Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Mark Mayhem

There's a saying in our house, "If it's going to happen to anyone, it'll happen to Mark," meaning that, well, the strangest things happen to that boy. He gets injured in odd ways, but also finds unexpected good luck.

He seems to get chosen for things or have the luck to win things (half-time show at the only college basketball game he's ever attended, guitar store commercial, 50/50 drawings, $100 from Cap'n Crunch cereal, etc).

But with the odd good things come the strange bad things. At 15 he's already broken a leg and an arm (though he's not at all a daredevil child), been hospitalized with pneumonia, been rushed to the ER for a severe allergic reaction from trying on school clothes, and many other smaller bumps, bruises, and bangs.

Saturday night was just another on the list. Mark has had problems with his leg muscles cramping since he was an infant. He's slept with a hot water bottle to relieve the pains for the last ten years or so. On Saturday night, I'd filled the bottle (our water is very hot due to the fact that we use an outdoor wood boiler for heat and hot water), given it to him, and went to bed. It wasn't long after that he knocked on our door, "The hot water bottle exploded and my feet are burned."

*sigh*

He had his socks on, so the right foot, the one whose sock he got off first, wasn't in bad shape - just a little red. The left foot - the one the sock remained on longer - suffered second degree burns over probably about 20% of it. He was swollen and blistered and red. We discussed going to the ER, but in the end, we didn't. I talked to the ER nurse and realized they'd do for him what we would do at home - and Mark was in such pain whenever he took his foot out of cool water, that a trip to town would have been horrid.

We all stayed up until around 2 am, and then Mark fell asleep on the sofa, his foot dangling off into a pot of water.

I kept him home from school yesterday, but sent him today, hobbling out the door. I might have let him stay home another day, except he'd missed school on Friday as well. That was for sharp pains in his side, that were, thankfully, not caused by his appendix.

I love the kid dearly, but sometimes it's tiring to be his parent!!

2 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear this, Amy. Maybe Mark's middle name should be Murphy in honor of the law that seems to have his number! I sure hope he heals quickly.

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  2. Yep, I think we should have used "Murphy" instead of "Patrick." LOL

    He's feeling better every day.

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