The Infection

William had the weirdest infection in his leg. The week before we were to leave on our vacation, he started complaining of his knee hurting. He said he thought he must have hit it on something, because of the way it felt. But the strange thing was, he could not remember what he hit it on. He was sort of gimping around, but I could not see anything wrong with his leg. He put some ice on it to help it feel better, but he was still in pain. He carried on with life, just at a slower pace than normal.

Then on Thursday, after school, he came home in a lot of pain. I took a look at his knee and it was inflamed and swollen. I rushed him to the closest Urgent Care, where they determined that he should be rushed off to the ER.

We ended up in the same Emergency room that Charles died in. It always makes me feel weird going back there... memories, very unpleasant memories, flood back into my head.

We spent the night there as the doctors ran a variety of tests, and filled him full of Antibiotics through an IV. William was being a really good sport about the whole thing. He was super chatty with the doctors, and he asked a ton of questions. It was pretty entertaining, actually.

At one point he said, "Well, the worse thing that could happen is I will die, and then I will see daddy."  Yeah, our family views death a little differently. We talk about it all the time openly, and the kids can even be silly about it. I must admit, having Charles on the other side is quite a comforting thought, for the children, and for me.

It was determined that the infection came from a scrape William got when falling off of his scooter. It was normal road rash -- which we have seen a million times -- but for some reason, this time, infection crept in.

It was so weird. I had never seen anything like it.

We spent the whole evening at the ER, and we had to return again the next day to see how things were going. We were there for another 3 hours. We were supposed to be packing for our trip, and leaving on Monday... the trip hung in the balance as we tried to figure out if we could still go.

Also, while sitting in the ER, I got a text from my Realtor that our house had closed, and the process was complete. It was almost funny, I wanted to jump for joy, but I could not do a yeah dance in the Emergency room. People would think I was crazy! I did jump for joy in my heart, but I had to laugh at receiving the awesome news while waiting in the ER.

I mean, really?

That is just how my life goes nowadays. I have learned to take the good with the bad; joy dwells somewhere in between.

The timing of everything was so crazy. We so badly wanted to go on our family trip, but it was a possible no-go with the unexpected infection. The doctors kept pumping William full of antibiotics, and watching his leg... it had to be better by Monday morning so we could travel.

We had our friend, Tyson, come and give William a Priesthood blessing. We all prayed our little guts out for his healing. His leg started improving slowly over the next few days, and by Monday morning it had gone down enough that I felt comfortable taking him on the trip. It was not gone, but much improved, and that is what the doctors needed to know. He had to finish with his medicine over the course of the trip.

He had a hard time traveling in the car, because he had to keep his leg straight. And while we were at Disneyland, he was still pretty gimpy as he walked around the first day, but by the third day he was running around like a champ. He handled the whole thing beautifully. He was a real trooper.

It is so hard to see children in pain, but it is also amazing to see how strong kids can be. William was a Rockstar. He was super tough for the whole thing. He has had a rough go of it this year, with many various trips to the doctor.

His leg healed, and is all better now, thank goodness.

It was so sad that he had to go through such a painful process. But it was such a blessing that he was able to heal in time for us to take our much needed family trip.

Tender Miracles.