We had the most hideous week in April...
Date night @ movies: our awesome babysitter Alex texts "Hayden won't stop crying. Acts like legs hurt-what do you want me to do?"
Like the concerned mother of the year that I am I tell her to give him some Tylenol, and a warm rice bag & he will be fine. We finish the movie & didn't come home until midnight.
Hayden cried every half hour from Saturday night until Wednesday afternoon.
Actually "cried" doesn't even come close to describe what he did...he clutched his legs writhing and screaming.
Rob gave him a priesthood blessing Sunday night. I have to be honest, I was close to coming unhinged after he was done. He didn't bless him that he would be healed, he blessed him with comfort and the ability to tell the doctors where it hurt so they could help him. Not quite what I was hoping for, but I am not in charge of everything (a hard lesson for me to learn). Thankfully the Lord loves and blesses us with those things we need.
After his blessing, Hayden told us it wasn't his legs, it was his feet. The poor baby couldn't even stand up by Monday morning. This is how warped I am, I was seriously hoping it was one foot, not both. Then at least it was probably something as simple as a broken foot, but if it was both feet that meant something more complicated. I found myself praying he broke his foot...it was both feet.
You know something really bad is going down when the Dr. gets another Dr. and then they send you to the closest hospital for a bunch of blood tests. She was worried that he might have Rheumatoid arthritis, great that runs in my family but I thought 3 was too young to have something that awful. I had a niggling feeling that wasn't all they were testing for & when I asked the nurse she was trying to be very vague and unalarming.
Being the blunt woman I am, I asked point blank "are they checking for leukemia?" All the poor woman could do was nod, the pity written clearly on her face. (I knew to ask because we had gone the rounds with Ben when he was 5 & they were worried about that with him...that nurse had actually given us the wrong results & for 45 minutes we thought Ben actually had leukemia. But that is a whole different tale)
On that happy note, we waited for a very LONG time for the results (24 hours is eternity when you are waiting to see if your child has something wrong with them). By Tuesday evening I hadn't heard back from the Dr. and there was nothing that was stopping the pain of my poor baby. So like a lunatic, I loaded him in the car & headed for my Bishop's house (he is a Dr. at Primary Children's). Something had to change, too bad for me he wasn't home (although he did call & check in with us several times). It was while I was leaving the Bishops house, full of despair & sobbing that Hayden's fabulous Dr. called.
It was nothing horrid!
It was a reactive arthritis that had settled in his feet (he had been sick the week before & they believe that his body reacted to the virus inflaming the joints in his feet). They put him on a heavy duty anti-inflammatory & by Thursday morning he was better.
Thanks for all the prayers, help with my other kids, and other kindnesses that people showed us during this ordeal. I am so blessed to have such wonderful people in my life, and I am so grateful that Hayden is back to his spunky, bouncy self!
**Did you notice Hayden & Ben are both blondes now? I couldn't stand their hair so dark anymore (they were both blondies when they were little & I missed it). Now Hayden gets called things like Slim Shady and Billy Idol, but let's face it he is DARLING as a toe-head!!
