Jenny McCarthy's Travolta trauma

Jenny McCarthy says the death of John Travolta's teenage son affected her greatly because her son nearly died of a seizure last year.
Jenny McCarthy says the death of John Travolta's teenage son bought back painful memories.

The star was left shaken by the news of 16-year-old Jett Travolta's passing - because her own six-year-old son almost died from a seizure last year.

She said: "When I first heard the news about Jett, I slowly kind of sat down. Last year, Evan had another seizure which lasted seven hours - we had to put him in a coma for four days so he wouldn't go into cardiac arrest."

"So looking at Jett, I cried out of fear for my own son, and for, I can't even tell you how many children, with autism."

Jett's death on January 2 was caused by a seizure. He had been diagnosed with the rare illness Kawasaki Syndrome, but other reports claimed he suffered from autism.

Jenny - who campaigns for autism sufferers - says that if Jett did have autism, she understands why Travolta and his wife Kelly Preston, who are both Scientologists, would keep it private.

The 36-year-old actress added: "They should have the right to keep whatever they want to themselves, and share what they want with the world."

"My heart goes out to them. I have such compassion and understanding for what they've gone through."

Was Jett Travolta misdiagnosed?

John and his brother, Joey had a history of fighting over whether or not John's late son was autistic.

The autopsy results are in for Jett Travolta, the 16-year-old son of actor John Travolta, and, as expected, the cause of death is listed as being a "seizure." It was believed he hit his head on the bathtub, but the death certificate didn't specify that. His body has been cremated and flown to Florida for a funeral, that was held on Tuesday.

But while the family--John, 54; his wife, actress Kelly Preston 46; and their daughter Ella, 8--have only begun to grieve, there are a lot of alarming stories mounting about the nature of Jett's condition that aren't going to make it any easier for John to lose his only son.

Although John and Kelly believed their son had something called Kawasaki Syndrome (I did a google search and was able to find a site with a definition of that particular syndrome here), John's older brother, Joey Travolta, believed Jett was autistic, a friend of Joey's told the U.K.'s Mirror newspaper.

John and Kelly are both followers of Scientology, which teaches mental illnesses like autism don't exist. But Joey wasn't just offering an armchair diagnosis. He was a producer on the 2006 autism documentary Normal People Scare Me. Sixty-five people with autism were interviewed for the project, and Joey believed they all shared symptoms with Jett.

The Travoltas had been picketed by people concerned that Jett wasn't getting the proper treatment for his condition. At the time, the family lawyer called claims that the Travoltas weren't treating their son properly as "false and defamatory," the Mirror reports. Jett was on medication to control his seizures, but was taken off of it when it became less effective. The Mirror reports that almost half of autistic children are on medication for epilepsy.

It's so ghoulish,maybe even cruel or harsh to be making accusations against the Travoltas now, especially considering they're not even at a place mentally to agree with police that Jett was left alone for ten hours. If they're ever going to have a change of heart and agree Jett was autistic, they're about 50,000 hours in therapy away from it.
It should be noted that Scientologists don't even believe in therapy, so that's a bit of a stumbling block as well.