I guess Dr. Venkatesh Arjuwahl was trying to prepare us for what we might encounter when we saw our little son, Brandon, lying in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), but what we saw truly stabbed our hearts.

Our precious child lay in the middle of a hospital bed, a bank of machines surrounding him.  His eyes were taped closed and an ugly ventilator tube snaked out of his mouth.  IVs were plugged into both arms and a heart monitor recorded his lifesigns: pulse, breathing, blood pressure, heart-rate.

Brandon's hair was damp with sweat and his face was so pale it appeared nearly translucent: it was almost the same color as the bedsheets!

To see Brandon looking so helpless, so desperately sick, caused tears to flow from our eyes, mine especially.  After all, I was his mamma: I was the one responsible for his care and now I felt as if I failed him because he was in a situation that was clearly beyond my control.

I peppered the good pediatrician with endless questions.  What were Brandon's chances of surviving this deadly illness?  How did he even manage to contract MRSA?  What exactly WAS MRSA and what wwere some of its implications?  Was there a chance that he could die, even if the doctors (and nurses) did everything they could?  Was there a chance that we, his parents, could get it somehow?

As of the current time, Dr. Arjuwahl didn't have any definitive answers.  All he could do, he reported, was try to stave the infection, keep it at bay, and to keep the child's organs from shutting down and going into multi-organ failure.  They would also flood him with powerful antibiotics that could either help him   .... or even kill him.

The news he was tellnig us certainly did not sound good.  At the news, both Darin and myself cried and we then began praying to God, pleading, begging Him to spare our child and to let him live.

It was one of the worst moments possible that we could have ever faced as his parents.

~To be continued.~