Not so happy....

Right now, I'm in Illinois. Libertyville (just north of Chicago) to be exact. This morning I received a phone call from my older brother in Valparaiso, IN. Apparently, his kids have been pretty sick the past couple days and on Wed. night he took the oldest one, Riordan(12), to the emergency room and found out that he had pneumonia infecting his lungs. They gave him some antibiotics and he seemed to be doing better. On Thurs. night he began hallucinating and his skin suddenly turned blotchy red. They called an ambulance and before it even left he was unconscious.

When they got to the hospital they air-vac'd him to a hospital in Chicago and put him in ICU. The infection that was in his lungs spread to his blood and caused the vessels to become porous. Blood was leaking into the surrounding tissue in his body. He is stabilized now, his blood pressure is becoming normal, his potassium levels are up, and his color is coming back, but he is still in an induced coma to allow his body to rest and heal.

Just tonight we found out that Riordan's twin brother, Royce, is at the hospital in Valpo. I haven't heard how serious his condition is, he may be experiencing pneumonia symptoms and they want to keep an eye on him. My brother is with Royce and his other three kids, Abigail, Liam, and Nevin and they are keeping a very close eye on them as they have been experiencing symptoms as well. His wife, Christie, and their youngest daughter, Ania (that's probably spelled wrong, bad auntie tina) are staying in Chicago at the Ronald McDonald house near the hospital. The hospital is keeping a very close eye on Ania to make sure that she doesn't start to have any symptoms.

I got a ride down with my Mom, Dad, and my sister but we didn't get near Chicago in time to visit Riordan, so we are staying the night with our friends in Libertyville and are driving into the city in the morning. My mom and I are going to stay with Christie tomorrow night to help take care of the baby and provide some emotional support. If I have the means to keep you updated through here I will, otherwise I'll try and post something when I get back on Sunday. Sigh.