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Vilas County News-Review Article February 13, 2008 (715) 479-4421

 By Kurt Krueger News-Review Editor

 Dealing with tragedy

Klessigs say, Dont put off time with your kids

 And in the end, its not the years in your life that count, its the life in your years.

--Abraham Lincoln

 The late Emmett Klessig, who died last month at age 16 of a rare fungal disease called blastomycosis (blasto), was a wholesome, family oriented kid any parent could love.

He was a teenager who had time for his infant brother, who recreated and worked outdoors with his dad, who loved to play board games with his mom, and who had many good friends.

It was a tragic loss to a family and an entire community, leaving behind questions about both a mysterious disease that is often misdiagnosed and an accelerated case that doctors hadn’t seen before.

His parents, David and Tracy Klessig of Eagle River, say their heartaches and the death of their son wont have been in vain, if only:

-       just one parent gains a sense of urgency for spending quality time with his or her son or daughter;

-       just one person’s life is saved because he or she knew something about a rare fungal disease called blastomycosis;

-       just one health-care system in northern Wisconsin mandates awareness training on common regional illnesses for unacquainted new physicians.

In a wide-ranging interview, the Klessig’s said they’d like to share what they’re feeling and learning from the calamity which, in their words, is something no parent should ever have to go through.

Sons should plan the funerals for and bury their parents, not the other way around, said David Klessig. It’s not supposed to be this way. The best way to describe it, in the words of a friend who lost his son at age 24 it sucks.

On Jan. 5, just 16 days after the teenager first complained of severe, isolated chest pain, he lost his life in what physicians have called one of the fastest-progressing cases they’ve ever seen.

But the Klessigs, strong in faith and surrounded by a network of family and friends, are coping with a loss that brings tears one minute and smiles the next, as they cling to a mountain of memories of a son who was an intricate part of their daily existence.

We did everything together, said David. We fished, hunted, trapped, camped, trekked, paint-balled and even worked in the woods together. It was a bond most dads don’t get today, and I knew it. Of course he was our son, and every parent would say the same thing. But Emmett was a very special boy.

Not every teenager would join his dad on historic camping trips (no tents) with a bunch of men or his parents on a re-enactment weekend at Klondike Days, in the dead of winter.

That meant a heck of a lot to me. How many parents have a kid who, in his teenage years, is asking them to do something to start with? said David. We’re talking below-zero weather and he wanted to go.

While cleaning up Emmett’s room recently, David said he found the savings Emmett was keeping as part of a school project in order to make life better for someone else. He was going to buy his little brother his first gun.

He had saved $86 during a period of time when he wasn’t working. Some of it was his birthday money, said David.

Since then, the family added to his savings and purchased the gun Emmett had picked out for his brother.

For Tracy, the struggle to move forward hits at various times of the day that early morning moment when she had always sounded the time-to-get-up-for-school call, seeing a lonely cribbage board on the shelf, the late-night times when she’d call for the television to go off.

She said her faith in God and even recent Bible study topics had helped prepare her for a tragedy as devastating as losing a child.

Her biggest comfort is her belief that Emmett is in a better place, romping in the lakes and forests, and that someday they’ll be reunited.

I’m very selfish about saying I want him back. It angers me that he is not here, said Tracy. But what makes me laugh and makes me happy is that he never had to go back to school after Christmas break. He never had to grow up and learn the hardships of life. He got to stay a kid. That’s so special.

Emmett was so active in the outdoors, sports, work, volunteering and the family’s passion for historical re-enacting (regulars at the Living History Encounter at Klondike Days), that Tracy couldn’t believe her good fortune last month when she ran across that famous quote from Abraham Lincoln that ends its the life in your years.

Their motivation

What gets them through the toughest of days?

Sometimes it’s that little guy right there, said David, pointing to their 18-month-old son, August. Other times, it’s all those other faces of all those kids who Emmett hung out with. You see them and I still see my son living through them.

The Klessigs have an agenda a mission of public awareness on parenting and blasto but their motivation in life today is a young boy who wasn’t supposed to be.

Tracy said if it weren’t for August, who was staying with relatives in Eagle River, she wouldn’t have wanted to come home from Marshfield after Emmett died.

And what a story August brings to the world a child conceived 16 months after a medical procedure that assured the Klessigs they were done having children.

I was very sick. I thought I had that everlasting winter cold, said Tracy. Then, on March 17, we found out we were three months pregnant. It was a disaster at the time. I was done having kids.

She said Emmett wasn’t wild about the news, but his buddies thought it was so cool he was going to have a little brother.

Emmett was such a good big brother. That’s the hardest part of Emmett being gone that the memories August will have of him is what we give him; they won’t be his own, she said. That’s what gets me the most. That’s usually where I start bawling.

August brought some added responsibilities and put some crimps into the changing lifestyle of a family that had one high school-age child. Nobody knew then the whole story of what a blessing he would turn out to be.

This is the hardest part for me, David said with tears in his eyes. Emmett was the kind of kid that, when he was home after school and I walked in with August, the first thing he did and you didn’t have to ask him was get up and take his jacket off and start playing with him.

Don’t put it off

The Klessigs say they have no regrets about the 16 years they had Emmett, for the close-knit family did everything together.

We aren’t sitting here saying how we wish we would have done this or that together while we had the chance. We did it, said David.

The couple said they feel compelled to urge other parents not to take their children for granted.

Don’t sit there and say, I’ll do this with my kid tomorrow. You might not have tomorrow, said David.

Tracy said that during the time she spent at St. Josephs Hospital, she saw a lot of very sick, very young babies.

