His Right Foot.

Saturday morning was cloudy and gray, and I woke feeling like death warmed over, barely. Apparently it wasn't enough that I spent my entire birthday on the couch or throwing up, because my body was wracked with coughs and my left eye was running so much Luca kept asking why I was crying. I soldiered up for a little adventure to the Superstition Mountain range, though, and I was SO glad I did. We had a trail almost entirely to ourselves, and not only enjoyed a cool and cloudy day, but also got to watch our kids stretch their wings in nature. I adore watching these two running together, throwing rocks and holding hands. I love her 20 Questions about everything, complete with her prompts in the car that sound something like, "Mommy. Let's talk about mountains." She stops there and just lets me talk, and when she feels mountains are an exhausted topic, she suggests another: "Ok Mommy. Now let's talk about bubble gum."

This is where I am honest: I did NOT want to go out for this little nature excursion. I wanted to crawl into a pile of warm blankets with a cup of tea and read a book and nap. But after? After I was so glad I'd gone.

About halfway through the morning, Rohan was trying to take off his shoe, telling us he had an ouchy. I felt around and found a cactus needle in the cuff of his pants, and figured that was the problem. It hadn't punctured his leg, but the scratch of the tip could have been enough to cause him pain.

On Sunday, Darrick took the kids to visit his side of the family, and I stayed home and napped, read, watched TV, and did laundry. Naptime wasn't so great for Rohan, and he woke telling me again that he had ouchies on his foot. An inspection led to the discovery that he had a small crack at the base of his big toe. We weren't too concerned, honestly, because my husband's family has a long history of people with what we call 'paw feet', meaning their skin is thick and when it gets too dry it cracks. We assumed this was a similar crack, so we gave him a long, hot bath (just in case something was in the foot, figuring the warm water would make it easier to draw it out of there), and my hubby did some exploring. Finding nothing, we slathered him with Neosporin and put a sock on him.

Bedtime came, and it was restless. He was up a lot, crying in pain. Stupidly, I assumed he was coming down with my cold since he was also sniffling, so we suffered through a night of bad sleep, bringing him into our room to help soothe him. In the morning, I looked at the toe again, and was shocked. His foot was swollen and the area was now a circle, red and puffy. I called the Pediatrician and couldn't get in until 2:45, so I gave the poor boy some Tylenol which helped him nap a bit on the couch while we got ready to go out for a day of fun.

The whole day, I knew it wasn't ok. He wasn't himself, sitting quietly in the wagon as we pulled it around the Rennaisance Festival, barely eating, and begging to be held by me. We left the Festival and headed straight to his appointment, with him sleeping and then waking to cry and beg for me. By the time we got to the doctor, the injured area was dark from blood pooled under the surface, there was a hot red line starting to creep up his foot, and he had a fever of 101 degrees. Alarmed, our pediatrician called another doctor in her practice in to examine him. We ran through possibilities including a splinter, a thorn, a crack in the foot that got infected, a spider bite, another bug bite, a sore combined with an allergic reaction to Neosporin...the list went on and on. Finding no real answer, his doctor referred us to a podiatrist in the same building who would see Rohan immediately. There was some talk about lancing, some talk about drains, and even some scary talk about possible hospitalization if the infection was too deep.

I was worried and sick to my stomach. My husband was convinced we should have just lanced it at home 'to see what would come out of there'. Our pediatrician was not touching it with a ten foot pole for fear the infection was too deep for her to simply lance it herself.

Three and a half hours and three doctors later? Our best guess is that it was a blister that got infected, and the infection was trapped under a layer of 'healing' skin. The podiatrist was amazing and calm (and a dad to 3 kids himself), Rohan was a trooper, and we escaped with just a foot wrap, orders to soak it in epsom salts, and a prescription for antibiotics.


(I am having issues uploading pictures to Blogger, so more to come soon!)