In August of 2006 Ben was unexpectedly sick. This was an unusual time of year for him to become ill. On August 14 I noticed that Ben seemed pretty warm to the touch and so when I took his temperature it was 102. I listened to his lungs at that point and knew right away that he had a pneumonia. We got to the local ER an hour later and his WBC was 25.1 and his chest x-ray was the worst I had ever seen it. They took him by ambulance to DHMC where he was admitted into the PICU. That stay he grew Pseudomonas and beta-hemolytic group G strep. They put him on the vent and treated him with IV antibiotics. About 5 days into his stay he spiked a 104 fever - not really sure why because after it broke it never came back. He ended up staying 16 days. We got home the day before school started for my kids. I didn't even have all their school supplies that they needed. Less than a month later Ben was sick again. This time he grew out Haemophilus influenza and beta-hemolytic group G strep again. He was treated with IV antibiotics and placed on the vent until he was well enough to go home - 8 days later. Less than a week later we were back. Talk about overwhelming. Ben was sick with Pseudomonas, stenotrophomonas and MRSA. He needed the ventilator again and IV antibiotics. This time he reacted to the ceftazidime and so they had to resort to some odd-ball antibiotic to cover his MRSA and Strep. It was a very difficult stay because we had been in for the whole month. I missed most of the first couple of months of my kids school which was really hard for Kayla because she had started the middle school. During this stay we had Ben go through a couple of round of radiation to help control some of his secretions. Unfortuanately, we still haven't really seen an improvement.
Ben just after his bath...
So sick...:(
My cute boy... 
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