Influencer Jennifer Burnham Shares Cause of Death for Son Baxter, 4

Influencer Jennifer Burnham Shares Death of 4-Year-Old Son Baxter

Jennifer Burnham is sharing additional insight into her heartbreaking family tragedy.

Just days after the influencer shared that her 4-year-old son Baxter had died, she shared that her son had been privately battling a brain tumor in the months before his passing. 

“My son was totally healthy, a happy four-year-old,” she said in an Oct. 15 video shared to Instagram. “He went to school, was on a t-ball team, did karate, had tons of friends. Just couldn't have been happier or healthier. And I think that's why this was so shocking.”

Jennifer shared that Baxter was diagnosed with a brain tumor in April after he’d begun crossing his left eye. But while doctors initially diagnosed him with strabismus, which is not unusual for someone of Baxter’s age, a pre-surgery MRI revealed a diffuse midline glioma.

“Which, in the brain tumor world, is essentially the worst type of brain tumor that you can have, unfortunately,” Jennifer—also mom to 21-month-old son Barron with husband Bryce Burnham—explained, “because it's in the brainstem and that's inoperable, meaning it's incurable.”

Doctors were able to perform surgery to remove part of the tumor that was on Baxter’s cerebellum and Jennifer and Bryce tried a multitude of other treatments, including proton radiation.

“We started just researching like crazy, hitting the ground running for what our other options were, what we could do, how can we find a cure for this?” she added. “We started doing red light therapy. We did hyperbaric oxygen. We did oxygen baths. We went to Europe twice this summer to do treatments out there that we'd heard about. I mean, anything and everything. We talked to every doctor in the country.”

Jennifer Burnham/Instagram

But because the brainstem controls all neurological functions, it makes surgery on that area literally impossible.

“I think that's the hardest part because it's just it's so difficult to watch your child going through something like this, and you're literally helpless,” Jennifer added. “It's every parent's worst nightmare, and we just we've been living in this nightmare for six months. It was it's the most difficult thing we've ever gone through, and you know we literally did everything possible for our child.”

She emphasized, however, how strong Baxter had been throughout it all.

“He was so strong and such a fighter, and literally fought until the very last day,” she said. “He had a smile on his face, and just was the happiest guy.”

And though Jennifer hadn’t shared Baxter’s cause of death initially because his passing had been so “overwhelming,” she noted she decided to share her family’s experience in the hopes it might help others.

Jennifer Burnham/Instagram

“If I can help anyone in any way, any families, with you know anything that we tried or did, or contacts I have, anything at all,” she said, “I want to be that person that can help another family, because I mean no person should go through this alone.”

And as she and her family navigate their grief, she’d finding solace in believing Baxter is in a better place.

“I know he's in heaven and just playing with his cars and trucks and eating cookies and ice cream and having the best time,” she said. “And that gives me comfort as a mom, just knowing that he's no longer in pain.”

Though, “it doesn't change the fact that my heart is broken,” she added. “I'm just like not sure how to continue living every day. It's so hard to just fathom my life without him, because he is such a big, full part of it.”

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