The chaos of yesterday was so surreal. I thought I had entered the twilight zone.
My 14 yr old son mostly likes hardcore first-person shooting games. Right now his favorite is Rainbow Six Siege. His first obsession over a game though was with Minecraft. He used to play for hours building the most amazing things. He is an absolute expert with redstone, a resource that makes a lot of machinery and such work in the game.
So yesterday evening he came into the living room and was standing next to the couch while I was sitting on it and was trying to talk me into playing Minecraft with him on a public server. For some reason, this has been a goal of his for a while even though I truly suck at the game lol. So I tell him, yes I will finally play the game. He turned around to go get his laptop and looked down before turning back to me and asking (in a super calm voice) for a towel. I told him there was no drink or anything over there and asked why he needed one.
Again in a super chill voice, he said it was for the blood.
The what?!
I look over the couch arm and there is a growing puddle of blood and it is quite obviously seeping out of his sock. He said, "I'm okay, it's just my toe. It doesn't hurt."
I rush him to the bathroom and had to wrangle his sock off of him, he didn't want to show me. His big toe looked like it had exploded. There was a bubble of nail and toe clinging to the side and it was literally just a massive open wound gushing blood.
I rushed him out to the ER after carefully wrapping his whole foot in a towel. We get there and I ran for a wheelchair. The admitting nurse acted like I was overreacting until she opened the towel enough to see it. All at once, we were rushed back. An IV was put in, they took blood, took a UA, ran him over to get an Xray. I'm crying the whole time. They continuously ask if we have running water (we do) and how I could possibly not have known (I swear I didn't). My son is confused by all of our behavior. He says, "It really doesn't hurt," with a laugh every time we ask.
We were all thinking about diabetes. They asked a few times. But he could feel when they touched it, he just swore it wasn't in any pain.
Pictures were taken and sent to the on-staff foot doctor who told us to come up to her clinic on the third floor. We get there and spent about four hours being bullied while she hacked away at his foot. She removed all of the nail on his right big toe and then glanced at his left foot. She asked if it had any issues and he said no. She asked to check and we ended up having to physically hold him while we removed the shoe and sock. Turns out there was another ingrown toenail but fortunately it was not nearly as bad. She took half of that nail as well.
It was only after that, that she started to be a little kinder to me. She had gotten a glimpse of what I would have faced trying to do this at home. See months ago I seen a bit of an ingrown toenail on his right foot. He refused to let me touch it, he hasn't let me see it since. He is always in socks 100% of the day. Only removing them to shower and immediately put on another pair.
Strong antibiotics are prescribed and a game plan set for the next few days as well as an appointment for next week.
We get home and myself, my mother (a type 2 diabetic), my sister (volunteer fireman), and her husband (an EMT) all try to explain to my son that this is completely not okay. We talk about bone infections, blood infections, skin cancer, etc. All the while my son acts like he still doesn't get it. In his head, it didn't hurt so it wasn't a big deal.
After they leave I make him stay in bed to keep pressure off his toe for the moment and make him clip his other nails while I'm there.
That night I worked a spell for healing (
Easy Candle Healing Spell)
I didn't fall asleep until about 5am and then woke up at about 9am in a panic from a reoccurring bad dream I've had for years. So far I have spent the day on and off crying while I clean up the blood trail that was all over the house and trying to figure out what in the world to do with my thickheaded son.
He has slowly become more reclusive over the last year and only really talks to myself and a handful of online friends. We had a big issue with bullying in public schools that they refused to take care of so we have been doing online learning. He doesn't do well with expressing emotions or dealing with them. I have tried several times to get him to go to counseling. Not because I think he's crazy, but because I really feel like it would help him to have someone more qualified to talk to. The problem is he doesn't understand the double-edged questions. You have to be blunt and I have yet to find a counselor with the right combo of care and straightforwardness.
If you ask, "So how have you been lately?" He takes it literally in the physical sense thus his answer would be something like, "Good I haven't felt sick in a long time." He needs someone to say, "Have you been feeling angry/sad/alone?" Being direct and insistent is the only way to get him to open up. Otherwise, you will only get some long small talk about all his favorite video games just like all the other therapists. I guess I need to try again. I can't imagine the level of disregard for himself that it took for his feet to reach that level of neglect and pain. Even though he claims it doesn't hurt.
I'll add the spells to my list and make note of the changes I made later. I have to go and try to manhandle him into the shower somehow and ensure that he really scrubs clean. Wouldn't it be great if magick worked like in movies and I could just wiggle my nose and make it happen.