Jett Travolta, Son Of John Travolta, Dies In Bahamas
While vacationing in the Bahamas with his parents and younger sister, Jett Travolta, the sixteen-year-old son of actor and Scientologist John Travolta, died after apparently suffering a seizure and hitting his head on a bathtub:
John Travolta's teenage son, Jett, died in the Bahamas after apparently suffering a seizure and hitting his head at his family's vacation home, authorities said Friday. A house caretaker found Jett, 16, unconscious in a bathroom late Friday morning. He was taken by ambulance to a Freeport hospital, where he was pronounced dead, Police Superintendent Basil Rahming said in a statement. The teenager had last been seen entering the bathroom on Thursday and had a history of seizures, according to the statement. An autopsy is planned. [...] Preston has said that Jett became very sick when he was 2 years old and was diagnosed with Kawasaki disease, an illness that leads to inflammation of the blood vessels in young children. She blamed household cleaners and fertilizers, and said that a detoxification program based on teachings from the Church of Scientology helped improve his health, according to People magazine. It is unclear whether Jett was taking any medications for his seizures. The Scientology Celebrity Center in Los Angeles declined to comment. Both Travolta and Preston are practicing Scientologists. A spokeswoman for Rand Memorial Hospital in Freeport said she could not release any information because of privacy concerns.It seems that Jett was last seen entering the bathroom sometime yesterday (Thursday) and was discovered at 10:00 AM today (Friday) by a caretaker. Kawasaki disease or syndrome, which Jett allegedly contracted at the age of two, is a disorder which affects, among others, the heart, skin, mucous membranes, and lymph nodes:
The cardiac complications are, by far, the most important aspect of the disease. Kawasaki disease can cause vasculitic changes (inflammation of blood vessels) in the coronary arteries and subsequent coronary artery aneurysms. These aneurysms can lead to myocardial infarction (heart attack) even in young children. Overall, about 10–18% of children with Kawasaki disease develop coronary artery aneurysms with much higher prevalence among patients who are not treated early in the course of illness. Kawasaki disease and rheumatic fever are most common causes of acquired heart disease among children in the United States. Kawasaki disease often begins with a high and persistent fever that is not very responsive to normal doses of paracetamol (acetaminophen) or ibuprofen. The fever may persist steadily for up to two weeks and is normally accompanied by irritability. Affected children develop red eyes, red mucous membranes in the mouth, red cracked lips, a "strawberry tongue", iritis, keratic precipitates (detectable by an ophthalmologist but usually too small to be seen by the unaided eye), and swollen lymph nodes. Skin rashes occur early in the disease, and peeling of the skin in the genital area, hands, and feet (especially around the nails and on the palms and soles) may occur in later phases. Some of these symptoms may come and go during the course of the illness. If left untreated, the symptoms will eventually relent, but coronary artery aneurysms will not improve, resulting in a significant risk of death or disability due to myocardial infarction (heart attack). If treated in a timely fashion, this risk can be mostly avoided and the course of illness cut short.Treatment should ideally begin soon after diagnosis to prevent damage to the coronary arteries, and regular checkups should continue, including EKGs:
- High-grade fever (greater than 39 °C or 102 °F; often as high as 40 °C or 104 °F) that normally lasts for more than 5 days if left untreated.
- Red eyes (conjunctivitis) without pus or drainage, also known as "conjunctival injection"
- Bright red, chapped, or cracked lips
- Red mucous membranes in the mouth
- Strawberry tongue, white coating on the tongue or prominent red bumps (papillae) on the back of the tongue
- Red palms of the hands and the soles of the feet
- Swollen hands and feet
- Rash which may take many forms, but not vesicular (blister-like), on the trunk
- Swollen lymph nodes (frequently only one lymph node is swollen), particularly in the neck area
- Joint pain (arthralgia) and swelling, frequently symmetrical
- Irritability
- Tachycardia (rapid heart beat)
- Peeling (desquamation) palms and soles (later in the illness); peeling may begin around the nails
- Beau's lines (transverse grooves on nails)
Children with Kawasaki disease should be hospitalized and cared for by a physician who has experience with this disease. When in an academic medical center, care is often shared between pediatric cardiology and pediatric infectious disease specialists (although no specific infectious agent has been identified yet). It is imperative that treatment be started as soon as the diagnosis is made to prevent damage to the coronary arteries. Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) is the standard treatment for Kawasaki disease and is administered in high doses with marked improvement usually noted within 24 hours. If the fever does not respond, an additional dose may have to be considered. IVIG by itself is most useful within the first 7 days of onset of fever, in terms of preventing coronary artery aneurysm. [...] With early treatment, rapid recovery from the acute symptoms can be expected and the risk of coronary artery aneurysms greatly reduced. Untreated, the acute symptoms of Kawasaki disease are self-limited (i.e. the patient will recover eventually), but the risk of coronary artery involvement is much greater. Overall, about 2% of patients die from complications of coronary vasculitis. Patients who have had Kawasaki disease should have an echocardiogram initially every few weeks, and then every 1–2 years to screen for progression of cardiac involvement. It is also not uncommon that a relapse of symptoms may occur soon after initial treatment with IVIG. This usually requires re-hospitalization and retreatment. Treatment with IVIG can cause allergic and non-allergic acute reactions, aseptic meningitis, fluid overload and, rarely, other serious reactions. Aspirin may increase the risk of bleeding from other causes and may be associated with Reye's syndrome. Overall, life-threatening complications resulting from therapy for Kawasaki disease are exceedingly rare, especially compared with the risk of non-treatment.However, it was questioned as to whether Jett actually contracted the disease. It has been speculated as well that Jett was also autistic, or that he had autism instead of Kawasaki disease; however, he was never shown to be diagnosed with autism either. It is unknown at this point just what caused the seizure; Jett was known to suffer from seizures. People dealing with autism often suffer seizures, sometimes related to epilepsy, although not all do; while some autistic children do suffer from epileptic seizures, the complications of Kawasaki disease can sometimes cause aneurysms and heart attacks:
