Sunday December 9th Brayden woke up with a low grade fever. We had plans to celebrate his birthday that day and went out to eat and bowling. He wasnt 100% but still wanted to do the things we had had planned. Slept through the night Sunday no cough nothing. Woke up Monday morning with a higher fever and a horrible sounding cough. Kept him home pushed fluids at him but it just wasnt enough. Monday about 8 pm I took him to the ER in Lenoir City. They told me he had pnuemonia in his left lung and the Flu type A. They decided then to transport us by ambulance to children's hospital in Knoxville. We got there about 11 pm and they had us in a regular room about 2am. By 9 am Tuesday morning Brayden was put in ICU. They put a one time tube in to try to drain some of the fluid from his lungs. His lungs werent doing well and his heart rate was not good so the put him on a ventilator. At 12 am Wednesday he woke up a second before his sedation medicine was due and freaked out and had to be put on a paralytic. The Dr. At children's came to us on Tuesday and told us we had a very sick little boy and that Vanderbilt had a machine called Echmo that he may need but wanted to go ahead and get us tjere as a precaution. Just incase he needed it. We were transported in the Angel 3 ambulance to Vanderbilt and arrived Thursday around 1 am. Later that morning they decided to go ahead and place Brayden on Echmo. He is the 1,236 patient to recieve Echmo treatment at Vanderbilt Children's hospital. This amazinf machine just give his heart/lungs& kidneys a chance to rest. They were fighting so hard to just survive his little body had nothing left for healing.  Before they placed him on echmo his blood pressure had dropped so low they had to do CPR for 2 mins to bring it back up. He done ok being placed on Echmo but the canulas were not in the right position and when they went to move them just 4 cm back he went into A-fib and had to be shocked twice. Things finally calmed down to where he can just rest and let the machine and antibiotics do their jobs. He is showing small improvements everyday but still has a very long road ahead. We have been at Vanderbilt for 6 days and needless to say it is very expensive. At this time we have a place to sleep but once he is off the echmo machine there is no quarauntee on a sleep room. Brayden has 4 parents (Mom/ step dad, dad/step mom) and all of us are missing work to be here for Brayden. Bills dont stop just cause life as you know it does. So we are reaching out in our time of need. Anything thing helps. Thank you for taking the time to read our story. Even if you cant give please pray!!!!