This dedication is to my mom, Joan Brda-Ruhl. My mom was a diabetic and found a cut on her stomach in January of 2003. The wound would not heal and we thought this is due to the diabetes. Before you know it, she felt "bumps" under her skin in several other places. By June, she was in the hospital in New Jersey. They tested her for Cancer, which was negative; however, they didn't determine what was wrong with her. They said she had cellulitis. By the end of June, she had approximately 6 large open wounds. She went to a specialist in Pennsylvania (plastic surgeon) and he couldn't give us a proper diagnosis - fatty tissue is what he said. Mom then went to a Rehab Center in New Jersey with a special bed with circulation to help get air to the wounds. It was the Rehab Nurse that recognized her illness was way beyond their scope and insisted she was moved to Cooper Medical Center in Camden, New Jersey. We finally got a proper diagnosis of Necrotizing Fasciitis. She was then moved to the St. Agnes Burn Unit in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She underwent over 17 debridements from early July, 2003 through late October, 2003. Finally, they were starting the skin grafts. The first one took..and the second. However, by the third, her body rejected it and things started shutting down. We lost my mom on November 12th of 2003. We can't help thinking that maybe had the doctors in the first hospital known about this, we would have had a diagnosis a lot sooner and perhaps she would still be with us.