation this month and have it officially incorporated.
The Chloe Foundation aims to support families who lose a donor child, through raising awareness and financial support.
“The year Chloe passed away, there were only 11 children under the age of 16 who donated organs nationally that year, and Chloe was one of those 11,” Ian said.
“And I thought this could be the niche of what I wanted to do, it narrows it down.
“The foundation was now to help families who have lost children who have become organ donors.”
Ben, who was only nine when his sister passed, has been forced to grow up faster than any child should.
He created the slogan for The Chloe Foundation – “A gift given, a life shared.”
“Chloe’s given the gift of life and Chloe lives on in that person who’s sharing that life,” Kelly said.
To donate to the cause, contact 0419 133 667 or email info@thechloefoundation.com.au.