My acceptance is that I had 16 years to play with Emmett, to grow with him and to become his parent and friend, said Tracy. A lot of those parents never even got to take their kids outside before they left. I had 16 years and

I’m very fortunate that I had that with my child before God took him.

David said there were times when a particular ice-fishing outing lasted only 10 minutes, as weather and attention spans played a factor.

Even with a bunch of 10-minute trips, you can end up with a lifetime of memories, he said. It’s never a waste of your time to spend time with your kid.

The last days

It was Dec. 20, 2007, when Emmett was experiencing enough chest pain to prompt his mom to take him to Howard Young Medical Center in Woodruff.

An X-ray showed no signs of fluid or blockage in his lungs, and he was treated for pleurisy and sent home. The pain subsided and he was feeling good enough that he wanted to go ice fishing with his dad Christmas Day.

On Dec. 28, their normally athletic child was weak and breathing fast. They took Emmett to the walk-in facility at Marshfield Clinic in Woodruff, where an X-ray showed the bottom of his right lung was 25% full.

The pediatrician said blasto typically grows from the center of the lung, where the bronchial tubes come into the lung. I told her Emmett was a very outdoors child. Because this is lasting for so long, can we test him for blasto? She told me it was too premature for the test, said Tracy. However, had they been able to get a sputum sample to do the test, he still would not have lived long enough for the culture to come back. That takes two weeks.

The Klessigs said because the fluid was in the lower part of the lung, it appeared to the doctor to be regular pneumonia, not fungal pneumonia.

Emmett was treated intravenously Dec. 28 and Dec. 29 with antibiotics.

They said if he’s not better in three days, bring him in, said Tracy.

On the afternoon of Jan. 1, Tracy said her son was sitting on the couch. He was white. His lips were blue. He was breathing 61 times a minute. He couldn’t even hold his cereal bowl.

She took him back to Woodruff, where an X-ray showed 80% blockage in his right lung and about 25% blockage in his left lung.

They still have no idea how it grew in his lungs that fast, said Tracy. They ran all kinds of tests trying to figure that out, but found nothing.

David said he appreciated the fact that when physicians at Howard Young realized they didn’t have the equipment to help Emmett there, they immediately transferred him to St. Josephs Hospital.

In Marshfield, doctors still had to work with Emmett to get sputum out of his lungs for a test. They used a vibrating machine to work something loose that he could cough up. They finally got a sample that tested positive Jan. 2.

David said one problem with blasto is the difficulty in getting a sputum sample. Besides proper coughing, other methods such as going down the throat with a tube or making an incision outside the chest are invasive and can cause other problems, such as infections.

Once they got the positive test, they started treating him immediately, said David. I appreciated the honesty of the physicians, who offered the upside and the downside of every procedure. Even though they didn’t have to say it, they told me he could pass away; he was not out of the woods.

They never gave you the illusion that no matter what, this kid is getting better. They said this is what we’re going to try to make happen, but there are no guarantees. I appreciated that. You could tell it was very hard on them, said David.

The powerful medication used to fight the fungus was too much for Emmetts body. For one thing, his kidneys shut down. At one point, his heart stopped, but doctors revived him. He lost his battle with blasto Saturday, Jan. 5.

Emmett wasn’t sad. Less than two hours before they put him under to put the respirator tube down, he told his uncle that things were going great and he’d be home in nine days, said Tracy.

She said Wade Klessig, his uncle, was the last person to talk with Emmett and we didn’t even know he had come down from Eagle River. She said Wade came five minutes after she left for the night at the urging of the medical staff, because she hadn’t slept for two days.

Just be aware

The Klessigs want everyone living in the North Woods, which has one of the highest incident rates in the world for contracting the rare, mysterious disease blastomycosis, to just be aware that a lingering cough, sharp chest pain or pneumonia-type symptoms might be blasto.

We want people to enjoy every minute they can in the great outdoors. If Emmett were here today, he’d say and do the same thing, said Tracy. We just want them to remember that this is blasto country; to be aware enough of the symptoms to suggest a sputum test when antibiotics aren’t working.

The Klessigs want people to know that blasto is a curable illness and that people are not automatically condemned to death if they contract it.

It can be cured and it does not usually operate as fast as it did with Emmett. It can linger for a long time, said David. So don’t be afraid to get the test work done. Don’t be afraid to go outside. I know that if Emmett would have lived, we’d be outside doing the same stuff paintballing and digging in the dirt.

Tracy said they’ll be doing the same things with August.

I cannot withhold life from him because Emmetts was shortened, she said. It would not be fair for anyone, even people who come up on vacation, to be afraid of it. Just know it’s there. Enjoy your time. Enjoy your life.

Physicians, too

The Klessigs want the medical community and government health agencies entrusted to keep the public informed to be more diligent.

What I would like to see is the medical community saying if you are going to be a doctor or nurse in the medical community in an area, you should be advised of regional illnesses such as blastomycosis, the symptoms and such, said David.

He said they understand that the medical community takes great care in whether or not they want to do invasive tests, and they can’t administer powerful drugs without a solid diagnosis.

We’d just like to see them very aware of it; and probably so they bring it up to their patients when they are being treated for pneumonia if it ain’t working quite right, said David.

The Klessigs said physicians at Marshfield ran numerous tests in an attempt to find out what Emmett had contracted even for viruses from out of the country and a superbug that had killed some people down South.

It’s a terrible thing that I lost my son, but if, by this article or some other article, we can keep one other family from having to go through this, it would be great, said David.