Katelynn Ordone, the mom behind TikTok star Okay Baby Preston, is opening up about her painful journey through grief. She’s sharing with her followers how the loss of her son has changed her life, both emotionally and physically.
“I’ve gained almost 22 pounds since our accident,” Katelynn revealed in a heartfelt YouTube video back in August. She explained that people react differently to sadness. Some lose their appetite completely. Others, like her, find comfort in food. “I think it’s pretty clear which one I am,” she joked sadly.
Katelynn is even considering trying a weight loss injection for a month or two. She mentioned that her family couldn’t drive for quite a while after the accident. This meant ordering a lot of takeout meals. “I only just started being able to drive again,” Katelynn said. “It’s probably been a month now. But we got so used to ordering food, it became a habit.” She admitted it’s easier to order food right now because it’s hard for her to do many things. Still, she really wants to get back to cooking healthier meals for her family.
In April, Katelynn and her husband Jaelan Ordone faced a terrible tragedy. Their friends shared the heartbreaking news that Preston, who was just 2 years old, died in a single-vehicle accident. Katelynn and Jaelan were both hurt in the crash. Thankfully, their daughter, Paisley, was at school at the time.
The next month, news outlets confirmed the cause. Preston passed away from “blunt force injuries due to a motor vehicle accident.” The St. Tammany parish coroner’s office officially ruled his death an accident.
Katelynn later shared a tough detail: she remembers nothing about the crash itself. “I have no memory of the accident,” Katelynn explained in a TikTok video from July. “I also don’t remember much from the 2 or 3 days after it happened.” She said she barely recalled her time in the hospital until almost the very end. “I suffered a traumatic brain injury,” she added. “Because of that, I lost a lot of my memory.”
Her father, Glen Norris, filled in some of the blanks. He told Katelynn about a phone call she made right after the crash. “The accident was horrible,” Katelynn recounted, sharing her dad’s story. “Somehow, I managed to grab my phone.” She called 911 first. She talked to them for about five minutes. “I only know that because I saw it in my call logs later,” she explained. After that, she called her parents.
Katelynn doesn’t remember sending her parents her location. But she knows she urged them to “get there” as fast as possible. She then spoke with her dad for nearly 20 minutes. “He could hear people asking me if I had kids,” she said. “And I just kept saying, ‘I don’t know.’ I was completely confused.” She added that she would talk sometimes. Other times, she only groaned or made sounds of pain. There were also moments of complete silence.
You can learn more about Katelynn’s journey and her coping strategies by watching her YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W51WoU85WSE.