SALT LAKE CITY — This Thanksgiving holiday was difficult for the family and friends of 13 year old London Seely.
The Salt Lake City girl passed away eight days ago at Primary Children's Hospital.
It has left her family grieving, her friends at Clayton Middle School in mourning, and doctors wondering what took her life.
"She was always just extremely happy and healthy, and runnin' and playing with her friends, and I mean, I would never have expected anything at all like this," London's father Brook Seely told FOX 13.
When London developed sore muscles in her neck earlier this month, then a fever, and then a sore throat, her father took her first to LDS hospital and then to Primary.
She'd had COVID weeks earlier.
At first, doctors thought it might be bacterial meningitis, and then, MISC, multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children, which afflicts some after recovering from COVID. But all the tests came back negative.
At that point, her family and friends weren't that worried.
"I knew that she was in the hospital. But I didn't think it was that bad," said London's friend Kiah Westerman.
London needed more and more oxygen to support her deteriorating lungs and her fever came back.
When they took her in for surgery to remove a lymph node for biopsy, she suffered cardiac arrest, and had to be placed on life support.
Then the worst news, her brain was swelling.
"And so at that point, it was a worry, and we need her to wake up and we couldn't get her to wake up, and she continued on that machine through the night. By the next day, the doctor said that, you know, she was gone.. and so..." said her father Brook Seely.
Her family couldn't believe it.
"It's completely... it's a shock. She should have been here, I would have thought, way longer than me," her father said..
As word got out, her friends went online.
"And so we like made a post about it on social media and we sent it out. And everyone started reposting it, and it got out pretty fast," said Westerman.
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One week ago, many at Clayton Middle School wore pink in honor of London Seely.
"(And when you saw everybody wearing pink, what did that do to you in your heart?) it made me feel like really happy, and like see how many people cared about her, and how loved she was," said Westerman.
"I know all of her friends and it's always fun to be around 'em. But to get a peek at what people say about her when you're not around ... that's really special to see that, and to see just the love that everyone has for her. I mean, that's one of the greatest gifts I'll ever have," said Brook Seely.