Family Home Evening

I’ve always been a little over-enthusiastic about family home evening. I put way too much into this weekly spectacular – and am delighted when the participation and ultimately the rewards merit the effort and exertion.

We have gotten into a tradition of using Sunday’s for FHE (mostly due to Greg having had Monday night classes). So yesterday, I was anticipating a very memorable FHE and some relaxing down time as a family. It has been weeks since we’ve had an uneventful Sunday, and Greg and I both felt the need as well as extreme gratitude for the blessed Sabbath day that was to take place. Not so.

It started Saturday night as we were sleeping over at Grandma and Papa’s and there was a scream in the middle of the night which resulted in Tyler coming to sleep with us and whimpering away the rest of the night (we think he fell out of bed). Sunday morning he was complaining of how much his feet hurt and insisting to be carried everywhere. We didn’t think anything of it – except of trying to make him be quiet. You see Tyler has a misalignment in his feet along with weak muscle structure in his legs and has recently acquired braces to help with these problems – but is still in the stage where the braces are painful and hard to get used to and he’ll try anything to get out of wearing them. We were leaving early to get to church and decided to stifle him by complying and leaving him barefoot until we absolutely had to put on his braces and shoes. Speaking of shoes, Greg had forgotten his dress shoes and so he dropped Julia, Ethan and I off at church to quickly run home to get his shoes and then return. Tyler went because he had had a number two potty accident and desperately needed a shower and new pants. (Too much info, I know!) When they never came back to church I started to get worried.

Apparently at home Tyler was screaming in pain and refusing to walk – crawling all over and favouring his right foot. Greg decided to examine it since, in his words, “this is crazy!” His right ankle was swollen up like a balloon.

Well, to make a very long story and extremely long day just a little bit reader-friendly, Greg picked the rest of us up at church, we ate and then started researching ankle sprains and fractures. Then the phone calls: we called our doctor, attempted to contact our insurance for pre-authorization (of course they were closed on Sunday) and then made a bazillion calls trying to find someone to watch our other two rambunctious children while we started our medically-recommended extended vacation to the emergency room. No such luck, so we made the trek all together.

We don’t have coverage in Canada, so we had to drive to a Children’s Hospital in Buffalo, New York. This was the first ER trip that included bringing our passports and birth certificates! We had no trouble at the border and made it to the shady area where, when we had to get a prescription at the pharmacy not only did we all go in because I was scared for us to stay in our car, but I encouraged my children to look at the candy and magazines in the check-out instead of the prostitutes and druggies in the lines surrounding us! Anyways, at the hospital we waited and waited – you all know the ER routine. I’m actually surprised we didn’t get any other injuries while Ethan jumped from the bed, stood up in the stroller that flipped over and Julia twirled her way dizzily around all the equipment that was shoved in that tiny room. Ultimately Tyler had x-rays and it was determined he has a grade 3 sprain with a potential fracture. Also he had contracted an infection from some bug bites on his legs that was spreading – that merited a $50 prescription! So we’re hoping our insurance will take care of the hospital bill at least. We have to return to an orthopedic clinic within 7 days for more x-rays to determine if it is a fracture… but for now he needs Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation and lots of Motrin. With his other ankle issues, he mostly likely won’t be walking for 2-4 weeks! We got home just before 10pm yesterday and skipped the whole bedtime routine, simply transferring the sleepy kids from car to bed. But I must say, for being unplanned it certainly was a Family Home Evening Adventure. Next week I’m hoping we can simply act out a little scripture story!