50%

What are the odds of....

50% of your household being hospitalized for an extended period of time?

How about half of your family taking an ambulance ride....and all in the same month no less?

I'm sure odds are slim, but it has happened to our family in the summer of 2013.

What started as the on set of a cold and some strange leg pain, soon snow balled for Collin into a hospital admission last week. By the time we were admitted, he was having severe pain in his left leg (behind the knee specially) that was so acute he was unable to walk. He also began to spike a high fever in the hospital. Lots of tests, blood cultures and scans were done. After finally staph in his blood stream, we were transported via ambulance to Children's Mercy in Kansas City.

I'm not going to lie, it has been a long and traumatic week for Collin. Blood draws and IV lines are no fun for most adults, so you can imagine what this would be like for a 5 year old. But he is such a brave young man and once he started feeling better with IV antibiotics , he began acting more like himself and charming all his nurses any chance he can.

So far, Collin's acute illness and quick rebound have left the specialist scratching their heads. We have been very thankful that all recent tests have been clear of staph! However, the question of where this originated is still a mystery. 

Tomorrow we will meet with a team of Infectious Diease specialist to determine what our next step of treatment will be and hopefully talk of discharge for Monday as well. After almost a week in the hospital, we are weary and ready to have our family reunited once again.

We are so thankful for the care if Collin's pediatrician and the medical staff at both Mercy Regional and Children's Mercy who have taken care of Collin and helped in his recovery!

And while hospital stays are no fun...we had an unexpected surprise on Saturday where Collin was able to hang out and play with many celebrities who were in town for a charity benefit for the hospital!

Before this last picture Collin heard Wilmer's voice and said "that sounds like Handy Manny!!!" Wilmer and everyone else laughed (which embarrassed Collin) but he thought it was so cool he recognized his voice like that.

Other than that, he had no clue who these fun adults were, but enjoyed the cool play time.

Thank you so much for your continued thoughts and prayers for Collin. We hope to have this staph gone...and keep it gone so we can have our healthy and happy boy back at home very soon.