Marching

When William was in the hospital with Stephens-Johnson, my worst difficulty was that the disease was self-limiting. This is a term which means there is nothing doctors can do. There is no fix. Keith thought this was a good thing. The disease will take care of itself. For me this was an earth shattering horrible thing. There was nothing I could do. Nothing the doctors could do. No medicine. No treatment. If the disease decided to blind my child, he would be blind. If necrosis set in, then he would die. I had to sit in a chair day after day and watch my child get closer to death and there was nothing I could do.

Every day I would go to the hospital in the morning refreshed and hopeful (poor Keith slept up there and was never refreshed, although he was hopeful). Today William would turn around (the other thing about it is that no one can predict the cycle). Today he will be better. Every day he was worse. Every day he lost another function. About day 8 William got a mysterious rash and the SJS turned internal. How was I to monitor the progression of the disease when I can't see where it is or what it is doing? No one can see if the skin is going through necrosis. They don't know what is happening. What does the strange rash mean? It's not text book, and no one knows.

I went home that night without hope. I went home knowing my child would die. I prayed. I cried and prayed through my tears. I told Heavenly Father all about my worries and begged and pleaded for comfort and assurance. Let me say that my prayers have been answered tangibly and audibly before. My patriarchal blessing says 4 times I have the gift of revelation. I had every expectation my prayers would be answered. But I received no comfort. I received no assurances. The pit in my stomach and ache in my heart were still with me at the conclusion of my prayer.

I have known death. It is not a mystery and the only thing you learn by knowing death is that it's not special. It's not reserved for other people. It can and will be for you. I looked up finally and saw Keith's scriptures on the dresser. The thought popped into my mind, "If you want to talk to Heavenly Father, pray. If you want to hear his words, read the scriptures." I got up and got the scriptures. I took a breath and tried the magic scripture trick where you let the scriptures fall open. They fell open to Alma 56. It starts with a description of a war. I was totally discouraged. This was not an answer. But I read on. The 2,000 warriors broke from their normal lives when they saw a need and took up arms to fight. They marched. I read two columns and kept seeing the word "march". They were tired and they marched. They were hopeless and they marched. They were unprepared for the challenge and still they marched. They were hungry and provisions were supplied so they could continue their march. I started to get the message. They fought a hard battle that they were not trained for. And in the end,

"But behold, to my great joy, there had not one soul of them fallen to the earth; yea, and they had fought as if with the strength of God; yea, never were men known to have fought with such miraculous strength..." Alma 56:56
I was marching. I was unprepared for this and I was so tired. Provisions were sent to me frequently. People, stuff, ideas. I had to keep marching until it was over, and I wasn't in charge of when that would be. I thought I could trick or coax William to get better. Just eat. Just sleep. Just call another doctor. I couldn't. I just had to keep marching.
My prayer was answered. I got the message. I went to the hospital the next day, pulled up a chair, exhaled and waited. William got better eventually and not one soul was lost.