Lindy Davidson

After six weeks and one day, the cast is off!!!  And yes, there was MUCH rejoicing, to say nothing of the bathing and scrubbing.  Will sang “I like to move it move it” with me in the doctor’s office just after getting the cast off, which was rather unnerving for him.  He can change gears so quickly though, I’m always amazed at how quickly the smile comes out after a round of tears.  It’s like the sun shining in the middle of a hurricane.  So we are back in action and back to school on Monday.  It has been a difficult six weeks for the whole family.  We’ve had a lot of illnesses and missed many hours of sleep (not due to the cast but due to the 2 year-old).  But after only one trip to the E.R., many doses of antibiotics, and a few visits to the brink of sanity, we have put the month of March behind us and are ready for April.  Thanks for your prayers and concern for our family.  We have survived!!!

We were able to bring Will home from the hospital on Friday afternoon.  Praise God!!!  I’m just now free to update you though because Levi came down with a stomach bug about 2 hours after we got home.  So he has been glued to my side for most of the weekend.  Will is doing great though!  He is happy and doesn’t seem to mind the giant blue exoskeleton he is sporting.  Imagine this, on Tuesday morning, he went through a 5 hour surgery which involved breaking his femur, a bone graph, a plate and pins.  Last night he had half of a dose of tylenol with codeine and today he has had one dose of regular tylenol.  He’s happily playing the piano as though nothing ever happened!?!?  Yeah, I’d still be begging someone to just knock me out, but not Will.  He’s the toughest kid I’ve ever met.  Thanks for praying and keep us on your list because we still have six weeks of the body cast to endure.  Perhaps the honeymoon will end when Grammy goes home, Aaron goes off to school and Will has to stay home all day.  And even if HE is ok, please pray for ME!!!

If you know us well, you might quickly pick up on the double entendre.  UK beat TN this week, and now Will is sporting the color of pride in his smashing new body cast.  His surgery went well this morning and he is sleeping it off right now.  So the countdown begins as we pass the next six weeks with Will’s hard shell.  We are grateful for the success of the surgery and hopeful that Will will tolerate this body cast as well as he did the last.  (Hopefully better since he won’t have to endure a Florida summer in it!)  Thanks for your prayers and notes of concern.  We appreciate them so very much.

That’s right, another round of surgery/6 weeks in a body-cast for Will.  It’s been almost 2 years since his left hip was “done” and now it’s time to work on the right side.  The right side behaved for a while, but we discovered 2 weeks ago that it was completely out of socket, so Will is booked for surgery Feb. 16 at Arnold Palmer Hospital in Orlando.  He will be in for about 4 days or so and then in the body-cast for 6 weeks.  I don’t suppose I need to dwell on the draw-backs of spending six weeks in a body-cast, so let’s consider the positives.  There are a few up-sides to the body-cast.  First, you don’t have to take time out of your schedule for bathing.  Also, you don’t have to worry about people demanding that you do things for them.  It’s like wearing a giant plaster excuse for being lazy!  There are LOTS of sympathetic people who dote on cute little boys in body-casts also, so let’s not forget that perk.  You get to watch a lot of TV when you are in a body-cast, and best of all, you CAN’T get sent to time-out!  So this is my positive spin on body-cast wearing.  Please remember Will (and the rest of us) in prayer on 2/16 and the six weeks following.  The surgery is long and involved, kind of prophetic to the recovery period.

I just saw a link to my blog in the RTS Alumni snippets and thought, hmmm, maybe I should update.  Will is doing fairly well in his body cast.  Of the 5 members of the family, I think he is the most likely to be cheerful in such a confining state.  He’s got his Grandma, Grandpa and oldest cousin here this week to keep him company, but after that, it’s just his boring parents and pesky younger brothers.  His cast is gathering signatures and is bright green.  We are looking forward to the 6 week mark when he should be able to shed that green shell and hopefully be on the right path to learning to walk.  Dressing him has been a challenge, so I resorted to making him some shorts.  I managed to turn out two pairs in one day.  Look out fashion world.  Theologian, food critic, seamstress…who knows what’s next?

Just in case anyone who reads this has not heard, Will is in the hospital.  For the up to date info, go to www.carepages.com and find his page titled, WillDavidson (no spaces).  The basics: he’s been sick since last Sunday, in the hospital since Wednesday, in Arnold Palmer Hospital in Orlando since Friday night (transferred from Lakeland) and we still don’t really know what is wrong.  He has a sodium problem, high blood pressure and his back is arched back (like a neurological response to something).  Needless to say, we are concerned.  We don’t have any real answers, just lots of questions.  Please pray for him.