Dr. Scott Alenick, a pediatric cardiologist in New Jersey, told FOXNews.com in an interview last year that Kawasaki disease is a condition that affects children, especially boys under the age of 5, and causes aneurysms and blockages in the blood vessels. "We usually see it in the winter, but it can occur year-round,” Alenick, who has treated hundreds of cases of Kawasaki disease, said. “It is very unusual to die from Kawasaki disease.” According to the American Heart Association, more than 4,000 cases of the disease are diagnosed annually in the United States. It occurs more often in boys of Japanese and Korean descent, but has been identified in children of all ethnicities and races, Alenick said. While the condition is not preventable, it is treatable with most children recovering from the disease. In fact, less than 1 percent of Kawasaki cases are fatal. The danger of Kawasaki syndrome is that it can cause large aneurysms in the blood vessels that feed blood to the heart, said Alenick. “Kawasaki doesn’t come in degrees of severity, but it varies in that it may cause no aneurysms, small aneurysms, moderate aneurysms or giant aneurysms,” he said. “Giant aneurysms are more common in babies. But it’s the aneurysms that form in the vessels and the arteries that feed the heart that have the potential to cause a fatal heart attack.”And Jett's mother Kelly Preston herself admitted that at one point when Jett was young she thought he might die:
In a 2003 interview on the Montel Williams show, Preston talked about her son's struggle with Kawasaki disease. "It causes swelling in the organs, so your heart can swell, different important organs can swell," she said. "We thought at one point we were going to lose him."She also said that she started detoxing him with the help of a program outlined by L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology:
In her 2003 TV interview with Montel Williams, Kelly Preston talked about how she detoxed her son Jett with Scientology methods after he was diagnosed with Kawasaki disease. Kelly said: "Initially I had a friend of mine...an environmental scientist and a toxicologist, go through our home and tell us exactly what was going on in the home. It wasn't only the carpet. We had lots of cleansers under the sink. We were using all sorts of chemicals." Kelly says she started Jett on a detox program called Clean--Clear Body and Clear Mind," an L. Ron Hubbard program. Hubbard is the founder of Scientology. "This is a program that's detailed in the (Hubbard) book," Kelly told Montel. " We basically store all of these chemicals and poisons and toxins that you breathe, eat, that you're around constantly. Radiation from the [sun], you store it in your fatty tissues. And over the years it builds up and this is a program of how you can detoxify it completely and purify your body. It's brilliant."Being that Scientology doesn't allow for the possibility of autism, doctor visits, epilepsy, medicinal therapy, or regular physician checkups, we may never know just what happened to Jett Travolta. I am not the Scientology expert that Dawn is, and I'm sure that she will be here later to fill in whatever I may have missed or gotten wrong. I apologize for anything I may have gotten confused or incorrect. However easy it might be right now to point fingers of blame and accusation, I believe that at the moment it would do all of us well to remember that a young boy has died before his life really began and that he had many people who loved him and will miss him. UPDATE: TMZ is reporting that Jett died not as a result of a seizure, but from hitting his head:
We've spoken with John Travolta's lawyer and close friend, Michael McDermott, and family attorney Michael Ossi, both of whom are with John in the Bahamas. They tell TMZ it appears Jett's fatal injury was the result of hitting his head on the bathtub, toilet seat, or both. And they say the intimation that Jett went undiscovered for hours is absolutely false. Police have said the last time anyone saw Jett was when he went to the bathroom on January 1. His body was discovered by nanny Jeff Kathrein the next day at 10 AM. In fact, McDermott and Ossi say it appears Jett went back and forth to his room and the fatal injury occurred "very shortly" before Jett was found on the bathroom floor — McDermott called it a "small window of time." McDermott and Ossi tell us two nannies were present on the trip and Jeff was by his side 24/7. There was a baby monitor device by Jett's side and there was also a chimer in the bathroom when the door opened. McDermott and Ossi say it is still unclear if Jett fell to the floor as a result of a seizure or if he had a seizure after falling or slipping. There was blood on the floor of the bathroom, but "not a tremendous amount." It appears the striking of Jett's head was the cause of death, though it won't be clear until the autopsy is performed Monday morning. Jett's body will be embalmed Monday afternoon. There will be a local showing on Tuesday and later that day the body will be flown to Ocala, Fla. for burial. McDermott says both John and Kelly are night owls. John often goes to sleep at around 5 AM. But McDermott says both nannies were at the hotel and Jeff always present. McDermott tells us a hotel manager was first on scene with Jeff and the two of them administered CPR. John came in shortly thereafter and John took over for a "substantial period of time [and] was performing CPR and continued that until EMT came and took over."CoS spin might be taking hold now, so I do wonder about the authenticity.
