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Mother turns son's death into fight against myocarditis

Elgin woman organizes fundraisers to spread awareness of myocarditis

There is no getting over a child's death. Rather, there is a slow ascent from a dark, soul-crushing abyss to a new paradigm of life where something vital always is missing.

That's how Vickie Lundy describes the three years after the death of her 14-year-old son Rhett, who died in his sleep May 15, 2013. An autopsy revealed he died of cardiac arrhythmia due to myocarditis - an inflammation and damage of the heart muscle.

“I'm in a much better place today than I was, but I still miss him horribly,” the Elgin woman said. “Grieving your child's death is a long-term, lifetime process.”

Part of that process for Lundy has been to organize yearly fundraisers with the goal of establishing a $40,000 myocarditis research grant in Rhett's memory. The first two “Paint the Town Rhett” fundraisers yielded $7,500, she said; the next one is May 15 at The Lodge on 64 in St. Charles.

An estimated 5 to 20 percent of sudden deaths among young adults are due to myocarditis, according to the foundation's website. Causes include viral infections, autoimmune diseases, environmental toxins, and adverse reactions to medications. Prognoses vary, but chronic heart failure is the major long-term complication.

Looking back, Rhett did have some sort of virus that laid him up for a couple of days the month before his death, his mother said. “That might have been the myocarditis starting to infect his heart,” she said.

Even the experts aren't sure.

“We don't really understand how the mechanism works,” said Candace Moose, co-founder of the Myocarditis Foundation, “how it happens that the heart in some people who get a virus can just recover, and other people end up with a heart that's badly damaged.”

Other goals are to identify better treatment options, and more accessible and faster diagnoses for emergency rooms and doctors' offices, she said.

Once Vickie Lundy's fundraising reaches the $40,000 mark, the foundation will solicit proposals in the U.S. and Canada for a one-year research grant, Moose said. Fifteen grants totaling nearly a half-million dollars have been disbursed in the foundation's 11-year history, she said.

“We are very appreciative of the work Vickie Lundy is doing in memory of her son,” Moose said. “It's amazing of her to put her grief to work in order to stop the disease from killing more people.”

Vickie Lundy and her husband Steve Lundy, a firefighter in Elgin, have an older son, Ryne, now 21 and a student at Elgin Community College. He and his father got drum tattoos together in honor of Rhett, a member of the drum line at South Elgin High School.

Rhett was a friendly, goofy kid who loved percussion and playing video games on his PlayStation, an honors student who was interested in math, science and engineering.

“He was my little son,” Steve Lundy said. “I remember everything he did. Everything he did wrong, everything he did right.”

  Vickie Lundy talks about her son Rhett and the third annual fundraiser next month aimed at raising funds to fight the heart disease that killed him. Laura Stoecker/lstoecker@dailyherald.com

Rhett also had a knack for making long-lasting friendships with kids who, in turn, bonded with the Lundys after Rhett's death. “I think that's a bigger tribute to my son, because that's the kind of child he was,” his father said.

Steve Lundy said his wife has worked tirelessly to organize the fundraisers. He missed the first one in 2014 - he was on shift, but also hesitant to attend because he didn't know how it would feel, he explained - and has since embraced the effort and enrolled the support of his fellow firefighters, he said.

“My goal is to get to 1,000 people to attend (the fundraiser). I want it to be that big,” he said. “The more people know about this, something can be done, because there are kids dropping dead all the time, and they don't have a clue this is generally what it is.”

  Rhett Lundy's ashes sit next to his portrait in his bedroom in Elgin. Laura Stoecker/lstoecker@dailyherald.com

The Lundys credited meeting other bereaved parents via The Compassionate Friends with helping them deal with the loss of their son, especially at first.

“There is comfort in others knowing exactly how you're feeling,” Vickie Lundy said. “Learning just how to deal with grief in itself is a process that takes education. That deep grief, that blanket of bleakness - it will eventually go away.”

Hosting foreign exchange students for the past three years has been helpful, too, Vickie said. Their current guest, a young woman from Portugal, will graduate in May from South Elgin High School, the same ceremony Rhett would have attended. “I probably will be very emotional,” Vickie Lundy said.

  Vickie Lundy shows the back of a chair from Gino's East pizza that Rhett wrote his name on. Laura Stoecker/lstoecker@dailyherald.com

Thinking about the “what ifs” is inevitable, she admitted. For example, what if Rhett had suffered his cardiac arrhythmia while, say, in school, and someone could have tried to intervene with an automated external defibrillator?

There is some comfort in Rhett died peacefully in his sleep, his mother says.

“Rhett went to bed happy,” she said. “And what better way is there to go, if you really think about it?”

'Paint the Town Rhett' fundraiser

What: “Paint the Town Rhett” fundraiser with silent auction, door prizes, raffle to establish a Rhett P. Lundy memorial research grant via the Myocarditis Foundation

When: 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, May 15

Where: The Lodge on 64 steakhouse, 41W379 Rt. 64, St. Charles

Tickets: lunch/paint combo $55; paint only $35; lunch only $23. Visit

eventbrite.com/e/third-annual-paint-the-town-rhett- tickets-21114167042

For information: email mayyourbeatliveon@gmail.com. Donations sought from local businesses to include in the raffle and silent auction.

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