Three years ago....

I remember so well. We were having a turkey dinner that Sunday night and I was running late so I gave Timmy his bath early. He complained about his neck hurting. During dinner he complained of his neck hurting. He went to bed complaining (and crying) about his neck hurting. He woke up at 10:00 complaining and crying that his neck was hurting. I called the Dr. who sent us to the ER. That night they sent us home with a prescription for a stiff neck. The next day he was still crying about his neck hurting. He had a fever and couldn't stop crying. We went back to the ER and 7 hours later (and many tests later) he was in an ambulance heading to Boston to Children's hospital. Rich and I joined him in Boston. We spent 8 long days in ICU with him. There were some very scary moments. I remember the most frightening day of my life was when Rich and I were taken into a small room with the doctors who told us that there was the possibility that Timmy could die. He was very sick. They had so many teams of doctors trying to figure out what was wrong with him. I stayed by his side in the ICU each day and night. I remember the day there were about 10 doctors over him trying everything they knew how to do to help. His blood pressure had dropped so low! The poor boy was on massive antibiotics and morphine. They finally decided that he had a retropharyngeal abscess with Mediastinitis.


After about six days he stared improving and they decided he didn't need to be as sedated as he was. I remember when they "woke" him up he turned to me with tears in his eyes and mouthed the word "momma" to me. I still get so emotional thinking of that. When he was taken out of the ICU the poor boy started going through morphine withdrawal. He was released from the hospital and sent home with IV antibiotics.

About a week after we got home he started getting very sick again so we went back to Children's Hospital and after many days they discovered that he had allergies to the antibiotics that he was on.

It was the most heart wrenching time of my life!! I know that all my friends and family (even people I didn't know) who were praying for Timmy played such an important part of his recovery.



It's been three years and he is such a healthy boy now and quite the funny boy at that. Today we were driving to school and I told him that he was handsome. A minute later he said, "so I got all the looks" and Brittainy got everything else!".

I can't imagine my life without him. He fills my heart with such joy!!

take care,
Dawn