As many of you may know, two weeks ago we took Garrett to Nationwide Close to Home in Lewis Center with a fever and throwing up. We were sent home after running extensive tests and keeping us for over 4 hours. We were told he was “dehydrated” and possibly had a virus. We went home following their instructions of rotating Motrin and Tylenol, and drinking lots of fluids.

By the time Tuesday morning rolled around (3 days after the initial visit), I was rushing him back to the Lewis Center location because he couldn’t move any part of his body. From there, he had a spinal tap and we were transferred to the ICU on the main campus of Nationwide Children’s Hospital with two types of staph infection in his blood & toxic shock syndrome/ sepsis. We’ve stayed in the ICU for a whole week, fighting this infection that has inflamed my 11-year-old's entire body, down to the bone in some places. We are finally out of the ICU but still no word on when we will be coming home or how he got such a horrible infection. We’ve seen hematology doctors, kidney doctors, infectious disease doctors, physical & occupational therapy.. the list goes on & on

Work, bills, and gas have been the least of our worries as our boy fights this horrible infection, and now, a blood clot in his leg.. but after two weeks of doing this, and still unsure when we will be home as he may be sent to physical rehabilitation- we finally decided we would give it a try so we can continue to give Garrett our undivided support & not worry about the financial part of it, as we could’ve never prepared ourselves for something like this.. If you can help at all, it would be so appreciated, if not—that’s okay too, just keep praying for my boy! Thank you so much in advance.