The weekend from hell

"Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand."

-Proverbs, 19:21

In other words: man makes plans, God laughs. I had this year all planned out and I was looking forward to it: the stories I would write and publish, the debt I would clear away, the places we would go. I had a list of goals four pages long, most of which fell under the broad umbrella of 'Action, not excuses.'


All that went out the window Saturday morning with the relatively innocent announcement that we should take Henry to the emergency room. He had been sick for more than a week, mild-grade flulike symptoms: a low fever, minor aches, fatigue. He slept more in that week than the previous four, I think.


Late in the week he had been complaining of some pain, and that was what finally did it. The area, normal the day before, had swelled to two or three times its regular size. One look at that and we were out the door in minutes, our destination: the Oakwood Urgent Care Center at Warren and Canton Center roads.


Dr. David Weaver is a solid ER doc; I know him through my work with the healthcare system. His diagnosis was almost immediate: Take him to Children's Hospital in Detroit or Mott's in Ann Arbor. You could drive him yourself, he said, but I'd advise an ambulance. By the time the ambulance arrived, Henry's fever had spiked another four degrees and Dr. Weaver told them to make haste.


They put Henry in the back and I climbed into the cab, numb. The ride to the emergency room in Ann Arbor could have taken five minutes or it could have taken an hour. Time had lost its meaning. I can only recall two coherent thoughts and they are both silly, in retrospect: it was not as much fun as it looked like at TV and the driver, no matter how insistent you are, won't follow your 'short cuts.'


Mott Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor is pretty amazing. I quickly lost count of how many doctors, residents and nurses that greeted us. We even tried to keep a list and still lost track. They told us, several times, that it was good that we brought him in when we did. The infection was serious; he needed surgery. It was serious enough that they used phrases like 'we need to do this to keep him viable.'  He was in surgery in about two hours.


Without getting into too many details, he developed an infection that was so severe it killed a lot of soft, internal tissue. They had to cut that out and clean up the rest. They pumped him full of antibiotics, gave him a morphine button for pain, and we spent all of Sunday recuperating, resting. There was another surgery today, along with an MRI. The doctors wanted to see how things looked and make sure all of the infected tissue was gone. There will be another surgery tomorrow, perhaps more later in the week.


He is in good spirits, comparatively. He is scared, but still trying to tell jokes. (He calls his room Motel Sick and, when one of his monitors wouldn't stop beeping, he called the nurse down saying: "This thing is beeping like it's free Slurpee day at 7-11."). The primary infection has been handled, so the doctors think, but the recovery will take some time. We may be here for a couple of weeks as they make sure they chase the last vestiges of it from his system and he heals properly.


Where did the infection come from? I don't know. How long was it there? No clue. Why did this happen? I've been wondering that, too. I'm a religious person--although I don't always talk like it when I'm driving or trying to fix something--and I haven't really had time yet to look for the divine purpose in all of this. Perhaps my goals for the year were all messed up. Maybe I should have thought merely about focusing on my family.


We'll find out, together. Right now I am just relieved, happy that the light of my life is still shining. I know we have challenges ahead and I thank you all for the grace and support you've showed through this horrible weekend. (You should know that, when I didn't trust my own words, I sat next to Henry and read him yours.). I have a new list now, with Henry's name at the top.


Thank you for your continued prayers.