Monday, July 21, 2008

Manly Camping (warning- this post contains gross photos)

Now that all our imported teens have left the nest, it's time to start raising our own. That's right, my oldest son is now thirteen! To celebrate, he got a tent, a hatchet, and a bunch of other camping gear. And a camping trip with dad.
They took off to some beautiful but rugged land about an hour away known for it's massive waterfalls. And steep slidey trails, and cliffs, and rattlesnakes. They had a ball hiking, swimming and fishing. To get down to the bottom of the falls, they took a trail about 18 inches wide with loose rocks that tilted down off a cliff. See those little ledges? That's the trail. So yeah, they were on this trail with a cliff on one side, and certain death on the other. The memory of it still makes my husband shudder. As he tells me about it, I fluff up like an angry hen. "Do you remember how hard I worked to GET him here?! It's a good thing we PRAYED for your SAFETY while you were gone!!" Well, he's learned his lesson, I can be sure of that. When he got home, he had what looked like a scrape the size of a nickel on his shin. It was curiously black. And his leg itched. By the next day he was itching like mad and blisters were popping up and oozing all over. Yep, it was poison oak. He was a regular ooze factory. Then it got worse. He worked all week on these legs, then on Friday finally gave in and went to urgent care. He got a steroid shot in the rear, antibiotics and some more steroids. They'd never seen anything like his nasty, oozing festering legs. It was like Christmas in July, nurses were knocking on the door for a peek and asking if they could help wrap him up (it helps that he's cute). They kicked themselves for not taking pictures before they got him all bandaged up. He was that much of a curiosity there. He's very slowly recovering now. I think he's learned his lesson.

13 comments:

Jana said...

Yes those are some gross photos. Very gross. And I was sure it was going to be a brown recluse spider bite gone bad.

Hospital people sure do like other people's suffering - it scares me that its how they get their kicks!

Home of the Muddy Kids said...

That does sound very manly and life-threatening. I suppose it wouldn't have been as manly if it hadn't been so life-threatening. So, was it a nurse who got to give him a shot in the patooty, or did a doctor get the honors? (o:

fivekidsandsomechocolate said...

I wasn't going to look...but I did. Ouch!

Jeta said...

Oh my heck! Yikes, I'll bet that hurt! Sounds like they had a great scary time. (smile) Everything a growing boy needs. (smile)

I'm so glad that everything turned out okay!

Kimberly said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Kimberly said...

Oh... my...

I was expecting to see them eating bugs or peeing off of the top of a mountain. I certainly wasn't expecting that. That took my breath away.

OUCH.

Is he healing well?

GROSS... OUCH...

You must have a stomach of steel living in the land of boys.

FleetingMoments said...

that is very painful! but that aside, you do live around beautiful places!

Jodi said...

That stuff is nasty! We live almost on a mountain and have it everywhere. I have some stories with that I could tell...

It's wicked stuff!

Jenn said...

Oh, look at what a cute little teenager he is! It makes me want to pinch his cheeks! Ohhhhhhh. He is actually looking a lot like you did when you were younger. Not in the girly way but by way of some features and facial expressions.

Anonymous said...

And think that John was avoiding looking at my eye because it had become so gross (some debris scratched my eye inside and my eyeball became all red and scary last week), and here comes our home teacher and shows us the poison oak blisters :)

And then John told Lewis about his crazy night fishing on the river and Lewis told him about the waterfall.

And I am sitting there wondering why guys do these crazy things :)

I guess the fun is all in surviving to tell the tale.

Lindsay said...

OUCH! I hope he get feeling better soon. Good luck at your girls camp.

Anonymous said...

Hot legs!

Anonymous said...

is that so Jenn