A Middletown family's Disney vacation turns into heartbreak as their 12-year-old son ends up in the ICU on a ventilator with the flu.They've been there since earlier this month and don't think they'll be able to come home until at least Thanksgiving."I never imagined us being here this long or even being in the ICU," mother, Vanessa Baker, said.Baker and her family left Middletown and drove to Florida on Oct. 3 to make magical memories at Disney World.But after a day at the park and another in the Fun Zone, she said her son, Kameron Miller, 12, had a sore throat and a cough."He was so excited to come. He talked about it for weeks. We all kind of needed a break with the whole last year. How it's been, like, stressful," Baker said.She said he has autism and asthma.Baker took her son to the emergency room and she said things got worse."After the breathing treatment is really whenever he was like, I can't breathe. He was, like, wanting shots. He wanted them to give him something," she said.Baker said eventually her son was intubated and taken to Nemours Children's Hospital in Orlando where they've been since.She said doctors are considering he may have MIS-C, multisystem inflammatory syndrome, which is a condition linked to COVID-19.Baker said her son has COVID-19 antibodies, but tests negative now.She believes he may have had an asymptomatic case at some point in the past year.Baker told WLWT her son also has the flu and acute respiratory distress syndrome."There's no definite time limit on how long we're going to be here and there's, no, like idea of how he'll go home," she said.For now, she stays by her son's side as he remains on a ventilator.She said she misses hearing him talk and seeing his smile.It's been three weeks since he has been able to talk, according to Baker."He's fun and energetic. He tries to make friends," she said.She hopes they soon make those Disney World memories together."There's hard times and then there's good times. I just know that he's in the best place that he can be," Baker said.Kameron's mother said he had only turned 12 just before their trip, so he wasn't vaccinated.She said he has been through a lot so far and had a collapsed lung last week.They're hoping to wean him off of so much medication and the ventilator in the coming days.She said Kameron's siblings are staying with his grandmother.His grandmother told us both children miss their parents and are thinking of their brother.Baker said they hope to be home by Thanksgiving and neither parent is working as they stay at the hospital.The family has started a GoFundMe page to help with expenses: https://www.gofundme.com/f/xh7jv-medical-and-expenses

A 12-year-old in North Carolina used the downtime he had during the pandemic to take on a few extra classes in school.Now, one year later, Mike Wimmer, of Salisbury, is getting ready to graduate high school and college — in the same week.Wimmer completed four years of high school and a two-year associate's degree all in one year. He will graduate from Rowan-Cabarrus Community College on May 21, and from Concord Academy High School on May 28, where he is valedictorian.But this wasn't always Wimmer's plan, he said.Related video: Parenting Tips to Encourage Your Child’s Optimum CapabilitiesThe student was taking dual enrollment classes and realized that at the pace he was going, he just needed a few more classes to get his associate's degree by his high school graduation.He said his GPA at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College is 4.0, while his high school GPA is 5.45.A love of roboticsDespite being several years younger than his classmates, Wimmer said he gets along well with them — and was even nominated to Homecoming Court last year.Wimmer, who has an interest in robotics, told CNN that he's "the math and science guy." He's always had an affinity for technology — he got his first iPad when he was 18 months old, and wondered how it worked.He learned almost all of his programming and robotic knowledge through trial and error and online videos, according to his website, Next Era Innovations.He also created his own startup, called Reflect Social, which "combines popular social media platforms with Internet of Things (IoT) devices, providing a new dynamic social experience," according to its website.Wimmer's goal for the startup is to simplify how smart home technology works, with the ultimate goal to help others."My entrepreneurial goal is to build technology that enables people to live better lives," he said.What the future holdsWimmer's parents said they are proud of the person their son has become."If one door's locked, he'll find out another way around to figure out how to accomplish his goals," his mother, Melissa Wimmer, told CNN.With graduation just a few weeks away, Wimmer said he's weighing many options for his next steps.Those options include job offers in and out of the United States, more school, or a fellowship that will allow him to grow his startup.But he said he wants people to know that he's still a kid — he makes time for normal kid activities, such as playing basketball and building legos."A lot of people think I've given up my childhood or somehow lost it," Wimmer said, "and I say to them that I'm having the time of my life."