So far, the diagnosis of toxic synovitis has stuck. My son is still limping heavily and is supposed to be on bed rest. He’s also on Alleve, which has the unfortunate stigma of being for (possibly elderly) folks afflicted with arthritis. Fortunately, my son doesn’t know about this stigma—at 10:00 pm, while trying to force-feed him a pill to swallow, he didn’t know much about anything, to tell the truth.
Unfortunately for River, the Great New Job has now been upstaged by the Chaos At Home, but maybe that’s for the best, or something. The changes in routine I was prepared to deal with, nay, braced myself to deal with, whether I liked it or not, were made to appear mild and cheery in comparison to trying to get a couple of kids to school while also allowing an ill child to remain on bed rest. Only he had to come with us, and just deal with it. (I’m a pragmatist.)
Tomorrow, number one son gets to visit an orthopedic doctor for a second opinion. The x-ray came back normal and the first round of blood tests came back normal. The jury is still out on whether Lyme is a factor in what we’re seeing. While it still seems bizarre to me, it’s likely that the current ailment is totally not related to last year’s Lyme, even though it’s the same spot on the same hip that is afflicted.
We devoted one day over the weekend to helping my parents re-build a lakeshore dock of theirs that had mostly rotted away. Well, to be accurate, I watched, while River built alongside my stepfather. My mother and I did our best to keep activity flowing for my children, which mostly entailed hanging out around the castle monstrosity on the hill by the water (which the kids love dearly). The castle has a couple of ladders for getting up and down between stories; all the climbing may have contributed to number one son’s current hip condition, but how can I know.
We drew designs on the insides of the walls in pencil, then went to the hardware store to buy a variety of latex paints, and returned to festoon the walls in color. We painted shelves of multi-colored bottles, a lit fireplace, a large barrel of flour, and two large colorful tapestries (royal portraits of sorts).
Something about this time of year—mid-spring—causes things to get jumbled up and blurry, creating a sensation of everything going by too fast, a vertigo, a crazy, dizzy feeling, like we’re all drunk on pollen. Even when it’s difficult or arduous, we can’t possibly be sad or upset about it, because there’s so much happiness in the very air—except for the allergies, I guess, although I don’t struggle with that. Hopefully that breathed-in happiness will carry us all through the week, and we’ll emit a great big sigh, and number one son will be all better.