Darren Detweiler

We got there and we weren't initially able to go in because the doctors weren't ready yet.

for us to go in and see him.

And we're talking about a full blown pediatric intensive care unit in Children's Hospital.

And by the time a doctor and a nurse brought us into that room, you almost couldn't even see him.

And he was completely dwarfed by wires and tubes and monitors.

And you can't explain that.

How do you explain this to a 60 month old?

You can't.

And I'll never forget when he kind of looked up and he pointed at the IV bag hanging from a pole and he said, Baba, because in a way with the markings and there was liquid in it, it kind of looked like a bottle.

I could see that.

And we were able to kind of brush his hair a little bit and tell him we're here for him.

But they ultimately proceeded to say, we need to get him into surgery immediately, calling it exploratory surgery and warning us that the longer they wait, the more damage could take place.

And they took him in for the surgery.

When he came out, he was on a ventilator.

And the first thing they did is explain to us

how he was medically induced into a coma.

And then finally a surgeon came in and explained that they had to remove the majority of his intestines because they were completely destroyed by this pathogen.

And we spent the next two to three weeks as we were being explained what every single monitor was and what was being measured and what this number meant and that they wanted this number to go up or they wanted this number to go down or...

whatever it was, watching them get worse day after day after day.

And what started as we're worried about these numbers became a now we're worried about the oxygen deprivation to his brain.