Ending with shots in the toe!

Christian has been MIA in our household for the past two weeks.  First he was off to Stake Scout High Adventure... caving, repelling, hiking, camping, bouldering, rafting... he was home for two days and then off again to Ward Scout High Adventure. 

He was to be canoeing all week, camping in between.  All his equipment had to fit in waterproof buckets.  He is becoming quite genius in the art of packing an impossible amount of stuff in the smallest packs/containers!

He was dropped off to start his adventure at 3:30 am Monday morning.

In true Christian fashion... he arrived back home Friday and the house volume was cranked back up to very.high.levels but truth be told... we like it!  But I noticed right away that Christian was limping.  He just said he had a blister on his toe.  K.  I should have questioned further, his idea of a little blister and mine are two different things.  By Friday night he was having a hard time walking at all.  When I finally got him to show me his foot, his left little toe was swollen to at least 4 times its normal size.  The odd thing was that I did not see any blister.  I thought it may be broke it was so swollen.  He elevated it and took some pain meds and went to bed.  Saturday he woke up and was still limping but not one complaint.  By late that night though... his facade was crumbling.  More pain meds and soaking and elevating foot.  Sunday morning, there was no more shrugging off the limp.  He could not put any pressure on his foot.  I used my mean mommy voice, which still can strike fear in the heart of my 15 year old son, and took a much closer look.  It was horrid!  His little toe was BLACK!  He said, "it is excruciating!"  I rushed him to the ER.

This is where I wanted to pinch my oldest son... hard.  Cause when I helped him walk into the ER, him grimacing in pain the whole way, the nurse asked him to rate his pain on a scale of 0-10.  Zero being no pain and Ten being unbearable pain.  He said 4!  4?!  FOUR?!  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!  The boy was literally sweating from the pain and he said a 4!

Before I could ring his neck for that answer, they had us back in an examination room.  The doctor came in and took one look at his toe and was taken aback.  She was convinced it was broken badly or at the very least had some object stuck in it.  Xray.  No break, no foreign objects.  She needed to open the toe, the color and heat of the toe had the doctor very concerned.  She couldn't hide her enthusiasm for this little mystery though... I'm sure Christian's case was making her Sunday at least an interesting one.  They had to give him 3 shots right into the toe.  I thought Christian was going to start throwing fists.  He did not move, but the sweat poured.  The shots did no good in the end, she couldn't get him numb and said she was going to have to open the toe anyway.  The next 30 minutes were gruesome.  I will spare you the details and how many gauze pads were used.  The doctor determined that Christian must have indeed gotten an injury some time the first week at camp... either a puncture or blister.  At some point thereafter the wound got infected... probably by the river water during canoeing.  His body healed over the wound but not before infection had set in.  The dreaded scenario of the body healing too quickly from the outside in.  So the infection had gotten quite critical.  The swelling cutting off circulation to the toe and busting blood vessels... it was a mess.  So Christian now has a toe with a very large hole in it, that hole is uncomfortably packed with medicated dressing.  He must stay off his foot, and keep it sterile.  In two days we hope to be able to have the packing removed and start the process of a slow healing.  Scary news though is that infections of this severity rarely heal the first go around.  We have many symptoms we will be watching for in the next few day.  Praying for no more complications.  Whew! 

 In usual Christian fashion... he is still in high spirits, even after 4 hours in the ER.  We made toe jokes all the way home.  Pain meds help with the jovial mood, of course.  Christian said he had only one regret... that we didn't get a good photo of the black toe, for his posterity. 

Last Sunday I was up in the weeeee hours with Ty as he suffered the severe consequences of dehydration.  This Sunday found me in the ER for 4 hours with Christian.  I, WE, need a nice, quiet, simple, and uneventful Sabbath Sunday this next go around.  I shall pray for that starting NOW!